You Asked: Tell us all your secrets. SGT STAR: Good question. I’m not sure how to answer that. Please try rewording your question. I understand simple questions best. You Asked: In that case, tell us everything. SGT STAR: That is a good question, however, I am not positive that I understand what you’re asking. Try rephrasing your question. I understand simple questions best. Sgt. Star is the U.S. Army’s dedicated marketing and recruitment chatbot, and he isn’t going to turn whistleblower any time soon. There’s no use threatening him for answers either—he’s programmed to report that kind of hostility to…
Author: EFFSource
In Armenia, online anonymity could be a luxury of the past if a bill that is currently before the Armenian parliament is passed. The bill would make it illegal for media outlets to publish defamatory content by anonymous or fake sources. Additionally, under this bill, sites that host libelous comments that are posted anonymously or under a pseudonym would be required to remove such content within 12 hours unless an author is identified. Edmon Marukyan, one of the bill’s drafters, explained the goal of the bill saying, “You can remain incognito as much as you like. Write your posts, but…
While most courts in the United States are adversarial—each party presents its side and a jury, or occasionally a judge, makes a decision—in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), only the government presents its case to a judge. While typically two opposing sides work under public review to make sure all the facts are brought to light, in the FISC the system relies on a heightened duty of candor for the government. As is illustrated all too well by recent developments in our First Unitarian v. NSA case, this one-sided court system is fundamentally unfair. In March, after we learned…
Donate a Few Hours to Help Us Create a Free Software Backend for Contacting Congress, Make the World a Better Place for Digital Rights For years, EFF has been helping concerned technology users contact Congress. The EFF community stopped SOPA, we fought back privacy-invasive cybersecurity proposals, we are championing software patent reform, and now we’re demanding real NSA reform—not a fake fix. Here’s How To Jump In and Help Read the instructions for contributing. Check out the GitHub repo. Ask questions on IRC: #opencongress on irc.freenode.net. But we’re at an impasse. Our community has grown significantly in the last few…
Updates to the email privacy law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) are long overdue. It’s common sense that emails and other online private messages (like Twitter direct messages) are protected by the Fourth Amendment. But for a long time, the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued ECPA allowed it to circumvent the Fourth Amendment and access much of your email without a warrant. Thankfully, last year it finally gave up on that stance. But now it appears that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the civil agency in charge of protecting investors and ensuring orderly markets, may be doing…
Let’s just imagine we could transport an Internet-connected laptop back to the 1790s, when the United States was in its infancy. The technology would no doubt knock the founders out of their buckle-top boots, but once the original patriots got over the initial shock and novelty (and clearing up Wikipedia controversies, hosting an AMA and boggling over Dogecoin), the sense of marvel would give way to alarm as they realized how electronic communications could be exploited by a tyrant, such as the one from which they just freed themselves. As America’s first unofficial chief technologist, Benjamin Franklin would be the…
After seven years of litigation, the basic contours of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbors should be pretty well established. Unfortunately, a new front may have opened up in a case called Gardner v. CafePress, thanks to a mistaken and dangerous misreading of Section 512. With the invaluable assistance of Venkat Balasubramani, EFF, joined by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, and Public Knowledge, has filed an amicus brief in that case. In our brief, we explain our deep concerns about how that recent ruling could have profound consequences for user-generated content…
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals heard argument today in AF Holdings v. Does 1-1058, one of the few mass copyright cases to reach an appellate court, and the first to specifically raise the fundamental procedural problems that tilt the playing field firmly against the Doe Defendants. The appeal was brought by several internet service providers (Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and affiliates), with amicus support from EFF, the ACLU, the ACLU of the Nation’s Capitol, Public Citizen, and Public Knowledge. On the other side: notorious copyright troll Prenda Law. Copyright trolls like Prenda want to be able to sue thousands of…
New documents released by the FBI show that the Bureau is well on its way toward its goal of a fully operational face recognition database by this summer. EFF received these records in response to our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for information on Next Generation Identification (NGI)—the FBI’s massive biometric database that may hold records on as much as one third of the U.S. population. The facial recognition component of this database poses real threats to privacy for all Americans. What is NGI? NGI builds on the FBI’s legacy fingerprint database—which already contains well over 100 million individual records—and…
Friday, April 4th was 404 Day – a day meant to call attention to Internet censorship in public schools and libraries in the United States. This censorship is the result of a well-meaning but misguided law, the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which ties federal funding for public schools and libraries to requirements to filter child pornography and content that is obscene or “harmful to minors.” Unfortunately, bad and secretive filtering technology and over-aggressive filtering implementations result in the filtering of constitutionally-protected speech, among other problems. The day centered around a digital teach-in for an in-depth discussion of the issues,…
“Australia is ready for, and needs, a fair use exception now.” These were the unambiguous words of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s report investigating how to modernize the country’s copyright laws. Specifically, the Commission called for a fair use doctrine that resembles that of the U.S., with the same four-factor balancing test. So then you might expect that when George Brandis, Australia’s Attorney General, makes his first official trip to the United States—the one he concluded just days ago—he would take the opportunity to meet with American experts on fair use. They could discuss the areas where the law has…
Decision About “Innocence of Muslims” Video Could Be Disastrous for Free SpeechSan Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision to order Google to take down the controversial “Innocence of Muslims” video while a copyright lawsuit—based on a claim that the Copyright Office itself has rejected—is pending. As EFF explains, the decision sets a dangerous precedent that could have disastrous consequences for free speech. “Innocence of Muslims” sparked protests worldwide in the fall of 2012. For a time, its anti-Islamic content was even linked to the violent attack on an American…
Shake Down of BitTorrent Users Abuses Justice SystemWashington, DC – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will ask a federal appeals court at a hearing on Monday, April 14, to prevent a notorious copyright troll from obtaining the identities of more than 1,000 Internet users. Speaking on behalf of EFF, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital, Public Citizen and Public Knowledge, EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry will urge the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse a district court decision that allowed the plaintiff to seek identifying information for thousands of “John…
Important Decision Impacts Constitutional Rights in the Internet AgeSan Francisco – A federal appeals court overturned the conviction of Andrew “weev” Auernheimer, the computer researcher who was charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) after he exposed a massive security flaw in AT&T’s website. Auernheimer was represented on appeal by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Professor Orin Kerr of George Washington University, and attorneys Marcia Hofmann, and Tor Ekeland. In an opinion issued this morning by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Judge Michael Chagares wrote that the government should not have charged Auernheimer…
What is a warrant canary? A warrant canary is a colloquial term for a regularly published statement that a service provider has not received legal process that it would be prohibited from saying it had received. Once a service provider does receive legal process, the speech prohibition goes into place, and the canary statement is removed. Warrant canaries are often provided in conjunction with a transparency report, listing the process the service provider can publicly say it received over the course of a particular time period. The canary is a reference to the canaries used to provide warnings in coalmines,…
Case Argues Cisco Built Surveillance Tools Specifically Designed to Help Chinese Authorities Target Falun Gong EFF filed a request to submit an amicus brief today in the Federal District Court of the Northern District of California, urging the Court to let a case entitled Doe v. Cisco Systems go forward against Cisco for its role in contributing to human rights abuses against the Falun Gong religious minority in China. China’s record of human rights abuses against the Falun Gong is notorious, including detention, torture, forced conversions, and even deaths. These violations have been well-documented by the U.N., the U.S. State…
Yesterday afternoon, Ars Technica published a story reporting two possible logs of Heartbleed attacks occurring in the wild, months before Monday’s public disclosure of the vulnerability. It would be very bad news if these stories were true, indicating that blackhats and/or intelligence agencies may have had a long period when they knew about the attack and could use it at their leisure. In response to the story, EFF called for further evidence of Heartbleed attacks in the wild prior to Monday. The first thing we learned was that the SeaCat report was a possible false positive; the pattern in their…
The Heartbleed SSL vulnerability presents significant concerns for users and major challenges for site operators. This article presents a series of steps server and site owners should carry out as soon as possible to help protect the public. We acknowledge that some steps might not be feasible, important, or even relevant for every site, so the steps are given both in order both of their importance and the order they should be carried out. 1. Update Your Servers If you haven’t yet, update any and all of your systems that use OpenSSL for TLS encrypted communications. This includes most web…
Recent events have shown us more than ever that the technologies we use and create every day have astonishing implications on our basic, most cherished rights. Tens of thousands more people have joined us in the past year alone—together, we’re building a movement. But we need your help. Today, we at EFF are unveiling new tools for student and community activists to engage in campaigns to defend our digital rights. We want you to bring the fight to protect online civil liberties to cities, towns, and campuses across the country. We invite you—whether you’re a newly minted activist or an…
New EFF Project Tackles Electronic Medical Records and Inherent Risks to Your PrivacySan Francisco – The digitization of medical records is being pitched to the public as a way to revolutionize healthcare. But rapid technological innovation and lagging privacy laws are leaving patients – and their most sensitive information – vulnerable to exposure and abuse, especially in this age of “big data.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is launching a new medical privacy project today to identify the emerging issues and to give advocates the information they need to fight for stronger protections for patients. “You assume that the decision…