Privacy & Governance

EFF and Allies on Brazil's Elections: Privacy Protections are Crucial to Electoral Integrity

EFF, Access Now, and Data Privacy Brasil are putting forward recommendations to strengthen robust privacy and data protection safe…

LLM-Based Social Engineering Scams

OpenAI disrupted a social engineering group from Cambodia that used ChatGPT. Its scope is impressive: The network simultaneously c…

A List of ICE Subpoenas to Tech Companies

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted unlawful investigations into dozens of individuals who have documented ICE…

EFF's Policy Position on ALPR Surveillance: Eliminate It and Reduce Its Harms

Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) build a searchable map of everywhere a driver goes, fed into databases that police, ICE, a…

EFF Statement on Meta Settlement

Under this settlement, young users will now have less access to Meta products, and a lesser ability to exercise their rights to sp…

French Top Court Gets It Right, Strikes Down Social Media Ban For Youths

Earlier this month, France’s top court struck down the country’s legislation that banned social media use for people under 15 year…

Spyware for Babies

The New York Times has a long article (alt link) on surveillance systems aimed at babies. They are increasingly using AI. Nanit an…

Black Hat State of Security Vendors

Andy Ellis has a roundup of the security vendors at Black Hat this year. Key Takeaways: We have entered into an AI world. While n…

Criminal Deception in Silicon Valley

Interesting paper: Abstract: With entrepreneurial fraud cases on the rise, we investigate how entrepreneurs carry out criminal dec…

Friday Squid Blogging: Neon Flying Squid

The neon flying squid can fly in formation. The shoal of about 100 squid rose unexpectedly from a patch of the Pacific Ocean aroun…

AI Is Learning to Write Genetic Code

This sort of research is both exciting and terrifying: The two models in question were told to generate complete genomes for a via…

EFF and Civil Society Groups Call on Nottinghamshire Police to Halt Live Face Recognition

This week, EFF, along with Big Brother Watch, Defend Digital Me, Liberty, Open Rights Group, Race Equality First, Statewatch, and…

More Incidents of AIs Going Rogue in Cybersecurity Challenges

The AI Security Institute has a new report of AI systems engaging in “unsanctioned behavior”—what I have been calling “genie behav…

Intermediary Liability in Brazil: The Intricate Path Ahead

Brazil's new internet intermediary liability regime is underway. The implementation of changes established by the Supreme Court in…

Detailed Timeline of OpenAI’s Cyberattack on Hugging Face

OpenAI presented details of its AI’s model’s cyberattack on Hugging Face at Black Hat last week. Simon Willison details the timeli…

Police Are Hiding Their Use of Flock Surveillance Cameras

A usage policy for Flock license plate reader cameras tells police not to talk about the cameras: When cops use Flock to arrest so…

Some Tech Companies Have Privately Pushed Back on ICE Subpoenas. They Should All Do More.

In a handful of known cases, large social media companies have privately pushed back against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (…

📍 The Sneaky Code Tracking App Users | EFFector 38.15

Your location isn't just a pin on a map—it can expose some of the most intimate details about your life. The value of this informa…

ICE Collecting DNA Samples

ICE collected nearly a million DNA samples last year.

Ninth Circuit Ruling Will Force Online Platforms That Host User Speech to Fight Lengthy and Costly Lawsuits Before They Are Dismissed Under Section 230

A federal appeals court just made it harder for online services, big and small, to get lawsuits over user speech dismissed early.…

ZKP’s Aren’t Age Verification Silver Bullets

Age verification (laws and regulations requiring platforms and websites to assure or estimate that a user seeking to use an online…

LLMs and Contextual Integrity

I have been thinking a lot about AI and integrity. Part of that is contextual integrity. I recently found two papers on the topic.…

Hacking Public Wi-Fi DNS to Steal Credentials

Criminals are hacking into public Wi-Fi devices—at hotels, conference centers, and so on—around the world and changing their DNS s…

Friday Squid Blogging: Searching for the Colossal Squid

Fascinating video about searching for life undersea. The video basically makes the point that our bright white searchlights are sc…

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking, signing books, and participating in panel discussi…

If the Markets Reject OpenAI and Anthropic, the US Should Nationalize Them

This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in The Guardian. OpenAI, and then Anthropic, were each form…

Too Little, Too Late: Flock Admits Their Technology Needs Reforms

Flock Safety, the embattled vendor of mass surveillance technology, has rolled out a handful of new reforms intended to appease th…

Cybercriminals Turn to Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks

Separating AI’s Technological Problems from Its Capitalism Problems

This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in Tech Policy Press. AI represents the first time we human…

Prompt Injections for Defense

This seems to work: Researchers from Tracebit on Monday said they found that placing prompt injections alongside passwords, crypto…