Favorite For the last hundred years, women have had pivotal and far too often unsung roles in building and shaping the technology that we now use every day. Many have heard of Ada Lovelace’s contributions to computer programming, but far fewer know Mary Allen Wilkes, a prominent modern programmer who wrote much of the software…
All posts by electronicfrontierfoundation
Admiring Our Heroes for International Women’s Day: Five Women In Tech That EFF Admires
Favorite In honor of International Women’s Day, we asked five women at EFF about women in digital rights, freedom of expression, technology, and tech activism who have inspired us. Anna Politkovskaya Jillian York, Activist This International Women’s Day, I want to honor the memory of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian investigative journalist who relentlessly exposed political and social abuses, endured harassment and violence for…
Weasel Words: OpenAI’s Pentagon Deal Won’t Stop AI‑Powered Surveillance
Favorite OpenAI, the maker of ChaptGPT, is rightfully facing widespread criticism for its decisions to fill the gap the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) created when rival Anthropic refused to drop its restrictions against using its AI for surveillance and autonomous weapons systems. After protests from both users and employees who did not sign up…
The Government Uses Targeted Advertising to Track Your Location. Here's What We Need to Do.
Favorite We’ve all had the unsettling experience of seeing an ad online that reveals just how much advertisers know about our lives. You’re right to be disturbed. Those very same online ad systems have been used by the government to warrantlessly track peoples’ locations, new reporting has confirmed. For years, the internet advertising industry has…
Speaking Freely: Shin Yang
Favorite *This interview has been edited for length and clarity. David Greene: Shin, please introduce yourself to the Speaking Freely community. Shin Yang: My name is Shin Yang. I am a queer writer with a legal background and experience in product management. I am the steward of Lezismore, an independent, self-hosted, open-source community for sexual…
EFF to Supreme Court: Shut Down Unconstitutional Geofence Searches
Favorite Digital Dragnets Violate Fourth Amendment, Brief Argues WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Virginia, and the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law filed a brief Monday urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that invasive geofence warrants are unconstitutional. The brief argues that…
National Book Tour for Cindy Cohn’s Memoir, ‘Privacy’s Defender’
Favorite MIT Press Publishes EFF Executive Director’s Book As She Prepares to Depart Organization After 25 Years SAN FRANCISCO – Electronic Frontier Foundation Executive Director Cindy Cohn will launch her memoir, Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance (MIT Press, March 10), with events in San Francisco and Berkeley before embarking on a national…
Victory! Tenth Circuit Finds Fourth Amendment Doesn’t Support Broad Search of Protesters’ Devices and Digital Data
Favorite In a big win for protesters’ rights, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit overturned a lower court’s dismissal of a challenge to sweeping warrants to search a protester’s devices and digital data and a nonprofit’s social media data. The case, Armendariz v. City of Colorado Springs, arose after a housing protest…
☺️ Trust Us With Your Face | EFFector 38.4
Favorite Do you remember the last time you were carded at a bar or restaurant? It was probably such a quick and normal experience, that you barely remember it. But have you ever been carded to use the internet? Being required to present your ID to access content online is becoming a growing reality for many.…
How to Pick Your Password Manager
Favorite Phishing and data breaches are a constant on the internet. The single best defense against both is to use a password manager to generate and automatically fill a unique password for every site. While 1Password has recently raised their prices, and researchers have recently published potential flaws in some implementations, using a password manager…