Privacy &amp; Governance

Rewiring Democracy Series on The Renovator

Nathan E. Sanders and I are writing a series of essays on real-world examples of democratic technologies for The Renovator. I have…

EFF to Governor Newsom: Veto California’s AB 1709

The California legislature passed Assembly Bill 1709 (A.B. 1709) today, which functions as a sweeping ban on social media use for…

EFF to Courts: Don’t Rewrite Copyright Over AI Hype

The history of technology is rife with copyright panics. In the 1980s, major rightsholders ran to Congress and the courts, claimi…

Doxxing Safety Part II: Incident Response

Doxxing, also known as the deliberate sharing of personal information to harass or endanger someone, is a tricky thing to protect…

PRIVhighSchneier on Securityabout 2 months ago

Doxxing Safety Pt I: Prevention and Footprint Management

Doxxing is the deliberate disclosure of personal information in order to bully, harass, intimidate, or instigate a chain of harms…

Is Someone Hacking DoD Refrigerators?

It sure seems like it. The stores confirmed to be affected include Fort Irwin, Calif.; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.; Fort Huac…

Privacy on the Map (Part 2): Progress, Pitfalls, and the Fight for Enforceable Location Data Protections

Regulating commercial location tracking has reached a turning point. Last year, we published our rubric for what comprehensive and…

LGBT Q&A: What’s One Thing I Can Do Today to Improve My Safety and Security Online as an LGBTQ+ Person?

This post is adapted from a video recorded by EFF and the Trevor Project. Head over to our TikTok or Instagram to watch! EFF answ…

Hiding Prompt Injection in Legal Filing

Someone hid AI instructions into a legal filing. Alternate link.

Friday Squid Blogging: Truckload of Squid Spills in Rhode Island

Ugh: A tractor-trailer rollover sent a truckload of squid spilling into a Rhode Island roadway, leaving a stench as they sat in th…

AI Doesn’t Mean the End of Mathematics—at Least Not Yet

This essay was written with Kasra Rafi, and originally appeared in The Guardian. Earlier this month, about 40 top mathematicians g…

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…