French Ministry of Interior wants to ban open wifi, Tor Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow A leaked memo from the Ministry sets out new bills it would like to see introduced into the French Parliament as early as next month, setting out an ambitious plan to block privacy tools, something only technically possible by recreating China’s … Read more
Wikipedia is using artificial intelligence to get more actual humans writing articles The Next Web by Napier Lopez Better artificial intelligence is often associated with the detriment of a human workforce, but judging by some new practices by the team at Wikipedia HQ, it doesn’t have to be that way. Racist algorithms: how Big Data makes bias seem objective Boing … Read more
Signs Point to Unencrypted Communications Between Terror Suspects The Intercept by Dan Froomkin In the wake of the Paris attack, intelligence officials and sympathizers upset by the Edward Snowden leaks and the spread of encrypted communications havetried to blame Snowden for the terrorists’ ability to keep their plans secret from law enforcement. Yet news emerging from … Read more
Open Access Is a Human Rights Issue EFF.org Updates by Elliot Harmon A BBC article has been making the rounds this week about #icanhazpdf, a “secret codeword” that people use to access research papers from limited-access journals. The idea is simple: when researchers—or, for that matter, curious readers—find a reference to an article that they can’t … Read more
Ada Lovelace Day: Celebrating the Achievements of Women in Technology EFF.org Updates by Annelyse Gelman 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. Snowden for drones: The Intercept’s expose on US drone attacks, … Read more
Where Do Major Tech Companies Stand on Encryption? EFF.org Updates by Amul Kalia 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 … Read more
EU top court: NSA spying means US servers are not a fit home for Europeans’ data Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow Historically, US companies have been able to get around the (relatively stringent) European data-protection rules thanks to a “Safe Harbor” agreement between the US and the EU — but Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist, … Read more