The Safest Conversation You'll Have This Holiday
Do your friends and family rope you into providing tech support when you're home for the holidays? Use this opportunity to be a digital security hero and rescue your family from tracking cookies, unencrypted disks, insecure chats, and recycled passwords.
Check out EFF’s Security Education Companion for ideas...
Court Rules That EFF's Stupid Patent of the Month Post Is Protected Speech
A federal judge has ruled that EFF need not obey an Australian injunction ordering EFF to take down a “Stupid Patent of the Month” blog post and never speak of the patent owner’s intellectual property again.
It all started when Global Equity Management (SA) Pty Ltd (GEMSA)’s ...
Why We're Helping The Stranger Unseal Electronic Surveillance Records
Consider this: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has been going around talking about “responsible encryption” for some time now— proselytizing for encryption that’s somehow only accessible by the government—something we all know to be unworkable. If the Department of Justice (DOJ) is taking this aggressive public position about what...
Will Congress Bless Internet Fast Lanes?
As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gets ready to abandon a decade of progress on net neutrality, some in Congress are considering how new legislation could fill the gap and protect users from unfair ISP practices. Unfortunately, too many lawmakers seem to be embracing the idea that they should...
The FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act Restricts Congress, Not Surveillance
The FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017—legislation meant to extend government surveillance powers—squanders several opportunities for meaningful reform and, astonishingly, manages to push civil liberties backwards. The bill is a gift to the intelligence community, restricting surveillance reforms, not surveillance itself.
The bill (S. 2010) was introduced October...
Time Will Tell if the New Vulnerabilities Equities Process Is a Step Forward for Transparency
The White House has released a new and apparently improved Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP), showing signs that there will be more transparency into the government’s knowledge and use of zero day vulnerabilities. In recent years, the U.S. intelligence community has faced questions about whether it “stockpiles” vulnerabilities rather...
Court Rules Platforms Can Defend Users’ Free Speech Rights, But Fails to Follow Through on Protections for Anonymous Speech
A decision by a California appeals court on Monday recognized that online platforms can fight for their users’ First Amendment rights, though the decision also potentially makes it easier to unmask anonymous online speakers.
Yelp v. Superior Court grew out of a defamation case brought in 2016 by...
EFF Urges DHS to Abandon Social Media Surveillance and Automated “Extreme Vetting” of Immigrants
EFF is urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to end its programs of social media surveillance and automated “extreme vetting” of immigrants. Together, these programs have created a privacy-invading integrated system to harvest, preserve, and data-mine immigrants' social media information, including use of algorithms that sift through posts using...
Stupid Patent Data of the Month: the Devil in the Details
A Misunderstanding of Data Leads to a Misunderstanding of Patent Law and Policy
Bad patents shouldn’t be used to stifle competition. A process to challenge bad patents when they improperly issue is important to keeping consumer costs down and encouraging new innovation. But according to a recent post...
Announcing the Security Education Companion
The need for robust personal digital security is growing every day. From grassroots groups to civil society organizations to individual EFF members, people from across our community are voicing a need for accessible security education materials to share with their friends, neighbors, and colleagues.
We are thrilled to help....









