July 18, 2014 - 8:00am PDT to July 20, 2014 - 6:00pm PDT
New York City

A bunch of EFFers will speak at HOPE X (Hackers on Planet Earth) in New York City. In its tenth year, HOPE is one of the foremost hacker events, chock full of projects, talks, workshops, and more. Be sure to stop by the EFF booth to learn about the latest developments in protecting digital freedom. You can also donate to EFF, pick up some cool swag, and become an official member! HOPE attendees are invited to join us at EFF's Speakeasy: NYC members' meetup on Friday night! Get the info at our table.

Here are the HOPE talks featuring EFF staffers:

HTTP Must Die Friday, July 18, 2014 5 PM (Serpico)

We all know that HTTP is insecure, but the Snowden revelations of 2013 showed that insecurity runs far, far deeper than most of us could have imagined. It’s bad enough, in fact, that anyone who still supports it is contributing to the weaponization of the Internet by government spy agencies. We believe that nobody at HOPE X has any excuse to be using plain HTTP instead of HTTPS in 2014. In this talk, we will summarize what the Snowden revelations mean for protecting data in transit: scary stuff like how supposedly secure cookies on social network sites can be turned into custom beacons for marking victims of targeted malware. We'll talk about what every web service provider needs to do at the very minimum to mitigate these attacks, and what clients can do to protect themselves. Finally, we will share some success stories from the last year that show how Edward Snowden has raised the bar for web security and created a safer online landscape for the average user.

Speakers: Yan Zhu; Parker Higgins

Why the Future is Open Wireless Friday, July 18, 2014 at 7 PM (Serpico)

How do we begin the movement to create a world of ubiquitous open wireless, where sharing and openness is the norm? How do we get it to spread? Speakers from EFF’s activism, legal, and technology teams will describe the open wireless movement (https://www.openwireless.org) and the specific challenges their open wireless router campaign is solving. The first hurdle is convincing the world that sharing Wi-Fi with guest users is, as security expert Bruce Schneier puts it, a matter of “basic politeness.” Another perceived roadblock is the belief that running an open network could subject the host to legal liability. Lastly, even proponents of open wireless lack easy technical solutions to safely enable private and anonymous guest access without reservations. To that end, EFF is developing an easy to set up, secure Wi-Fi router. But, in order to truly realize our open wireless future, they will need your help.

Speakers: Adi Kamdar; Nate Cardozo; Ranga Krishnan

Ask the EFF – This Year on the Internet Saturday, July 19, 2014 11 AM (Manning)

Hear from our lawyers, activists, technologists, and international policy analysts. Since HOPE Number Nine, much has happened on the Internet. From Aaron Swartz’ tragic death to Edward Snowden’s revelations, from TPP to Stop Watching Us, they will put it all in context and answer your questions. This session will include updates on current EFF issues such as our efforts to end mass spying both at home and abroad, our fight against the use of intellectual property claims to shut down free speech and halt innovation, a discussion of our technology projects to protect privacy and speech online, updates on our cases against the NSA, litigation and legislation affecting security research, what EFF is doing to open access to scholarly works, how we're fighting the expansion of the surveillance state, and much more. Half the session will be given over to Q&A, so it’s your chance to ask EFF questions about the law and technology issues that are important to you.

Speakers: Nate Cardozo; Kurt Opsahl; Adi Kamdar; Peter Eckersley; Eva Galperin

SecureDrop: A WikiLeaks in Every Newsroom Saturday, July 19, 2014 12 PM (Manning)

SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system that media organizations can use to securely accept documents from and communicate with anonymous sources. The platform has been deployed and is being actively used by an array of journalistic organizations to provide a secure and usable platform for whistleblowers to get in touch with journalists while protecting their own identity. The talk will begin with a broad overview of the project and then go into more detail: what does the network architecture look like, what does it provide, and what cryptographic primitives are used?

Speakers: William Budington; Garrett Robinson; Yan Zhu

Privacy-Friendly Hypertext? Do Not Track, Privacy Badger, and the Advertising-Funded Web Sun, 20 Jul 2014 18:00 (Manning)

This talk will introduce the design and implementation of Privacy Badger, EFF’s new browser extension that automatically blocks both invisible trackers and spying ads. It is intended to be a minimal- or zero-configuration option that most Internet users can use to prevent nonconsensual third party collection of their reading habits from their everyday browser. Privacy Badger couples the recently developed HTTP Do Not Track opt-out header with a number of heuristics for classifying the behavior of third parties to automatically determine which should be blocked, which are needed but should have cookies blocked, and which are safe from a privacy perspective. Peter will also talk about the bigger picture on the role that nonconsensual commercial surveillance has come to play in the business and technical infrastructure of the Web; and what we can do to build better alternatives.
Speakers: Peter Eckersley