Recent Articles

The Secrecy Double-Standard

Paul Hardwick
April 07, 2011 23:45

The Secrecy Double-Standard: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union. For almost a decade, the American public has been told time and time again that some of our government's most controversial national security policies and programs are "secret."...

Fully-qualified Nonsense in the SSL Observatory

Paul Hardwick
April 07, 2011 23:41

Fully-qualified Nonsense in the SSL Observatory: Via EFF.org Updates. Yesterday, I posted about how internet certification authorities will sign unqualified names, which have no meaning on the internet. In addition to unqualified names being meaningless — or, worse than meaningless — there are...

Appeals Court Strengthens Warrantless Searches at Border

Paul Hardwick
April 07, 2011 23:32

Appeals Court Strengthens Warrantless Searches at Border: Via Wired: Threat Level. The authorities may seize laptops, cameras and other digital devices at the U.S. border without a warrant, and scour through them for days hundreds of miles away, a federal appeals court ruled. The 2-1 decision...

Justice Dept. to Congress: Don’t Saddle 4th Amendment on Us

Paul Hardwick
April 07, 2011 23:29

Justice Dept. to Congress: Don’t Saddle 4th Amendment on Us: Via Wired: Threat Level. The Obama administration is urging Congress not to adopt legislation that would impose constitutional safeguards on Americans’ e-mail stored in the cloud. As the law stands now, the authorities may obtain...

Feds, RIAA Ask $22,500 in Damages Per Song

Paul Hardwick
April 07, 2011 23:25

Feds, RIAA Ask $22,500 in Damages Per Song: Via Wired: Threat Level. Do federal judges have the power to reduce jury awards in copyright-infringement cases? The Obama administration and the Recording Industry Association of America don’t think so. They argued that point Monday before a...

Building a better Certificate Authority (CA) infrastructure

Paul Hardwick
March 31, 2011 20:44

Building a better CA infrastructure: Via Freedom to Tinker. As several Tor project authors, Ben Adida and many others have written, our certificate authority infrastructure has the flaw that any one CA, anywhere on the planet, can issue a certificate for any web site, anywhere else on the planet....

Where’s EFF? Why EFF Is Sometimes Quiet About Important Cases

Paul Hardwick
March 31, 2011 20:38

Where’s EFF? Why EFF Is Sometimes Quiet About Important Cases: Via EFF.org Updates. When legal issues light up the Internet, people turn to EFF for answers.  Whether it’s attacks on coders' rights, overreaching copyright claims online, or governments' efforts to censor or spy...

Congressman Wants YouTube Video Covered Up

Paul Hardwick
March 31, 2011 20:29

Congressman Wants YouTube Video Covered Up: Via Slashdot. Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Examiner reports that Wisconsin Republicans claim that no one else can republish a video of United States Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI) complaining about how he is 'struggling' to get by on his $174,000...

Man Creates "Creepy" Stalking App

Paul Hardwick
March 31, 2011 20:22

Man Creates "Creepy" Stalking App: Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online. An anonymous reader writes "Creepy, a package described as a 'geolocation information aggregator,' is turning heads in privacy circles, but should people be worried? Yiannis Kakavas explains why he developed his scary stalking...

Boston College Says Using WiFi Is a Sign of Infringement

Paul Hardwick
March 31, 2011 20:20

Boston College Says Using WiFi Is a Sign of Infringement: Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online. An anonymous reader writes "Boston College has a funny idea of what constitutes copyright infringement. It has a list of what might be called 'you might be a copyright infringer if...' with the sort of...