If you have ever tried scanning or photocopying a banknote, you may have found that your software—such as Adobe Photoshop, or the embedded software in the photocopier—refused to let you do so. That's because your software is secretly looking for security features such as EURion dots in the documents...

Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Please join us in commemorating the life of Ada Lovelace by celebrating the achievements – past and present – of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Ada Lovelace was born two centuries ago this year, and is widely recognized as a visionary who...

This is the year for patent reform. Let’s put an end to forum shopping.
There’s a bill on the U.S. Senate floor that would make it more difficult for patent trolls to pressure innovators with unfair infringement lawsuits. But there’s a key provision missing. Without that provision, we think...

As of this month, 567 relays from our 2014 Tor Challenge are still up and running—more than were established during the entire inaugural Tor Challenge back in 2011. To put that number in perspective, these nodes represent more than 8.5% of the roughly 6,500 public relays currently active...

In January of 2015 we wrote about how healthcare.gov—the flagship site for the Affordable Care Act—was leaking personal data to third party services. The story gained a lot of attention in the press and in the government. Many privacy concerns were raised, and it appears that the...

A federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn took an admirable stand last week when he questioned the government’s authority to compel Apple to unlock a seized mobile device using the All Writs Act. That’s a general-purpose law passed in 1789 that allows a court to require third parties’ assistance to...

Today's release by Wikileaks of what is believed to be the current and essentially final version of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirms our worst fears about the agreement, and dashes the few hopes that we held out that its most onerous...

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a significant decision rejecting an absurd copyright claim in yoga poses. The decision is pretty entertaining, but its implications are important for technologists as well as yogis.
That’s because the opinion offers a close analysis of...

Comparing the Public Encryption Policies from 21 of the Biggest Tech Companies
There’s a major battle brewing over encryption right now.
Law enforcement agencies are trying to demand “backdoors” to our sensitive data and communications, while civil liberties groups are fighting back through a new campaign called ...