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
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
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
EFF Announces 2015 Pioneer Award Winners: Caspar Bowden, Citizen Lab, Anriette Esterhuysen and the Association for Progressive Communications, and Kathy Sierra EFF.org Updates by Rebecca Jeschke Ceremony for Honorees on September 24 in San Francisco San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce the distinguished winners of the 2015 Pioneer Awards: the … Read more
New Pew data: More Americans are getting news on Facebook and Twitter Nieman Journalism Lab by Joseph Lichterman Facebook and Twitter users across all demographics are increasingly using the social networks as news sources, though they are seeking out different types of news content on each platform, according to a studyout Tuesday from the Pew Research … Read more
Hacking Team Shows the World How Not to Stockpile Exploits Wired Top Stories by Kim Zetter Zero-day exploits are like gold to hackers. Keep them all in one place and you’re asking to get robbed. Caspar Bowden: NSA Hearing LIBE European Parliament, 24 September 2013 open Democracy News Analysis – by Caspar Bowden As a tribute to … Read more
Edward Snowden: World is rejecting mass surveillance Legislation ending the US government’s bulk collection of telephone data is “a historic victory for the rights of every citizen,” former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden said in a commentary June 4 Media Lessons from Snowden Reporting: LA Times Editors Advocate Prosecution of Sources The Intercept by Glenn Greenwald Two years … Read more
Anti-austerity parties soar in Spanish elections as Greece threatens default Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow Two new, anti-establishment parties (including one that grew out of the indignados movement — a kind of Spanish precedent to Occupy) took key seats in regional and municipal elections in yesterday’s Spanish election, which is a kind of dress rehearsal for the … Read more
Cloud computing by the numbers: The rise of the private and hybrid cloud Mashable! by Stephanie Walden The proliferation of cloud computing is one of the most impactful trends in the world of enterprise IT today — and the technology is ever evolving. The business model of NSA apologists Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow Those talking heads you … Read more
The new HTTP/2 spec ushers in hopes for a faster web Mashable! by Christina Warren HTTP, or the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, is a central part of the World Wide Web. On Wednesday, Mark Nottingham, the chai HTTP/2, the first major change to HTTP in 16 years, has been finalized The Next Web by Owen Williams Here is … Read more
Transparency Is No Substitute For Free Speech EFF.org Updates by Eva Galperin and Jillian York / 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 … Read more
The Pirate Bay Is Back Online! TorrentFreak Early December The Pirate Bay was raided at the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof data center built into a mountain complex near Stockholm. The Pirate Bay returns from the dead, comes back online The Next Web by Owen Williams Following a raid on a Swedish data center late last year, … Read more
10 tech conferences around the world to attend in 2015 The Next Web by Ashley Hefnawy Ashley Hefnawy is an associate editor for Shutterstock’s blog. This post was originally published on the Shutterstock blog and has been reprinted with permission. Sexual insecurities found in Google search results FlowingData » Visualization by Nathan Yau Seth Stephens-Davidowitz continues … Read more
Google News abandons Spain in paid content row Spain’s government Thursday defied Google’s vow to shut down its Spanish online news service in protest at being made to pay for content, in its latest legal clash in Europe. Google News to shut down in Spain following new copyright law The Next Web by Owen Williams A new … Read more