Earlier this month we wrote about potential malicious behavior in Adobe’s e-reader software, “Digital Editions.” There were several independent reports claiming that Adobe’s software was sending back to Adobe–in the clear–a list of books read in the software. There were also independent reports that the program was sending back lists of books on an attached e-reader, even if those books had never been opened in ADE itself – in other words, collecting information not just about the book you are reading now, but your electronic library. On the other hand, not everyone was able to replicate the all of this…
Author: EFFSource
At a technology conference this past Wednesday, Rupert Murdoch, chair of 21st Century Fox, argued that major media companies should develop their own video streaming service that could compete with Netflix and Amazon. His comments likely stemmed from worries that Netflix and Amazon are starting to gain more and more leverage over the traditional content providers. Given that other streaming services are having a tough time competing (Verizon’s foray into video streaming, Redbox Instant, is shutting down), those worries are well-founded. Media companies don’t have a great track record of competing head-to-head against specialized technology firms at the best of times,…
Recently, FBI Director James B. Comey, along with several government officials, have issued many public statements regarding their inability to catch criminals due to Apple and Google offering default encryption to their consumers.We at EFF have been around long enough to see these nearly identical statements being made in the past, and have simultaneously witnessed law enforcement agencies not rendered obsolete. In fact, we’ve seen the exact opposite. The tools available to the law enforcement today are expansive and are much scarier, and require close scrutiny to ensure that civil liberties of millions of people are not jeopardized in the…
EFF has criticized Vietnam’s crackdown on independent media and bloggers for years, including the imprisonment of Le Quoc Quan and attempts to spy on bloggers and journalists using malware. We are heartened to learn of last week’s release of Vietnamese blogger Dieu Cay, but today we join with organizations including Viet Tan, Access, and PEN International to call on the Vietnamese government to immediately release blogger and activist Dang Xuan Dieu, who is serving a 13-year sentence for “attempting to overthrow the government” in response to his advocating for education for children living in poverty, aid to people with disability,…
Wordpress, NameCheap Receive Five Stars in New EFF ScorecardSan Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today released a new report and scorecard that shows what online service providers are doing to protect users from baseless copyright and trademark complaints. “Who Has Your Back: When Copyright and Trademark Bullies Threaten Free Speech” [PDF] examines how online service providers handle copyright and trademark-based takedown requests. The report expands upon EFF’s influential “Who Has Your Back” annual report covering how online service providers protect users’ data from government requests. “When a private citizen or corporation wants to silence speech on a major…
The Patriot Act continues to wreak its havoc on civil liberties. Section 213 was included in the Patriot Act over the protests of privacy advocates and granted law enforcement the power to conduct a search while delaying notice to the suspect of the search. Known as a “sneak and peek” warrant, law enforcement was adamant Section 213 was needed to protect against terrorism. But the latest government report detailing the numbers of “sneak and peek” warrants reveals that out of a total of over 11,000 sneak and peek requests, only 51 were used for terrorism. Yet again, terrorism concerns appear…
This Open Access Week, we are celebrating and advocating for unfettered access to the results of research, a movement that has shown considerable progress over the last few decades. Let’s all take a step back, though. Much of the open access movement is forward thinking, offering solutions and policy changes that will help improve access to future scholarship and research. This is crucial, but if we want real and meaningful open access, we must look backward as well. Many of us need access to the trove of existing and still very relevant material that is already locked up behind paywalls. This…
Today EFF filed our latest brief in Jewel v. NSA, our longstanding case on behalf of AT&T customers aimed at ending the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans’ communications. The brief specifically argues that the Fourth Amendment is violated when the government taps into the Internet backbone at places like the AT&T facility on Folsom Street in San Francisco. As it happens, the filing coincides with the theatrical release of Laura Poitras’ new documentary, Citizenfour. The Jewel complaint was filed in 2008, and there’s a scene early in the film that shows the long road that case has…
Laura Poitras’ riveting new documentary about mass surveillance gives an intimate look into the motivations that guided Edward Snowden, who sacrificed his career and risked his freedom to expose mass surveillance by the NSA. CITIZENFOUR, which debuts on Friday, has many scenes that explore the depths of government surveillance gone awry and the high-tension unfolding of Snowden’s rendezvous with journalists in Hong Kong. One of the most powerful scenes in the film comes when Snowden discusses his motivation for the disclosures and points to his fundamental belief in the power and promise of the Internet: I remember what the Internet…
Millions of people use research everyday. From students, medical professionals, to curious hobbyists, we all benefit from being able to access, read, and cite reliable, tested information. But getting the research we need can be hard and costly when it’s locked up behind expensive paywalls. Two university students, David Carroll and Joseph McArthur, were finally fed up with being denied access to online journals and articles that were necessary to continue their studies—so they decided to take matters into their own hands. The result was Open Access Button, a browser-based tool that records users’ collisions with paywalls and aids them…
Privacy, Economic and Free Speech Flaws in Proposed Bitcoin Regulatory SchemeSan Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with reddit and the Internet Archive, today filed formal comments with the New York State Department of Financial Services opposing the state’s proposed regulations for digital currencies such as Bitcoin. In the letter, EFF argues that on top of damaging privacy and harming innovation, New York’s “BitLicense” regulatory scheme also risks infringing on First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and association. The State of New York is currently considering BitLicense, a sprawling regulatory framework that would mandate licenses for a…
We’ve filed our reply brief in the appeal of Smith v. Obama, our case challenging the NSA’s mass telephone records collection on behalf of Idaho nurse Anna Smith. The case will be argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal on December 8, 2014 in Seattle, and the public is welcome to attend. Another case challenging the telephone records program, Klayman v. Obama, will be argued on November 4 in Washington DC before the DC Circuit and EFF will be participating as an amicus. The Smith v. Obama case records are all here: but we thought we’d highlight three of…
This Monday, October 20 marks the first day of Open Access Week, an international event that celebrates the wide-ranging benefits of enabling open access to information and research–as well as the dangerous costs of keeping knowledge locked behind publisher paywalls. This year’s theme is Generation Open. There are tons of events happening around the world for Open Access Week. We wanted to share a handful of ones that we’ve heard about, most of which are screenings of the fantastic film, The Internet’s Own Boy, a documentary about the late Internet activist and pioneer Aaron Swartz. We’re delighted that many of…
FBI Director James Comey gave a speech yesterday reiterating the FBI’s nearly twenty-year-old talking points about why it wants to reduce the security in your devices, rather than help you increase it. Here’s EFF’s response: The FBI should not be in the business of trying to convince companies to offer less security to their customers. It should be doing just the opposite. But that’s what Comey is proposing—undoing a clear legal protection we fought hard for in the 1990s.1 The law specifically ensures that a company is not required to essentially become an agent of the FBI rather than serving…
Today Wikileaks published a new draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)’s intellectual property chapter. This draft text, from May 2014, gives us another look into the current state of negotiations over this plurilateral trade agreement’s copyright provisions since another draft was leaked last year. And what we’re seeing isn’t pretty. The TPP still contains text on DRM, ISP liability, copyright term lengths, and criminal enforcement measures, and introduces new provisions on trade secrets that have us worried. Anti-Circumvention Despite an over-abundance of evidence that laws punishing circumvention of DRM do far more harm than good, the USTR continues to press…
Canadian digital rights organization, OpenMedia, released a copyright report today that crowdsourced input from users from around the world. Their survey asked users to express their thoughts about copyright and to determine what issues they would like policymakers to prioritize in constructing innovation policy domestically and internationally. The process took over two years and attracted participation from over 300,000 people in 155 countries. The result was published today at Our Digital Future, which features the highlights of this extensive study. Hundreds of thousands of users have spoken and they have made three main recommendations to policymakers. First, users called for…
When you buy a device, you expect to own it. You expect to be able to open it up, mess with it, and improve it. At the very least, you expect it to continue to work for its intended purpose. What you don’t expect is that the manufacturer will remotely cause the device to stop functioning unless you agree to be bound by new legal terms governing your relationship with them. Yet this is how Nintendo’s update to its end-user license agreement (EULA) for the Wii U works, as described by Youtube user “AMurder0fCrows” in this video. He didn’t like…
Any organization that takes a stand on controversial issues can expect some criticism. And this criticism might involve someone commenting on the organization’s trademarked name or logo. For example, opponents of the NRA have suggested that “NRA Stands for Next Rifle Assault.” Critics of the ACLU have mocked it as the “Anti-Christian Lawyers Association.” The former CEO of the RIAA was fond of deriding EFF as the “Everything for Free Foundation.” Whether you think these parodies are brilliant or lame, there should be no question that they are fully protected by the First Amendment. Unfortunately, a recent federal court decision…
Like clockwork, another news organization is abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s hair-trigger take down process to stifle political commentary just when that commentary is most timely. This time it’s Gannett Co. Inc., a massive media conglomerate that owns, among many other publications, the Courier-Journal in Kentucky. The Courier-Journal’s editorial board interviewed a Democratic candidate for Senate, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and streamed the interview live. That stream included 40 uncomfortable seconds of the candidate trying desperately to avoid admitting she voted for President Obama (the president is none too popular in Kentucky). A critic posted the video clip online—and Gannett…
After months of delay, Warner has finally released documents detailing its notice and takedown practices. The documents were filed under seal in the now-defunct Hotfile litigation until a federal court (prompted by a motion from EFF) ordered Warner to produce them for the public. These documents confirm the movie studio’s abuse of the DMCA takedown process. They describe Warner “robots” sending thousands of infringement accusations to sites like the now-closed Hotfile without human review, based primarily on filenames and metadata rather than inspection of the files’ contents. They also show that Warner knew its automated searches were too broad and…