July 10, 2010, marks EFF’s 20th anniversary! To thank you for your support over these two decades, please enjoy this new animation created especially for us by celebrated cartoonist and free culture activist Nina Paley. This short cartoon highlights some of the reasons why EFF is here.
The EFF and the Tor Project, have launched a firefox extention called HTTPS Everywhere for a little safer browsing. EFF and Tor are major players in the privacy scene and have combined their efforts in creating an extension that encrypts firefox users’ browser communications on several prominent websites.
Many sites on the web offer some limited support for encryption over HTTPS, but make it difficult to use. For instance, they may default to unencrypted HTTP, or fill encrypted pages with links that go back to the unencrypted site.
The HTTPS Everywhere extension fixes these problems by rewriting all requests to these sites to HTTPS.
Note that some of those sites still include a lot of content from third party domains that is not available over HTTPS. As always, if the browser’s lock icon is broken or carries an exclamation mark, you may remain vulnerable to some adversaries that use active attacks or traffic analysis. However, the effort required to monitor your browsing should still be usefully increased.
The plugin currently works for:
- Google Search
- Wikipedia
- The New York Times
- The Washington Post
- Paypal
- EFF
- Tor
- Ixquick
(and many other sites)
If you are a current NoScript user, you can do the same thing that HTTPS Everywhere does, but it’s on a per site basis. The nice thing about HTTPS Everywhere is that it does it automatically, which is a plus for less technically inclined users. HTTPS Everywhere is also partially based upon NoScript so, no matter which extension you use, you can provide more privacy and security for yourself.
You can get the extension here.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.
Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) exists to answer two main questions: What can the government legally do to spy on your computer data and communications? And what can you legally do to protect yourself against such spying?
Just what information do ebook retailers know about you? The EFF has a very handy guide to help you out, so that you can make an informed decision on the matter.
For example, Google’s new Google Book Search Project has the ability to track reading habits at an unprecedented level of granularity. In particular, according to the proposed Google Books Privacy Policy, web servers will automatically “log” each book and page you searched for and read, how long you viewed it for, and what book or page you continued onto next:
Physical e-reader devices pose similar threats to reader privacy. For example, the Kindle does not sell, but rather licenses, the books, magazines, and other materials offered for wireless download through its Kindle Store, which can only be used on a particular device. This implicitly requires Amazon to know what reading material a user has licensed at any given time.
Thankfully, there are some e-reader options that do not connect wirelessly, nor include any privacy or “terms of use” provisions that allow monitoring of what you put on the device or how you use it. Sony’s Reader, for example, may collect information about what books you buy from its own eBook Store, yet the Reader also works with books purchased from other sources as well. Even safer still, popular e-reader software programs, such as open-source FBReader, allow users to download content from a number of sources onto a multitude of devices, including one’s computer or mobile, without handing over all information about their reading habits to one source, or anyone for that matter.
The ACLU, EFF and the Samuelson Clinic are concerned that the amended book settlement filed Friday November 13, 2009 does not address privacy issues that were raised earlier.
One of our core privacy concerns with the Settlement has been that reading records are not properly protected from disclosure to the government and third parties. Readers should be able to use Google Book Search without worrying that the government or a third party is reading over their shoulder. No Settlement should be approved that allows reading records to be disclosed without a properly-issued warrant from law enforcement and court orders from third parties.
Google Book Search should provide protections against disclosure. I should be able to read whatever I want without concern over who might be looking over my shoulder. It should also not track me unless I opt into such a system. I should be able to browse anonymously just as I do in a bookstore or a library. Google does not need my personal information for me to read one of its books.
Google Book Search should also allow me to have control over what I purchase and how that data is used. I should be allowed to delete my records and give my books to anyone, just as in real life, without someone tracking me. Google should also refrain from giving my personal information and book preferences to any credit card processors or third parties. When I pay for anything from Google Book Search, the charge should simply state who charged me and the price, just as any brick-and-mortar bookstore would.
Google also needs to improve its privacy policy. Currently, it is not easy to read and users are easily confused. This leads regular people to shy away from using their services. Until Google addresses all of the privacy and free speech issues over Google Book Search, I won’t be using their services.
