Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy is a marvellous interdisciplinary research center, and it is advertising for "visitors" for one-year stints: postdocs, policy fellows and visiting IT professors.

Are you a PhD with interest in "the intersection of digital technology and public life, including experts in computer science, sociology, economics, law, political science, public policy, information studies, communication, and other related disciplines?" Princeton's CITP has three open job postings for 10-month residences starting Sept 1, 2019. — Read the rest

Now that many online services rely on sending SMSes to your phone to authenticate your identify, thieves and stalkers have created a whole "SIM swap" industry where they defraud your phone company or bribe employees to help them steal your phone account so they can break into all your other accounts.

He'll serve under the brilliant Megan Smith, the CTO.

PACER is America's all-but-inaccessible public database of court records. Carl Malamud explains the problem—and the solution: you.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation continues to publish its excellent series of Copyright Week posts (here's yesterday's installment). Today, Corynne McSherry describes the fight over copyrighted laws. Not copyright laws — laws about copyright — but, rather, laws that are copyrighted, and that can't be read without paying hefty fees. — Read the rest

The glorious Ed Felten, Princeton professor and RIAA taunter extraordinaire–"Your DRM smells of elderberries, ha!"–has been appointed the Federal Trade Commission's first Chief Technologist. He will advise the agency on emerging tech issues and policy. Felten currently directs Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, and has educated decades' worth of students about how to examine off-limit topics in security for the benefit of us all, such as electronic voting booths and DMCA-protected encryption systems. — Read the rest

Carl Malamud sez,

Earlier this year, 20 million pages of the U.S. Federal Court's PACER database were downloaded, audited for privacy violations, and submitted as evidence to the Judicial Conference, the policy-making body of the courts. That incident led to a Senate investigation, clean-up by 30 district courts, and PACER now requires each lawyer to click at each login that they understand their privacy requirements.