Twitter has released a new transparency report. The company—which scored five stars in our latest “Who Has Your Back?” report—blogged about the release, wrote that “[p]roviding this insight is simply the right thing to do, especially in an age of increasing concerns about government surveillance.” More than thirtyInternet companies now publish transparency reports.
President Barack Obama announced a new Executive Order today aimed at facilitating the sharing of information about cyber-threats between private sector companies and the government.
What do drag queens, burlesque performers, human rights activists in Vietnam and Syria, and Native Americans have in common? They have all been the targets of “real names” enforcement on Facebook. And despite reports from the media last year that seemed to indicate that Facebook has “fixed” the issue, they’re still being targeted.
Here at EFF we rely heavily on freely licensed software to run our websites, organization, and activism campaigns.
Best known as the open source Linux-based desktop operating system, Ubuntu is now coming to mobiles.
YouTube is the Internet in its purest form. For better or worse, this is the audio-visual mirror of humanity’s digital experience. YouTube was launched 10 years ago as a video dating site inspired by the Hot or Not site.
President Barack Obama ceremoniously signed an executive order on Friday that calls for private companies to work together when it comes to cyberthreats and more readily share that information with the government.
Obama Announces New Privacy Rules for the World. World Not Impressed.
President Obama recently announced slight changes to NSA data collection practices. The recent tweaks mean two new privacy protections for those that U.S. law considers foreigners (in this case, people who are outside of the United States borders who are neither U.S. citizens nor legal U.S. residents).
Perhaps you’re thinking Obama is using his executive authority to stop the mass surveillance of all Internet traffic of people worldwide? Nope, not quite. The new protections are:
German teletext porn (crude pixelated nudity, sexy seizure warning for hot GIF action)
From Altamont Pass to Mountain View: Getting more renewable energy on the grid
Twitter Revenue Should Exceed $2 Billion This Year
Twitter’s monthly active user number continues to underwhelm Wall Street, but one area where the company is killing it is quarterly revenues.
In Q4 2014, Twitter raked in more than $479 million, a 33 percent increase on Q3 ($361 million).
Why I Can’t Stop Watching Horrifying ISIS Decapitation Videos
Even though every caution label and trigger warning screamed at me not to, and even though I knew what would happen to my head and my stomach if I did, I watched the video of the Jordanian pilot being burned alive by ISIS militants. (The video is not linked there, by the way.) In another […]
A Crypto Trick That Makes Software Nearly Impossible to Reverse-Engineer
Software reverse engineering, the art of pulling programs apart to figure out how they work, is what makes it possible for sophisticated hackers to scour code for exploitable bugs. It’s also what allows those same hackers’ dangerous malware to be deconstructed and neutered. Now a new encryption trick could make both those tasks much, much harder. At […]
42 Percent of Americans Are Wrong About Drones
Drones are inescapable in today’s media, whether they’re crashing on the White House lawn, soaring over bubbling Icelandic volcanoes, or being sold at the mall as a hot gift.
Algorithm-generated song, based on income data
In the first song of his music experiment Data-Driven DJ, visual artist Brian Foo used median household income data to create a song that represents a ride on a New York subway.
We Use More Happy Words Than Sad Words, Says Twitter Study
A new study has revealed that we use far more positive than negative words in most forms of written language, including Twitter.
Using big data methodology, a team of scientists analysed the words used in 10 languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Indonesian, Russian, Arabic, Korean and Chinese, and found that the most commonly used words in each language skewed towards the positive.
Is the Maker Movement Equitable?
The title of the article from The Atlantic stopped me in my tracks as I was scrolling through my Twitter feed: “Why I am Not a Maker.”
Twitter Transparency Report: 2,871 Account Info Requests, up 40%
Twitter has released its latest Transparency Report, a bi-annual update that highlights trends in government requests for account information and content removal, as well as copyright notices (both takedown and counter notices).
Security researcher releases 10 million username and password combinations
Security researcher Mark Burnett has released 10,000,000 username/password combos he’s downloaded from well-publicized hacks, citing the prosecution of Barrett Brown and the looming Obama administration crackdown on security researchers as impetus to do this before it became legally impossible. Read the rest
Data Mining Reveals a Global Link Between Corruption and Wealth
Social scientists have never understood why some countries are more corrupt than others. But the first study that links corruption with wealth could help change that.
The Best All-in-One Desktops for Dorm Rooms and Small Offices
If you haven’t checked out an all-in-one desktop PC lately, you might be surprised how much is happening behind that big screen.
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