“I could take down the internet with that, and so could you.” Dan Geer, Chief Information Security Officer of CIA’s venture capital arm, didn’t mince words when he mentioned the security flaws in home routers during his keynote address at last month’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. But he also noted a small silver lining around the dark cloud of router security: people are starting to take the problem much more seriously. As he noted, the “SOHOpelessly Broken” DEFCON hacking contest, co-presented by Independent Security Evaluators and EFF, is drawing attention to security vulnerabilities in routers with the goal…
Author: EFFSource
The publishing world may finally be facing its “rootkit scandal.” Two independent reports claim that Adobe’s e-book software, “Digital Editions,” logs every document readers add to their local “library,” tracks what happens with those files, and then sends those logs back to the mother-ship, over the Internet, in the clear. In other words, Adobe is not only tracking your reading habits, it’s making it really, really easy for others to do so as well. And it’s all being done in the name of copyright enforcement. After all, the great “promise” of Digital Editions is that it can help publishers “securely…
EFF has a long running-mission to Encrypt the Web. To make the Web more secure, more private, and more censorship-resistant, we need to completely replace the insecure HTTP protocol with HTTPS. That task saw some major progress last week, with the anouncement by CloudFlare that it will now make HTTPS free and available by default for the approximately two million sites that it serves. CloudFlare is a content distribution network (CDN). That means that it doesn’t entirely host web sites on its own machines, but provides a proxy and caching infrastructure to distribute content on behalf of other sites, making…
Negotiators from across the Atlantic met this week in Chevy Chase, Maryland to continue discussing the terms of the EU-US trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This is the seventh round of secretive meetings, and not much is known about the exact issues that are on the negotiating table. However a press release issued today confirms that “intellectual property” (IP) rights were one of four areas given focus in this round of negotiations. Given how notoriously captured by corporate interests IP discussions in trade negotiations are, this has us very worried. The TTIP negotiations have been rife…
Open Access Week is less than a month away! Now in its eighth year, Open Access Week is 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. From October 20 to 26, academics, researchers, and curious minds everywhere will be encouraged to learn about the various hurdles to open knowledge and share stories of positive advancements in the effort to make open access the norm in scholarship and research. Whether you’re looking to learn more, to champion open access policies, or…
When it comes to Facebook’s real names policy, it’s really clear—something needs to change. Over the last few weeks, we’ve joined dozens of advocates in saying so. And in a meeting with LGBTQ and digital rights advocates, Facebook agreed. Of course, admitting there’s a problem is always the first step towards a solution. But what’s not clear is what that solution will be. EFF continues to believe that the best solution is simply to get rid of the “real names” policy entirely. But barring that, Facebook needs to find a solution that takes into account the myriad groups of people…
As EFF outlined in a special report, ComputerCOP is a piece of “Internet Safety” software of dubious value that law enforcement agencies around the country have distributed to families for free. One of the main components of the software is KeyAlert, a keystroke-capturing function that records everything a user types. KeyAlert has two major functions. First, it logs keystrokes on the user’s hard drive. Second, it allows the person installing the software to set certain keywords. Whenever those keywords are typed, the computer sends an email with those keystrokes to the person who installed the software. ComputerCOP doesn’t appear in…
Blue Spike LLC is a patent litigation factory. At one point, it filed over 45 cases in two weeks. It has sued a who’s who of technology companies, ranging from giants to startups, Adobe to Zeitera. Blue Spike claims not to be a troll, but any legitimate business it has pales in comparison to its patent litigation. It says it owns a “revolutionary technology” it refers to as “signal abstracting.” On close inspection, however, its patents1 turn out to be nothing more than a nebulous wish list. Blue Spike’s massive litigation campaign is a perfect example of how vague and…
A federal judge in Florida ruled Thursday that Warner Brothers Entertainment must release key information about its automated scheme to send copyright infringement notices to websites. The documents will give the public a better look into robo-takedowns and their potential for abuse as Congress considers changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The ruling comes in response to EFF’s request to release records from the Disney v. Hotfile lawsuit, in which several movie studios accused the cyberlocker site Hotfile of copyright infringement based on Hotfile users’ sharing of movie files. Hotfile countersued Warner for abusing the DMCA’s takedown procedure,…
Concerned European Internet users will descend upon Brussels on September 26 to participate in Freedom Not Fear 2014—a European week of action aimed to fight against a widespread surveillance state. Since 2008, a coalition of European organizations has met annually under the banner of Freedom Not Fear to fight against online spying, and to challenge the hyperbolic rhetoric of fear that permeates the security and privacy debate. The Freedom Not Fear movement emerged from widespread outrage to the European Union’s 2006 Mandatory Data Retention Directive. Since its origins, Freedom Not Fear’s message has been: fundamental rights like privacy, free expression,…
This week, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott used recent terrorist threats as the backdrop of a dire warning to Australians that “for some time to come, the delicate balance between freedom and security may have to shift. There may be more restrictions on some, so that there can be more protection for others.” This pronouncement came as two of a series of three bills effecting that erosion of freedoms made their way through Australia’s Federal Parliament. These were the second reading of a National Security Amendment Bill which grants new surveillance powers to Australia’s spy agency, ASIO, and the first…
Every few years, the White House updates its Strategy for American Innovation and asks for comments from the public. EFF’s submission explains that overly restrictive intellectual property regimes can stifle innovation by limiting the ability of researchers to build upon existing knowledge. Our comments address three topics on that theme. Patents: A flood of low-quality software patents has fueled the growth of patent trolling. These lawsuits are especially harmful to innovative small businesses and startups. EFF urges the Administration do more to improve patent quality and to support legislative reform (such as the Innovation Act which passed the House last…
The Canadian government’s surveillance of innocent Canadians is secretive, expensive, and out-of-control—that’s the message of a new video launched this morning by Canadian digital rights organization, OpenMedia.ca. The group is leading a large, non-partisan, Canadian coalition of organizations calling for effective legal measures to safeguard Canadians from government spying. The video reveals how information collected by government spy agency, CSEC (Communications Security Establishment Canada), can expose intimate details about Canadians’ private lives, including their financial status, medical conditions, political and religious beliefs, and even sexual orientation. CSEC was caught as they spied on thousands of innocent Canadian air travelers earlier…
Documents recently released by WikiLeaks have brought new evidence to the public eye that the intrusive surveillance spyware FinFisher may be in use by several members of the Freedom Online Coalition, including Mongolia, Netherlands, and Estonia.1 If this evidence is correct, it should rightly raise serious concerns around the world. FinFisher is notorious malware—software that allows those who use it to place programs, often called Trojans, remotely onto computers and devices operated by others, usually without the target’s knowledge much less consent. Once downloaded onto a target’s computer, FinSpy allows the operator of the Trojan to spy on the target’s…
Good news for whistleblowers, journalists, and everyone who likes to browse the Internet with an added cloak of privacy: the Tor network got a little stronger. Tor—software that lets you mask your IP address—relies on an international network of committed volunteers to run relays to help mask traffic. And that network is stronger now, thanks to the 1,000+ volunteers who participated in our second-ever Tor Challenge. The goal of the Tor Challenge is simple: to improve the Tor network by inspiring people to run relays. These relays are the backbone of the Tor network; they’re the machines that actually forward…
This is a guest post from Sana Saleem, Advisory Board Member, Courage Foundation. If you have comments on this post, you can contact Sana on Twitter. In the week leading up the first year aniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles, EFF and the coalition behind the 13 Principles will be conducting a Week of Action explaining some of the key guiding principles for surveillance law reform. Every day, we’ll take on a different part of the principles, exploring what’s at stake and what we need to do to bring intelligence agencies and the police back under the rule…
Between 15th-19th of September, in the week leading up the first year anniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles, EFF and the coalition behind the Principles will be conducting a Week of Action explaining some of the key guiding principles for surveillance law reform. Every day, we’ll take on a different part of the principles, exploring what’s at stake and what we need to do to bring intelligence agencies and the police back under the rule of law. You can read the complete set of posts at: https://necessaryandproportionate.org/anniversary. The Principles were first launched at the 24th Session of the…
This is a guest post from Yana Welinder and Stephen LaPorte, Legal Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation.* If you have comments on this post, you can contact Yana and Stephen on Twitter. Between 15th-19th of September, in the week leading up the first year anniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles, EFF and the coalition behind the Principles will be conducting a Week of Action explaining some of the key guiding principles for surveillance law reform. Every day, we’ll take on a different part of the principles, exploring what’s at stake and what we need to do to bring…
Between 15th-19th of September, in the week leading up the first year anniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles, EFF and the coalition behind the Principles will be conducting a Week of Action explaining some of the key guiding principles for surveillance law reform. Every day, we’ll take on a different part of the principles, exploring what’s at stake and what we need to do to bring intelligence agencies and the police back under the rule of law. You can read the complete set of posts at: https://necessaryandproportionate.org/anniversary. The Principles were first launched at the 24th Session of the…
EFF Takes on Net Neutrality’s Critics in New Comments to FCCSan Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today to see through misinformation from Internet service providers (ISPs) and protect the open Internet. EFF’s formal response to the ISPs’ claims are part of the FCC’s public comment period for its proposed new rules that would allow for so-called “Internet fast lanes” – a dangerous plan that would allow unfair Internet traffic discrimination and undermine net neutrality. The FCC has received over 1.7 million comments on the issue, with over 127,000 delivered through EFF’s DearFCC.org…