Society

For decades, military practitioners and academics have come up with theories, evidence, and examples that indicate that offensive cyber operations might revolutionize modern warfare. Others have made an equally impressive case that refutes that such operations would even be relevant, making it hard to reach any definite conclusions. This paper introduces a novel analytical framework to assess offensive cyber operations based on the circumstances of their use across the different phases of war, from shaping operations prior to the conflict to the actual battlefield. This framework substantially simplifies the key questions of practitioners and academics in order to pose the more direct question: Where, when, and how might offensive cyber operations affect warfare outcomes, both today and in the future?

Link: The Changing Role of the U.S. Dollar / Brookings TLDR: Whether it’s sanctions overuse, U.S. political dysfunction or crypto-led fintech innov…

Breaking down Trump's ties to Russia and his effort to extort the Ukrainian government for political gain.

Map found on reddit

at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

Lurking among us are anonymous heroes who quietly amplify social cohesion. Here's what we can learn from them.

Readers discuss a guest essay that argued that we should be.

boo fucking hoo, you sad losers

Here’s a hypothetical situation. You decide to build your own steam generator plant and connect it to the electric grid. No matter where you live, you’d probably have to meet a ton of r…

American history is much more about rapid and cheap transport than about extremes of population density.  Even New York, our densest major city by far, became dense relatively late in American history.  To this day, the United States is not extremely dense, not say by European or East Asian standards. But in American history, themes […]

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

A 17-year-old student has launched a dedicated portal to exposing Germany's 'secret' pirate site blocklist to the public.

An anthropologist explains the roots of our workaholism and offers a vision of a more leisurely future.

In August 2023, we launched 404 Media with a novel idea: pay journalists to do journalism. Here we are, a year later.

The party had lost hope. Now it has it back.

Limited liability has come to cover for not just incompetent but also criminal conduct. But what to do?

In May, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the editor of the New York Times Opinion section. In the brief missive, Rep. Pelosi pointed to four legislative reforms to reinforce American democracy that House Democrats passed in 2022, only to see the bill, the Freedom to Vote:

By Erica C. Barnett A sad spectacle played out at Seattle City Hall today, as council members who support a…

Surveillance Watch is an interactive map revealing the intricate connections between surveillance companies, their funding sources and affiliations.

With remarkable creativity, young Kenyans used technology to organise nationwide protests. The state’s digital response has been equally remarkable, but for all the wrong reasons.

Rounding up migrants. Lists of “friendly” sheriffs. Debating political assassinations. Internal messages reveal AP3's journey from Jan. 6 through the tumultuous lead-up to the 2024 election. One member predicts: “It’ll be decided at the ammo box.”

The DOJ brought the right kind of case against an Aggregator, which stagnates by being too nice; the goal is for companies to act like they actually have enemies.

Some practical ideas for how to manage population shrinkage. But will neoliberalism get in the way?

I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s Systemantics, and it naturally stuck in my brain given I’m pushing 50 and getting predictably ang…

Twelfth in the News Commons series Last week at DWeb Camp, I gave a talk titled The Future, Present, and Past of News—and Why Archives Anchor It All. Here’s a frame from a phone video: DWeb C…

At Foundation for Economic Education (“The Ego vs. the Machine,” February 24), self-described “techno-optimist” Dylan Allman dismisses recent controversies over AI as a simple matter of wounded egos. “They feel, on some instinctual level, that if machines can do what they do — only better, faster, and more efficiently — then what value do they...

Here’s the hard pill to swallow: Your insecurities should not hold back the tide of innovation.

Trumpist county election officials are preparing to throw the process into chaos.