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In keeping with law enforcement’s grand tradition of taking antiquated, invasive, and oppressive technologies, making them digital, and then calling it innovation , police in the U.S. recently combined two existing dystopian technologies in a brand new way to violate civil liberties. A police force in California recently employed the new practice of taking a DNA sample from a crime scene, running this through a service provided by US company Parabon NanoLabs that guesses what the perpetrators face looked like,...
This post was written by Rachel Hochhauser, an EFF legal intern We’ve written multiple times about the inaccurate and dangerous “gunshot detection” tool, Shotspotter. A recent near-tragedy in Chicago adds to the growing pile of evidence that cities should drop the product. On January 25, while responding to a ShotSpotter alert, a Chicago police officer opened fire on an unarmed “ maybe 14 or 15 ” year old child in his backyard. Three officers approached the boy’s house, with one...
You’re not supposed to be able to litigate in secret in the U.S. That’s especially true in a patent case dealing with technology that most internet users rely on every day. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happening in a case called Entropic Communications, LLC v. Charter Communications, Inc . The parties have made so much of their dispute secret that it is hard to tell how the patents owned by Entropic might affect the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS)...
Surveillance Self-Defense
Description:
Surveillance Self-Defense is EFF's online guide to defending yourself and your friends from surveillance by using secure technology and developing careful practices.
Privacy Badger
Description:
Privacy Badger is an install-and-forget browser add-on that stops advertisers and trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web.