Deeplinks
As we say goodbye to another summer of computer security conferences, we would like to take a moment to extend our thanks to the countless people who helped bolster the digital freedom movement this year in Las Vegas. Organizers and attendees at Security BSides Las Vegas, Black Hat USA, DEF CON, and the kid-focused r00tz Asylum are all part of the ever-growing movement to defend digital freedom. As "hacking" loses some of its stigma, it serves us well to remember that at its core, hacking is about curiosity, problem-solving, and innovation. These key principles help ensure that technology can work in our favor and remains in our control.
EFF has won a battle in its fight to get the government to disclose its policy for deciding whether to tell the public about critical flaws in software when it finds out about them. Last year, we filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the so-called Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP). At first, the government told us the document was entirely classified, but just weeks before we were set to challenge those claims in court, it relented. We received the VEP late last night, right before the long weekend.
At long last, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced a slew of much-needed policy changes regarding the use of cell-site simulators. Most importantly, starting today all federal law enforcement agencies—and all state and local agencies working with the federal government—will be required to obtain a search warrant supported by probable cause before they are allowed to use cell-site simulators. EFF welcomes these policy changes as long overdue.
It should be no surprise that libraries and bookstores—the places where you can go pick up a copy of 1984 or Darkness at Noon—are privacy hipsters. They’ve been fighting overbroad government surveillance since before it was cool. That’s why we’re proud to have filed an amicus brief on behalf of a coalition of associations of libraries and booksellers in Wikimedia v. NSA, a case challenging the government’s warrantless surveillance of the Internet backbone.
This Labor Day weekend, EFF joins tens of thousands of sci-fi and fantasy fans at Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. Our goal: educate and energize the fandoms about privacy, surveillance, and free speech.
In addition to an epic cosplay activism campaign, our team is sitting on almost a dozen panels covering issues such as domestic surveillance and government transparency. At our table at the Hilton, we’ll be able to give you with practical tips for protecting your privacy using EFF’s Surveillance Self-Defense Project, and help you understand what types of technology police are using in your community, with some help from the Street Level Surveillance Project .
The California Legislature is on the brink of passing S.B. 178, the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA). This bill would bring long overdue reforms to how law enforcement searches our digital records by requiring a warrant to access our emails, locational information, documents, and other files.
The following is a guest post from Eric Crampton, Head of Research at the New Zealand Initiative, who previously served as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Department of Economics & Finance at the University of Canterbury.
Australia National University’s Dr. George Barker suggested that New Zealand could do well by strengthening its copyright legislation. He warned against the fair dealing exceptions that have crept into the law and asked, “Why not have copyright law like property law—i.e. it lasts forever?”
Although grassroots activism has dealt it a blow, the Senate Intelligence Committee's Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) keeps shambling along like the zombie it is. In July, Senator McConnell vowed to hold a final vote on the bill before Congress left for its six-week long summer vacation. In response, EFF and over 20 other privacy groups ran a successful Week of Action, including over 6 million faxes opposing CISA, causing the Senate to postpone the vote until late September.
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