The internet hasn’t killed privacy – but it has changed it forever
When people say “privacy is dead”, it’s usually for one of two reasons. Either they truly believe that privacy is irrelevant or unachievable in today’s hyper-connected world or, more often, that not enough is being done to protect privacy when huge amounts of personal information are being posted online. Although I agree more could be […]
IETF approves .onion as ‘special purpose domain’
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) recently approved “.onion” as a “special-use” domain. This means, in effect, “.onion” will be treated in the same way .local, .localhost, and .example have been dealt with previously — that is, outside the global Domain Name System (DNS). Adding .onion to the Special-Use Domain Names registry will also enable […]
Australia: global village idiot (again)?
Australian Internet pioneer Geoff Huston thinks our data retention laws will result in our web browsing history being retained and thinks this relegates us to global village idiot status. Again. I recall from some years back, when we were debating in Australia some national Internet censorship proposal de jour, that if the Internet represented a […]
EFA supports call to avoid criminalisation of cryptologic research
EFA supports the call by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) for amendments to the Defence Trade Controls Act to include clear exemptions for scientific research and for education. Australia’s Defence Trade Controls Act was recently updated and now prohibits the “intangible supply” of encryption technologies, and hence subjects many ordinary teaching and research activities […]
Vale Caspar Bowden
It was with great sadness that we heard of the death last week of Caspar Bowden, privacy activist. Caspar had a long history of privacy advocacy, and was particularly notable in both the fight for public access to strong cryptography in the 1990s and the current fight against mass surveillance. He was co-founder and director […]