EFDbackup: September 30

The US’s Campaign Against Encryption Is Based on Blind Faith in Silicon Valley

Stanford Center for Internet and Society by Center for Internet and Society

Date published:

September 22, 2015

“”The unanimous conclusion—the scientific consensus—in industry, in academia, and even among government experts is that there is a significant security risk associated with facilitating government access via a backdoor,” Jonathan Mayer, a computer scientist and lawyer at Stanford who is considered one of the nation’s top security experts, said at an encryption policy event in Washington DC Monday.

The Snowden Treaty: protecting the world’s whistleblowers in the age of privacy breaches

Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

AP_166186450540-promo

The Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers [PDF] (AKA “The Snowden Treaty”) was created by David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald’s partner, who was detained by UK policeunder terrorism legislation while transiting through London’s Heathrow airport with a encrypted thumbdrive containing some of the Snowden leaks.

The Bizarre, Bony-Looking Future of Algorithmic Design

Wired Top Stories by Margaret Rhodes

Generative design could be the next frontier in industrial design.

Longer Tweets Would Spell Death to the Tweetstorm

Wired Top Stories by Issie Lapowsky

But they would also spell the birth of plenty of other Twitter abuses.

Don’t Kill the Password. Change the Password

Wired Top Stories by Daniel J. Solove and Woodrow Hartzog

It’s time for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to step in and give the lowly password some backup in high risk contexts by requiring a second factor for authentication.

These tech giants just asked US government for more surveillance; call Congress now!

Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

logocloud

Evan from Fight for the Future writes, “Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Salesforce / Heroku, and a handful of other tech companies just betrayed billions of people’s trust. They signed a letter endorsing CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act.”

Google’s Three Tips for Sabotaging the Cybercrime Economy

Wired Top Stories by Andy Greenberg

In a broad study, a team of Googlers and academic researchers suggest attacking the cybercrime supply chain.

Microsoft Built Its Own Linux Because Everyone Else Did

Wired Top Stories by Cade Metz

For years, Microsoft actively worked to suppress Linux. Now it’s using the open source operating system to help run its online empire.

Nikola Tesla’s Predictions for the 21st Century: The Rise of Smart Phones & Wireless, The Demise of Coffee, The Rule of Eugenics (1926/35)

Open Culture by Josh Jones

The fate of the visionary is to be forever outside of his or her time. Such was the life of Nikola Tesla, who dreamed the future while his opportunistic rivalThomas Edison seized the moment. Even now the name Tesla conjures seemingly wildly impractical ventures, too advanced, too expensive, or far too elegant in design for mass production and consumption. No one better than David Bowie, the pop artist of possibility, could embody Tesla’s air of magisterial high seriousness on the screen. And few were better suited than Tesla himself, perhaps, to extrapolate from his time to ours and see the technological future clearly.

Taken Offline: Years in Prison for a Love of Technology

EFF.org Updates by Danny O’Brien

Writing a letter with a pen has an odd feeling in a digital age. You pick your words carefully, without a delete key. You urge your hands to recall their best handwriting. You ponder about forms of address and how much space to leave; should I fill the page, or sign off half-way down?

The shape of the Internet (according to patent drawings)

Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

thumb39

The stylized art of patent drawings is instantly recognizable. Before the information age, the drawings were drafter’s jewelboxes, designed to make the workings of new mechanical inventions legible to other inventors (and patent examiners).

The ethical ad blocker

Boing Boing by Laura Hudson

Yes, advertisements on websites are annoying at best, but they’re also a large and important part of how websites make money so that they can keep providing you with sweet, sweet content. So what’s an ethical person who desperately wants to install an ad blocker supposed to do?

Happy Birthday Enters ‘Public Domain,’ Judge Rules Copyright Invalid

TorrentFreak

copyright-branded Starting today everyone is free use “Happy Birthday” without having to pay a license fee, as a California federal court ruling suggests that the popular song is now the public domain*.