Related Updates
Why We're Suing the FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants
Law Enforcement Should Not Be Able to Bypass the Fourth Amendment to Search Your Devices Sending your computer to Best Buy for repairs shouldn’t require you to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights. But that’s apparently what’s been happening when customers send their computers to a Geek Squad repair facility in...
Why the Patching Problem Makes us WannaCry
Over the weekend a cyber attack known as " WannaCry " infected hundreds of computers all over the world with ransomware (malware which encrypts your data until you pay a ransom, usually in Bitcoin). The attack takes advantage of an exploit for Windows...
Intel's Management Engine is a security hazard, and users need a way to disable it
Intel’s CPUs have another Intel inside. Since 2008, most of Intel’s chipsets have contained a tiny homunculus computer called the “Management Engine” (ME). The ME is a largely undocumented master controller for your CPU: it works with system firmware during boot and has direct access to system memory,...
The Bill of Rights at the Border: Fifth Amendment Protections for Account Passwords and Device Passcodes
This is the third and final installment in our series on the Constitution at the border. Today, we’ll focus on the Fifth Amendment and passwords. Click here for Part 1 on the First Amendment or Part 2 on the Fourth Amendment . Lately, a big question on...
The Bill of Rights at the Border: Fourth Amendment Limits on Searching Your Data and Devices
More than 325,000 people enter the United States via airports every day, with hundreds of thousands more crossing by land at the borders. Not only is that a lot of people, it’s also a lot of computers, smartphones, and tablets riding along in our pockets, bags,...
Why breaking encryption is a bad idea that could never work
Here we go again. UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said that end-to-end encryption in apps like WhatsApp is “completely unacceptable” and that there should be “no hiding place for terrorists”. Her comments resurface the debate over banning encryption – an idea that is realistically unworkable and potentially mathematically impossible...
Five Ways Cybersecurity Will Suffer If Congress Repeals the FCC Privacy Rules
Call your Congressmember now to save online privacy! Back in October of 2016, the Federal Communications Commission passed some pretty awesome rules that would bar your Internet provider from invading your privacy. The rules would keep Internet providers like...
EFF Launches Community Security Training Series
EFF is pleased to announce a series of community security trainings in partnership with the San Francisco Public Library . High-profile data breaches and hard-fought battles against unlawful mass surveillance programs underscore that the public needs practical information about online security. We know more about potential threats...
What the CIA WikiLeaks dump tells us: Encryption works
According to the purported CIA documents, spies have found ways to exploit holes in phone and computer software to grab messages when they haven't been encrypted yet. Although Apple, Google and Microsoft say they have fixed many of the vulnerabilities alluded to in the CIA documents, it's not known how...
With Claims of C.I.A. Hacking, How to Protect Your Devices
“The one thing that people can and should be doing is keeping their apps and phones as up-to-date as possible,” said Kurt Opsahl, deputy executive director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit.
