Ludlam demolishes data retention bill
At the end of January, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) held two days of hearings into the government’s data retention legislation (transcripts here and here). These hearings were at times a testy affair, with a number of Coalition members particularly being openly antagonistic to privacy advocates, including EFA’s Jon Lawrence (see […]
Secure Messaging Scorecard
Which apps and tools actually keep your messages safe? Our good friends at EFF have just published their Secure Messaging Scorecard. In the face of widespread Internet surveillance, we need a secure and practical means of talking to each other from our phones and computers. Many companies offer “secure messaging” products—but are these systems […]
The 90s and Now: FBI and its Inability to Cope with Encryption
This post, by Amul Kalia, was originally published on EFF’s Deeplinks blog on 29th October 2014. Australian authorities are using many of the same arguments, including to justify the mandatory data retention legislation introduced into parliament last week. Recently, FBI Director James B. Comey, along with several government officials, have issued many public statements regarding their inability […]
Does Tor + Facebook = better privacy?
This post is by Thomas Karpiniec, Chair of EFA’s Policy & Research Committee. On Friday Facebook announced that they are making their website available as a Tor hidden service. This will improve the Facebook experience for anyone who uses Tor to make their web browsing more anonymous, but there are downsides. Tor (The Onion Router) […]
In the Silk Road Case, Don’t Blame the Technology
The man alleged to be “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the founder and operator of the Silk Road—an online marketplace where bitcoins were traded for a range of goods and services, including drugs — was arrested by the FBI in San Francisco this week. The criminal complaint, provides many details about how the site and its users […]