Hacker News on Saturday, 3 February 2024

A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into encrypted data (2016)(atlasobscura.com)

502 points by whatever3 2 years ago | 174 comments

Atlas Obscura article from 2016 recounting the history of US government attempts, including by the NSA, to insert backdoors into encryption.

Apple releases Pkl – configuration as code language(pkl-lang.org)

403 points by isodev 2 years ago | 215 comments

Homepage of Pkl, Apple's open-source configuration-as-code language billed as programmable, scalable, and safe, with example code.

How much bigger could Earth be before rockets wouldn't work?(space.stackexchange.com)

393 points by trashtensor 2 years ago | 206 comments

A Space Exploration Stack Exchange question asking how much larger Earth could be before chemical rockets could no longer reach orbit.

Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice(research.mozilla.org)

372 points by ChrisArchitect 2 years ago | 240 comments

Mozilla Research report on how Microsoft uses design tactics and dark patterns in Windows to push Edge and undermine users' browser choice.

How Quora died(slate.com)

286 points by CharlesW 2 years ago | 328 comments

Goodbye non-KISS appliances(willbush.dev)

250 points by willbush 2 years ago | 393 comments

JetBrains' unremovable AI assistant meets irresistible outcry(theregister.com)

232 points by cannibalXxx 2 years ago | 163 comments

Car insurance in America is too cheap(economist.com)

232 points by scythe 2 years ago | 652 comments

A 1.55 R⊕ habitable-zone planet hosted by TOI-715(academic.oup.com)

225 points by taubek 2 years ago | 106 comments

The underground world of hobby tunneling(bloomberg.com)

221 points by robinhouston 2 years ago | 134 comments

Full $71M breakdown for The Village by M. Night Shyamalan (2003) [pdf](wlmager.com)

190 points by cocacola1 2 years ago | 148 comments

DIY MBA: My Reading List (2019)(chrisstoneman.medium.com)

188 points by yamrzou 2 years ago | 89 comments

The engineering behind Figma's vector networks (2019)(alexharri.com)

185 points by alexharri 2 years ago | 25 comments

A lesson in dockerizing shell scripts(bhupesh.me)

185 points by bhupesh 2 years ago | 98 comments

Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry(prospectmagazine.co.uk)

166 points by rwmj 2 years ago | 332 comments

TCC RISC-V Compiler Runs in the Web Browser (Thanks to Zig Compiler)(lupyuen.codeberg.page)

161 points by lupyuen 2 years ago | 37 comments

FOSDEM 2024 Live Streams(fosdem.org)

161 points by rwmj 2 years ago | 17 comments

Folk Computer(folk.computer)

156 points by schmudde 2 years ago | 42 comments

Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code(theregister.com)

144 points by yau8edq12i 2 years ago | 101 comments

Designer News is dead(solomon.io)

143 points by ohjeez 2 years ago | 43 comments

Low-Power Wi-Fi Extends Signals Up to 3 Kilometers(spectrum.ieee.org)

142 points by pseudolus 2 years ago | 63 comments

The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons(andrewchen.com)

134 points by jyunwai 2 years ago | 124 comments

AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California(cbsnews.com)

127 points by kungfudoi 2 years ago | 136 comments

Show HN: Simple demo of a cold boot attack using a Raspberry Pi(github.com)

119 points by anfractuosity 2 years ago | 32 comments

MAME Debugging(mattgreer.dev)

116 points by jandeboevrie 2 years ago | 19 comments

Ofsted inspectors 'make up evidence' about a school's performance when IT fails(theguardian.com)

112 points by YeGoblynQueenne 2 years ago | 68 comments

Compiling Pattern Matching(compiler.club)

110 points by todsacerdoti 2 years ago | 17 comments

Cork is displacing plastics and creating a billion-dollar industry(washingtonpost.com)

109 points by andrewl 2 years ago | 91 comments

Researchers taking on fraudulent science(analystnews.org)

107 points by chaisquared 2 years ago | 67 comments

How to write a novel using the snowflake method (2013)(advancedfictionwriting.com)

100 points by Tomte 2 years ago | 35 comments

VueJS turns 10 years old(twitter.com)

97 points by YourCupOTea 2 years ago | 66 comments

Paris Vote Targets SUV Drivers with Parking Fees Set to Triple(bloomberg.com)

96 points by mfiguiere 2 years ago | 77 comments

Apple Vision Pro and ADHD(dansalva.to)

94 points by dansalvato 2 years ago | 75 comments

Breaking Bitlocker – Bypassing the Windows Disk Encryption [video](youtube.com)

92 points by tkems 2 years ago | 58 comments

The decline of hardware knowledge in the era of cloud native compute(magesguild.io)

90 points by thunderbong 2 years ago | 84 comments

Dance mat-style game helps stop older people falling(newscientist.com)

89 points by zeristor 2 years ago | 37 comments

Over the Edge - Microsoft’s Design Tactics Compromise Free Browser Choice [pdf](research.mozilla.org)

86 points by alexzeitler 2 years ago | 20 comments

Ede – An Fltk based desktop environment (2014)(edeproject.org)

85 points by RalfWausE 2 years ago | 32 comments

History of Vietnamese Typography(vietnamesetypography.com)

85 points by thenewwazoo 2 years ago | 55 comments

Native Exchange Support is coming to Thunderbird(linuxiac.com)

77 points by alexzeitler 2 years ago | 24 comments

Space Station Demo(lexaloffle.com)

76 points by bookstore-romeo 2 years ago | 2 comments

Goal: Embeddable array programming language with a bytecode interpreter in Go(anaseto.codeberg.page)

73 points by tosh 2 years ago | 6 comments

YDB – an open source distributed SQL database(ydb.tech)

73 points by jitl 2 years ago | 12 comments

.NET on Linux: What a Contrast(two-wrongs.com)

68 points by mooreds 2 years ago | 38 comments

Why Postgres RDS didn't work for us(medium.com)

68 points by code_reader 2 years ago | 72 comments

Let futures be futures(without.boats)

65 points by ingve 2 years ago | 39 comments

Thou shalt follow these vintage computing commandments(oldvcr.blogspot.com)

64 points by zdw 2 years ago | 25 comments

The King of Curcumin: a case study in consequences of large-scale research fraud(reeserichardson.blog)

64 points by jeroenhd 2 years ago | 30 comments

60-Bit Computing (2022)(thechipletter.substack.com)

63 points by klelatti 2 years ago | 63 comments

Amelia Didn't Know Radio (1993)(usni.org)

58 points by cenazoic 2 years ago | 31 comments

A minimal, complete, and correct ELF file(scratchpad.avikdas.com)

52 points by febeling 2 years ago | 13 comments

MIT and IBM Find Clever AI Ways Around Brute-Force Math(spectrum.ieee.org)

51 points by Brajeshwar 2 years ago | 6 comments

Apple Vision Pro: What About Comic Books?(digitalcomposting.wordpress.com)

51 points by ingve 2 years ago | 27 comments

It begins: Ethiopia set to become first country to ban internal combustion cars(electrek.co)

51 points by thelastgallon 2 years ago | 30 comments

A new solution for the "reverse sprinkler" problem(arstechnica.com)

46 points by Archelaos 2 years ago | 16 comments

The economics of fertility: a new era (2023) [pdf](faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu)

40 points by mooreds 2 years ago | 39 comments

Back to the Floppy (2019)(markround.com)

40 points by doener 2 years ago | 22 comments

Researchers uncover potential non-opioid treatment for chronic pain in mice(news.utexas.edu)

35 points by ulrischa 2 years ago | 13 comments

Rope making in the Aurignacian of Central Europe more than 35,000 years ago(science.org)

34 points by Archelaos 2 years ago | 6 comments

Thomas Stevens (Cyclist)(en.wikipedia.org)

32 points by downweight 2 years ago | 8 comments