Best of 2020

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2020. 293 posts.

Security & Privacy
96

Anatomy of a Rental Phishing Scam

I was recently the (unsuccessful) target of a very well-crafted phishing scam. As part of a housing search a few weeks ago, I was trawling craigslist and zillow for rental opportunities in the SF bay area. I reached out to a beautiful looking rental place to inquire about a tour. Despite my experience as a security…

111

Sonos is spying on me (and you)

I recently decided to get a wireless speaker for our Kitchen. Sonos seems like an obvious choice these days. The sound quality and aesthetics were very appealing. So I ordered a Sonos One SL speaker. In terms of sound quality and looks, I was very pleased. I’m not an audiophile but the sound quality seemed…

117

Anatomy of a Scam

There is a lot of material about the not-so-nice VCs who take advantage of young and inexperienced founders. But the reverse also happens, founders that try to get money out of VCs for projects that have zero chance of every coming to fruit. Or worse still, founders that pretend to have something on the go when they…