The Catalog of Carceral Surveillance: Tablet Advertising That Can Also Issue Discipline
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/catalog-carceral-surveillance-tablet-advertising-can-also-issue-discipline
April 7, 2022, 8:43 PM
This post is part of our series "The Catalog of Carceral Surveillance: Exploring the Future of Incarceration Technology." You can read more about the role of patents in our post, “The Catalog of Carceral Surveillance: Patents Aren't Products (Yet).”
Imagine you've been arrested and are sitting in county lock-up. You need to make arrangements for bail, a lawyer, and a caretaker for your kids or pets. Maybe you need someone to bring your prescription or you need to talk to your AA sponsor. On ...
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Brighter Stars and Persistent Gaps Mark New Paraguay’s “Who Defends Your Data” Report
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/brighter-stars-and-persistent-gaps-mark-new-paraguays-who-defends-your-data-report
April 7, 2022, 2:00 PM
Paraguay’s leading broadband service providers last year upped their commitments to users to be transparent about their privacy policies and to adopt accessibility practices, but most fell short on disclosing information about government requests seeking their data, according to the new edition of TEDIC’s ¿Quién Defiende Tus Datos? (“Who Defends Your Data).
The report reveals a troubling trend among Paraguayan internet and telecommunications providers: most don’t publish reports with s...
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The Latest Threat to Independent Online Creators Is the Filter Mandate Bill
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/latest-threat-independent-online-creators-filter-mandate-bill
April 6, 2022, 6:42 PM
Copyright filters are having a bit of a moment in Washington D.C. The Copyright Office is moving ahead with a process to determine what, if anything, constitutes a standard technical measure (STM) that platforms would have to accommodate. And, if that proves too onerous, Congress has Big Content’s back with the Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act.
This filter mandate bill would task the Copyright Office with designating technical measures (DTMs instead of STMs) ...
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Google Fights Dragnet Warrant for Users’ Search Histories Overseas While Continuing to Give Data to Police in the U.S.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/google-fights-dragnet-warrant-users-search-histories-overseas-while-continuing
April 5, 2022, 10:26 PM
Google is fighting back against a Brazilian court order to turn over data on all users who searched for specific terms, including the name of a well-known elected official and a busy downtown thoroughfare. (Brief in Portuguese / English*) While we applaud Google for challenging this digital dragnet search in Brazil, it must also stand up for the rights of its users against similar searches in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Background: Keyword Search Warrants
Keyword search warrants like the one in Braz...
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Podcast Episode: Your Tax Dollars At Work
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/podcast-episode-your-tax-dollars-work
April 5, 2022, 8:09 AM
Democracy means allowing everyday people to have their voices heard on public matters involving their communities. One of the goals of civic technology is to allow a more diverse group of people to have input on government affairs through the use of technology and the internet. 
Beth Noveck, author of Solving Public Problems and Director of the Governance Lab, chats with EFF's Cindy Cohn and Danny O'Brien about how civic technology can enhance people's relationship with the government and help ...
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Anatomy of an Android Malware Dropper
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/anatomy-android-malware-dropper
April 4, 2022, 10:20 PM
Recently at EFF’s Threat Lab, we’ve been focusing a lot on the Android malware ecosystem and providing tools for its analysis. We’ve noticed lot of samples of Android malware in the tor-hydra family have surfaced, masquerading as banking apps to lure unsuspecting customers into installing them. In this post, we will take an example of one such sample and analyze it using open-source tools available to anyone.
At a Glance
The sample we’ll be looking at was first seen on March 1st, 2022. T...
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The NDO Fairness Act Is an Important Step Towards Transparency
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/ndo-fairness-act-important-step-towards-transparency
April 4, 2022, 9:29 PM
The First Amendment guarantees the right to speak your own involvement about court proceedings. Yet the Stored Communications Act currently allows the government to prevent electronic communications companies from notifying their users when they receive law enforcement orders for customer data. These gag orders can silence the companies for any period that a court deems appropriate—even indefinitely, sometimes with no fixed end date at all. This leaves the targets of the collection and the bro...
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Day of Action for Antitrust: Our Rights Are Tied to Having Choices
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/day-action-antitrust-our-rights-are-tied-having-choices
April 4, 2022, 4:59 PM
Today, EFF joins a diverse coalition of civil society and tech companies to call on Congress to pass strong anti-monopoly rules for the Internet. We do this because it has long been EFF’s belief that users have the right to make their own choices—and the current state of Big Tech has taken many of our choices from us.
Join the Day of Action
Tell Congress to support competition
We live in a world that increasingly requires us to be online. The promise of all this technology was that barriers ...
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California: Speak Up For Biometric and Student Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/california-speak-biometric-and-student-privacy
April 1, 2022, 10:16 PM
California has shown itself to be a national privacy leader. But there is still work to do. That’s why EFF is proud to sponsor two bills in this year’s legislature—both with the co-sponsorship of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse—that would strengthen privacy protections in the state. These bills are focused on two particularly pernicious forms of data collection. Both will be heard on April 5 in the California Senate Judiciary Committee, and we’re asking Californians to tell committee mem...
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Public.Resource.Org Can Keep Freeing the Law: Court Allows Posting Public Laws And Regulations Online
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/publicresourceorg-can-keep-freeing-law-court-allows-posting-public-laws-and
April 1, 2022, 6:02 PM
Private entities lose bid to control and profit from how we learn about the lawSAN FRANCISCO—As part of its ongoing work to ensure that people can know and understand the laws they live under, Public.Resource.org, a nonprofit organization, on Thursday vindicated its ability to publicly post important laws online in standard formats, free of copy protections and cumbersome user interfaces.
The win for Public Resource—represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) with co-counsel Fenw...
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Dream Job Alert: EFF Seeks a Lawyer with Patent and Copyright Experience 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/dream-job-alert-eff-seeks-lawyer-patent-and-copyright-experience
March 31, 2022, 11:32 PM
We’ve got an amazing opportunity for a litigator to join EFF’s legal team. If you have experience and interest in patent policy or litigation and want to represent the public interest in patent and copyright policy, we want to hear from you. 
EFF has always stood up for the freedom to innovate and learn. When the U.S. patent system doesn’t promote those freedoms, we step in to fight back. Just take a look at some of our work in 2021: 
We fought in court for transparency and open records...
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Colombian ISPs Show Steady Commitments to User Privacy But Key Transparency Gaps Remain
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/colombian-isps-show-steady-commitments-user-privacy-key-transparency-gaps-remain
March 31, 2022, 6:50 PM
Colombia’s top internet and cell phone companies continued to maintain a high level of transparency about their privacy practices, and continued to implement best practices to protect customer data, free expression, and security in 2021. But they faced challenges from the impacts of COVID-19 and pressure to inform users about government spying on mobile phone communications, according to a new report released today by Fundacion Karisma, Colombia’s leading digital rights organization.
¿Dón...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 34.2
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/digital-rights-updates-effector-342
March 30, 2022, 8:09 PM
Want the latest news on your digital rights? Well, you're in luck! Version 34, issue 2 of our EFFector newsletter is out now. Catch up on the latest EFF news by reading our newsletter or listening to the new audio version below. This issue covers stories from our opposition of the new SMART Copyright Act, to explaining the risks and cautions of messaging with Telegram if you are using the app in Russia or Ukraine.
LISTEN ON YOUTUBE
EFFECTOR 34.02 - Corporate Media wants Copyright Law to R...
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Podcast Episode: Securing the Internet of Things
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/podcast-episode-securing-internet-things
March 29, 2022, 8:18 AM
Today almost everything is connected to the internet - from your coffeemaker to your car to your thermostat. But the “Internet of Things” may not be hardwired for security. Window Snyder, computer security expert and author, joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they delve into the scary insecurities lurking in so many of our modern conveniences—and how we can change policies and tech to improve our security and safety.
Window Snyder is the founder and CEO of Thistle Technologi...
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The Pro Codes Act Is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/pro-codes-act-wolf-sheeps-clothing
March 28, 2022, 10:26 PM
When a pipeline bursts, journalists might want to investigate whether the pipeline complied with federal regulations. When a toy is recalled, parents want to know whether its maker followed child safety rules. When a fire breaks out, homeowners and communities want to know whether the building complied with fire safety regulations. Online access to safety regulations helps make that review – and accountability – possible. But a new dangerous and deceptive bill will undermine existing efforts...
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An EFF Investigation: Mystery GPS Tracker On A Supporter’s Car
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/eff-investigation-mystery-gps-tracker-supporters-car
March 28, 2022, 6:00 PM
Being able to accurately determine your location anywhere on the planet is a useful technological trick. But when tracking isn’t done by you, but to you—without your knowledge or consent—it’s a violation of your privacy. That’s why at EFF we’ve long fought against dragnet surveillance, mobile device tracking, and warrantless GPS tracking.
Several weeks ago, an EFF supporter brought her car to a mechanic, and found a mysterious device wired into her car under her driver's seat. This s...
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The Public Has a Right to Know How DHS is Spending Millions to Spy on Immigrants on Social Media 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/public-has-right-know-how-dhs-spending-millions-spy-immigrants-social-media
March 28, 2022, 5:42 PM
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has offered no transparency about its multi-million dollar program of spying on immigrants’ and other foreign visitors’ social media posts, which it uses as evidence in deportations and visa denials.
We want to change that, so we sued DHS today under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for records about the Visa Lifecycle Vetting Initiative (VLVI). We want to know what VLVI does, how it works, and what information DHS is gathering. 
The lawsuit, f...
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EFF Files FOIA Lawsuit Against DHS to Shed Light on Vetting Program to Collect and Data Mine Immigrants' Social Media
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-files-foia-lawsuit-against-dhs-shed-light-vetting-program-collect-and-data-mine
March 28, 2022, 5:05 PM
Little is Known About Trump-Era Visa Vetting Initiative That Continues Under BidenSAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records about a multi-million dollar, secretive program that surveils immigrants and other foreign visitors’ speech on social media.DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) use the Visa Lifecycle Vetting Initiative (VLVI) to spy on potentia...
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Another Tracker Scanning App Highlights the Need for a Better Way to Protect Victims From Digital Stalking
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/another-tracker-scanning-app-highlights-need-better-way-protect-victims-digital
March 25, 2022, 7:19 PM
First came tracking devices like Tiles and AirTags, marketed as clever, button-sized Bluetooth-enabled gizmos that can find your lost backpack. Then, after bad actors started using the devices to stalk or follow people, came scanning apps to help victims find out whether those same gizmos were tracking them.Such is the twisted, dangerous path of tracking devices in the wrong hands. That device makers are rolling out scanning apps that can potentially help stalking victims is a win for privacy—...
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EFF Client Erik Johnson and Proctorio Settle Lawsuit Over Bogus DMCA Claims
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/eff-client-eric-johnson-and-proctorio-settle-lawsuit-over-bogus-dmca-claims
March 25, 2022, 5:26 PM
EFF client Erik Johnson, a Miami University computer engineering undergraduate, reached a settlement in the lawsuit we brought on his behalf against exam surveillance software maker Proctorio, in a victory for fair use of copyrighted material and people’s right to fight back against bad faith Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns used to silence critics.[1]
Johnson, who is also a security researcher, sued Proctorio a year ago after it misused the copyright takedown provisions of th...
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The Kids Online Safety Act Is a Heavy-Handed Plan to Force Platforms to Spy on Young People
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/kids-online-safety-act-heavy-handed-plan-force-platforms-spy-young-people
March 24, 2022, 6:59 PM
Putting children under surveillance and limiting their access to information doesn’t make them safer—in fact, research suggests just the opposite. Unfortunately those tactics are the ones endorsed by the Kids Online Safety Act of 2022 (KOSA), introduced by Sens. Blumenthal and Blackburn. The bill deserves credit for attempting to improve online data privacy for young people, and for attempting to update 1998’s Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). But its plan to require surve...
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Stop Invasive Remote Proctoring: Pass California’s Student Test Taker Privacy Protection Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/stop-invasive-remote-proctoring-pass-californias-student-test-taker-privacy
March 24, 2022, 4:30 PM
Remote proctoring companies like Proctorio, ProctorU, and ExamSoft collect all manner of private data on students and test takers, from biometric information to citizenship status to video and audio of a user’s surroundings. During the pandemic there has been a 500% increase in the usage of these proctoring tools—in 2020, more than half of higher education institutions used remote proctoring services and another 23% were considering doing so. At this point, remote proctoring services are a g...
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EFF Director of Investigations Dave Maass Honored With Sunshine Award For Driving Public Disclosure of Government Surveillance Records
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/eff-director-investigations-dave-maass-honored-sunshine-award-driving-public
March 23, 2022, 5:08 PM
When journalists want to know if and how local police or governments are using technology tools to surveil communities, one of the first people they call (or message on Signal) is Dave Maass, EFF Director of Investigations.
Maass’ expertise in the use of police tech like automated license plate readers, drones, and camera networks, and his work pushing governments to be more transparent, has earned him accolades by reporters, researchers, and citizens. Today, Maass will receive the Sunshine Aw...
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Podcast Episode: Hack to the Future
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/podcast-episode-hack-future
March 22, 2022, 9:00 AM
Like many young people, Zach Latta went to a school that didn't teach any computer classes. But that didn’t stop him from learning everything he could about them and becoming a programmer at a young age. After moving to San Francisco, Zach founded Hack Club, a nonprofit network of high school coding clubs around the world, to help other students find the education and community that he wished he had as a teenager. 
This week on our podcast, we talk to Zach about the importance of student acce...
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Ban Online Behavioral Advertising
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/ban-online-behavioral-advertising
March 22, 2022, 1:24 AM
Tech companies earn staggering profits by targeting ads to us based on our online behavior. This incentivizes all online actors to collect as much of our behavioral information as possible, and then sell it to ad tech companies and the data brokers that service them. This pervasive online behavioral surveillance apparatus turns our lives into open books—every mouse click and screen swipe can be tracked and then disseminated throughout the vast ad tech ecosystem. Sometimes this system is called...
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The New Filter Mandate Bill Is An Unmitigated Disaster
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/new-filter-mandate-bill-unmitigated-disaster
March 21, 2022, 9:59 PM
After the defeat of SOPA/PIPA, Big Content has mostly focused on quiet, backroom deals for copyright legislation, like the unconstitutional CASE Act, which was so unpopular it had to be slipped into a must-pass bill in the dead of winter. But now, almost exactly a decade later, they’ve come screaming out of the gate with a proposal almost as bad as SOPA/PIPA. Let’s hope it doesn’t take an Internet Blackout to kill it this time.
The new proposal, cynically titled the SMART Copyright Act, gi...
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Anti-War Hacktivism is Leading to Digital Xenophobia and a More Hostile Internet
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/anti-war-hacktivism-leading-digital-xenophobia-and-more-hostile-internet
March 21, 2022, 9:47 PM
The horrific Russian military invasion of Ukraine has understandably led to a backlash against Russia. The temptation is to label anything Russian, from state media and students to cats, as bad and block it to signal outrage and ostracization. This type of thinking has infected the open source and internet security communities as well—a terrible idea with potentially harmful consequences.
Recently the maintainer of a popular open source Node JS package “node-ipc” released a new plugin call...
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Brazil’s “Remuneration Right” Strengthens Big Tech and Big Media, At the Cost of Free Expression and a Free Press
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/brazils-remuneration-right-strengthens-big-tech-and-big-media-cost-free-expression
March 21, 2022, 1:39 PM
Update: a new text of the Fake News Bill was released days after our post, which brings some clarity to a few of many critical ambiguities in this proposal. We welcome these attempts to provide greater clarity to the rule, but this proposal is still dangerously underspecified and the many dangerous gaps that we pointed out in our initial analysis remain.
Essential definitions are left for further regulation, including the definition of "news," what constitutes a "use" of news, how use would be m...
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To Make Social Media Work Better, Make It Fail Better
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/make-social-media-work-better-make-it-fail-better-0
March 21, 2022, 12:32 PM
Pity the poor content moderator. Big Tech platforms expect their mods to correctly apply a set of rules to users in more than a hundred countries, in over a thousand languages. These users are clustered into literally millions of online communities, each with its own norms and taboos. 
What a task! Some groups will consider a word to be a slur, while others will use it as a term of affection. Actually, it’s even more confusing: some groups consider some words to be slurs when used by outsider...
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EFF Tells E.U. Commission: Don't Break Encryption
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/eff-tells-eu-commission-dont-break-encryption
March 17, 2022, 4:46 PM
An upcoming proposal from the European Union Commission could make government scanning of user messages and photos mandatory throughout the E.U. If that happens, it would be inconsistent with providing  true end-to-end encryption in Europe. That would be a disaster, not just for the privacy and security of citizens in the E.U., but worldwide. 
The excuse for this attack on basic human rights is the same one we have seen used repeatedly in the U.S. over the last few years: crimes against childr...
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Letter to Iran, Regarding the Regulatory System for Cyberspace Services Bill
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/letter-iran-regarding-regulatory-system-cyberspace-services-bill
March 16, 2022, 10:46 PM
Today, EFF joins Article 19 and more than 50 organizations in urging the Iranian government to rescind a bill with severe implications for the privacy, security and freedom of expression of Internet users in Iran. The text of our letter is below.
Iran: Human rights groups sound alarm against draconian Internet Bill
We, the undersigned human rights and civil society organizations, are alarmed by Iranian parliament’s move to ratify the general outlines of the draconian "Regulatory System for Cy...
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You Should Not Trust Russia’s New “Trusted Root CA”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/you-should-not-trust-russias-new-trusted-root-ca
March 15, 2022, 11:41 PM
Last week, Russian citizens began receiving instructions to either download a government-approved web browser, or change their basic browser settings, according to instructions issued by their government’s Ministry of Digital Development and Communications.
On the one hand, these changes may be necessary for Russians to access government services and websites impacted by international sanctions. Nonetheless, it is a worrying development: the Russian state’s stopgap measure to keep its servi...
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Podcast Episode: Watching the Watchers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/podcast-episode-watching-watchers
March 15, 2022, 10:00 AM
Imagine being detained by armed agents whenever you returned from traveling outside the country. That’s what life became like for Academy Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras, who was placed on a terrorist watch-list after she made a documentary critical of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Poitras was detained close to 100 times between 2006 and 2012, and border agents routinely copied her notebooks and threatened to take her electronics. 
It was only after Poitras teamed up with EF...
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EFF Asks Federal Appellate Court to Re-hear Important Patent Transparency Case
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/eff-asks-federal-appellate-court-re-hear-important-patent-transparency-case
March 14, 2022, 6:35 PM
After pushing for more than three years to access court records in a lawsuit brought by a notorious patent troll, Uniloc, against Apple, EFF is challenging a federal appellate court’s decision that imperils the public’s ability to understand what happens in patent litigation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overruled the district court’s decision to grant public access to records documenting the legal fight last month. The court ruled that the public had no interest in ac...
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The Foilies 2022
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/foilies-2022
March 13, 2022, 4:41 PM
Recognizing the year's worst in government transparency.
The Foilies were compiled by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (Director of Investigations Dave Maass, Senior Staff Attorney Aaron Mackey, Frank Stanton Fellow Mukund Rathi, Investigative Researcher Beryl Lipton, Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia) and MuckRock (Co-Founder Michael Morisy, Senior Reporting Fellows Betsy Ladyzhets and Dillon Bergin, and Investigations Editor Derek Kravitz), with further review and editing by Shawn Musgrave. I...
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Big Tech Pay-Outs to European ISPs Would Just Concentrate Their Power
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/big-tech-pay-outs-european-isps-would-just-concentrate-their-power
March 10, 2022, 11:36 PM
As the debate about how to rein in Big Tech and its anti-competitive practices continues, news publishers and telecommunications providers are increasingly calling for large pay-outs from major platforms. However, these proposals risk restricting users into ever-smaller walled gardens and cementing the dominance of a few big players.
On Valentine’s day, an open letter from the CEOs of Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, and Orange surfaced. In the letter, the heads of Europe’s biggest t...
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Federal Court in Virginia Holds Geofence Warrant Violates Constitution
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/federal-court-virginia-holds-geofence-warrant-violates-constitution
March 10, 2022, 10:32 PM
In the first order of its kind, a federal district court has held that a warrant used to identify all devices in the area of a bank robbery, including the defendant’s, “plainly violates the rights enshrined in [the Fourth] Amendment.” The court questioned whether similar warrants could ever be constitutional.
The case is United States v. Chatrie, and addresses a controversial tool called a geofence warrant. The police issued the warrant to Google seeking information on every device within ...
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Utah: Urge Governor Cox to Veto This Weak Data Privacy Bill
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/utah-urge-governor-cox-veto-weak-data-privacy-bill
March 10, 2022, 8:48 PM
EFF fights for strong data privacy laws in statehouses across the country. That’s why we joined a coalition of privacy advocates in urging Utah's lawmakers to stop the bill. Now we're asking Gov. Spencer J. Cox to veto SB227, which passed quickly through the state’s legislature last week. This bill protects privacy in name only, and lacks real protections or teeth. By setting such a low bar for privacy, and blessing some anti-privacy company tactics, it does not set a strong foundation for f...
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Here’s How ICE Illegally Obtained Bulk Financial Records from Western Union
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/heres-how-ice-illegally-obtained-bulk-financial-records-western-union
March 10, 2022, 7:29 PM
Senator Ron Wyden has released a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Inspector General voicing his concern over a previously-unknown bulk data collection program that was carried out by Homeland Security Investigations(HSI), a unit within DHS’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). For more than two  years, HSI used administrative subpoenas to acquire millions of financial records from two companies involved in money transfers, Western Union and Maxitransfer...
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How the NTIA Can Fund Future-Proof Open Access Fiber
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/how-ntia-can-fund-future-proof-open-access-fiber
March 10, 2022, 6:09 PM
EFF Legal Intern Emma Hagemann contributed to the corresponding comment.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has big decisions to make in its effort to implement the new federal broadband infrastructure program. If done right, and with the right state policies in place, a great number of Americans will obtain access to multi-gigabit broadband in the coming years.
EFF sent comments to the NTIA urging them to fund the deployment of open access fiber networks, p...
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Using Your Phone in Times of Crisis
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/using-your-phone-times-crisis
March 9, 2022, 10:35 PM
Secure communications are especially important in times of crisis. Just being aware of surveillance has chilling effects in how we exercise speech, which is often under attack by all sorts of actors from criminals to our own governments. With war in Ukraine and political crackdowns in Russia, it is critical for Russians and Ukrainians alike to let their loved ones know they're ok, to stay informed, and to organize.
It is not surprising that in times of crisis many people default to the most wide...
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EFF to European Court: “Right to be Forgotten” Shouldn’t Stop The Public From Reading The News
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/right-be-forgotten-must-be-balanced-publics-interest-online-media-archives
March 7, 2022, 5:23 PM
The “right to be forgotten," which exists in European Union member states and allows for mandatory delisting of results from search engines, must be balanced against the rights of the public to read media archives. EFF joined together with more than a dozen other media and free expression groups to make that point clear in a recent case from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
In Hurbain v. Belgium, the applicant, the editor-in-chief of Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir, argued that his ...
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Telegram Harm Reduction for Users in Russia and Ukraine
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/telegram-harm-reduction-users-russia-and-ukraine
March 4, 2022, 7:09 PM
Update March 8, 2022: EFF has clarified that Channels and Groups are not fully encrypted, end-to-end, updated our post to link to Telegram’s FAQ for Cloud and Secret chats, updated to clarify that auto-delete is available for group and channel admins, and added some additional links.
Russians and Ukrainians are both prolific users of Telegram. They rely on the app for channels that act as newsfeeds, group chats (both public and private), and one-to-one communication. Since the Russian invasion...
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Negotiations Over UN Cybercrime Treaty Under Way in New York, With EFF and Partners Urging Focus on Human Rights
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/negotiations-over-international-police-powers-agreement-must-keep-human-rights
March 3, 2022, 11:16 PM
While tensions run high across the globe over the invasion of Ukraine, the world’s governments are meeting at the UN this week and next to find common ground on a proposed treaty to facilitate international cooperation and coordination in computer crime investigations. The treaty, if approved, may reshape criminal laws and bolster cross-border police surveillance powers to access and share user data, implicating the privacy and human rights of billions of people worldwide. Earlier this week, E...
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Wartime Is a Bad Time To Mess With the Internet
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/wartime-bad-time-mess-internet
March 3, 2022, 9:44 PM
Like most people, we at EFF are horrified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Also like most people, we are not experts on military strategy or international diplomacy. But we do have some expertise with the internet and civil liberties, which is why we are deeply concerned that governments around the world are pressuring internet companies to interfere with fundamental internet infrastructure. Tinkering with the internet as part of a political or military response is likely to backfire in multip...
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The Campaign to Shut Down Crucial Documentary Tool youtube-dl Continues – And So Does the Fight to Save It
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/campaign-shut-down-crucial-documentary-tool-youtube-dl-continues-and-so-does-fight
March 3, 2022, 7:34 PM
Copyright maximalists just don’t know when to stop. Having failed in their 2020 attempt to use U.S. law to force GitHub to permanently cut off access to youtube-dl, an open source tool that allows users to download and preserve videos, on the theory that the tool can also be used for infringing purposes, the music publishers have turned to the German courts instead. But one small German hosting provider, represented by the German Society for Civil Rights (GFF), is fighting back.
The saga start...
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Cybersecurity Experts Urge EU Lawmakers to Fix Website Authentication Proposal That Puts Internet Users’ Security and Privacy at Risk
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/cybersecurity-experts-urge-eu-lawmakers-fix-website-authentication-proposal-puts
March 3, 2022, 8:42 AM
Proposed Amendment Will Expose Users to CyberattacksSAN FRANCISCO—Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) technologists, along with 36 of the world’s top cybersecurity experts, today urged European lawmakers to reject proposed changes to European Union (EU) regulations for securing electronic payments and other online transactions that will dramatically weaken web security and expose internet users to increased risk of attacks by cybercriminals.The ill-conceived proposed amendment to Article 45...
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Victory! San Francisco Mayor Withdraws Harmful Measure Against Surveillance Oversight Law
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/victory-san-francisco-mayor-withdraws-harmful-measure-against-surveillance
March 2, 2022, 6:32 AM
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has pulled a harmful ballot initiative that threatened to gut the city’s landmark 2019 surveillance oversight ordinance. This withdrawal followed intense community pressure, including a coalition letter signed by over 30 San Francisco community and civil rights organizations, including EFF and Electronic Frontier Alliance members Black Movement Law Project and Oakland Privacy.
The mayor and the San Francisco Police Department recently used public fears of crime...
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EFF Urges FTC to Investigate Stalkerware App Network Subject of TechCrunch Report
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/eff-urges-ftc-investigate-stalkerware-app-network-subject-techcrunch-report
February 26, 2022, 12:34 AM
Private messages, voicemails, internet browsing, passwords and location data—this is the type of private phone data that is being monitored in real time, unbeknownst to hundreds of thousands of people around the world being tracked by consumer-grade spyware.
There is a massive network of stalkerware apps that is harvesting the private data of at least 400,000 people through consumer-grade spyware apps that share a major security flaw, according to TechCrunch security editor Zack Whittaker’s ...
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Copyright is Not a Shortcut Around the Constitution’s Anonymous Speech Protections, EFF Tells Court
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/copyright-not-shortcut-around-constitutions-anonymous-speech-protections-eff-tells
February 18, 2022, 11:54 PM
Anonymous speech is an important protection for those concerned about political or economic retribution, harassment, or even threats to their lives. The shield that protects those speakers’ anonymity in U.S. court is the First Amendment, and applying the appropriate constitutional test during litigation allows a court to appropriately balance the necessity of unmasking a litigant with the harm of exposing them.
Unfortunately, courts do not always apply the correct tests to protect anonymous s...
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