eff

EFF publishes mobile user privacy bill of rights

With a mobile privacy scandal coming every few weeks or so it seems, consumers are getting so they don't trust app developers to do the right thing. But what exactly is the right thing?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has some ideas. The non-profit organization today released a Mobile User Privacy Bill of Rights that offers up suggestions for how data should be treated to protect the privacy of consumers.

"It's time to articulate what the best practices are and what people should reasonably expect," Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at EFF, said in announcing the privacy … Read more

SOPA firefight comes to CES

LAS VEGAS--The technology community has made substantial in-roads in efforts to stop SOPA and Protect IP, two bills pending in Congress that would expand the ability of federal law enforcement and rightsholders to police the Internet for violations of intellectual-property laws.

But the fight is far from won. That was the message yesterday at a contentious panel discussion at CES's Innovation Policy Summit, featuring Congressional staffers along with industry representatives from both Hollywood and the technology community.

"Opponents have organized," said Ryan Clough, legislative counsel for Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). "But we haven't stopped SOPA … Read more

Spain passes SOPA-like law that U.S. allegedly pushed for

An anti-piracy law passed in Spain on January 3 has striking similarities to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that is stirring controversy in the U.S.

The Sinde Law, which is named after former Spanish Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, lets copyright holders report Web sites that host content which infringes on their rights. The government must then choose to take action against the site or ISP. If moved along, a judge will decide whether to shut down the Web site.

What's interesting about the law is that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) alleges the U.S. had a … Read more

The new politics of Silicon Valley: Revenge of the nerds

commentary It was a dangerous year for innovation. Governments around the world became increasingly aware that digital technology could disrupt the political and economic status quo.

Lawmakers and lobbyists were calling for new laws to curb innovations that challenged traditional law enforcement and old ways of doing business. But the laws would have stifled innovation far beyond their intended goals. Technology industry leaders sounded the alarm, but their voices went largely unheard in the corridors of power.

But one proposal gave birth to an organized resistance. Top government officials tried to force industry to re-engineer key technologies to dramatically expand … Read more

Carrier IQ apologizes, drops threat to security researcher

Carrier IQ, a maker of software to monitor smartphone performance, has withdrawn a legal attack against Trevor Eckhart and apologized after the Electronic Frontier Foundation came to the security researcher's defense.

Eckhart published his research last week, saying that some Samsung and HTC Android phones include Carrier IQ's software, and that Verizon and Sprint use it. He documented details of what the Carrier IQ software logs, then leveled a heavy charge by calling the software a rootkit--a program that gets privileged access to a computing device but that hides its presence.

Carrier IQ didn't like Eckhart's conclusions … Read more

Apple, Dropbox join Electronic Privacy Act fight

Apple and Dropbox have joined the Digital Due Process coalition, according to an announcement yesterday from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the sponsors of the group.

Digital Due Process is made up of a host of organizations and companies, including the EFF, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Amazon, that have publicly noted their disapproval of the treatment of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) on the part of law enforcement officials.

The ECPA was passed in 1986, and since then, few modifications have been made to it to adequately govern the changing times in technology, the EFF argues. … Read more

HTTPS Everywhere opens to all

The security add-on for Firefox called HTTPS Everywhere (download) that forces HTTPS encryption on numerous popular Web sites has graduated to its first stable release, about a year after it was released into public beta.

The tool does not let you force HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) willy-nilly on Web sites. Instead, it includes a series of rules that supports sites that allow HTTPS encryption. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said in the blog post announcing the release that it encompasses more than 1,000 popular sites, including Google Search, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, bit.ly, GMX, Wordpress.com blogs, The New … Read more

DOJ takes swipe at EFF over encryption passphrases

The U.S. Department of Justice took a thinly veiled swipe at an online civil liberties group that's arguing a Colorado woman can't be forced to decrypt her laptop for police inspection.

In a legal brief filed yesterday in what is likely to be a precedent-setting case, the Justice Department claimed that the Electronic Frontier Foundation had previously agreed that being forced to type in your passphrase was legal and did not violate Americans' rights to self-incrimination.

Prosecutors are hoping to convince a federal judge to order Ramona Fricosu, accused of running a mortgage scam, to decrypt an … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1494: We Like + 1 Yonanna (Podcast)

The otherwise staid and professional Jason Hiner joins us from TechRepublic to discuss important issues like the amazing Yonanna machine, which turns your banana into froyo just like that! Ok, ok, in tech news, a 19-year-old is arrested in the UK, but LulzSec says he's just the IRC moderator. Sounds important to us. Plus, your Facebook and Twitter posts will haunt you for seven years, just like your bad credit card purchases.

EFF: Apple needs to defend its developers

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has called Apple out for not responding fast enough, or at all, to a developing legal situation that's got some iOS developers spooked.

In a post on the group's blog today, EFF staff attorney Julie Samuels said Apple has put developers in a difficult position by requiring them to use within their apps in-app purchase (IAP), a mechanism that's been targeted by a third-party group that says the technology infringes on its patents.

That group, Lodsys, triggered a controversy last week when it began going after developers--instead of Apple--in seeking a licensing … Read more