The End of Trust is the first-ever nonfiction issue of McSweeney's, co-edited by McSweeney's editors and the staff of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; on December 11, we held a sold-out launch event in San Francisco with EFF executive director Cindy Cohn, science fiction writer and EFF alumna Annalee Newitz, and me.
Below you'll find a wide-ranging interview with Cindy Cohn, who runs the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
It's the third episode of my podcast, which launched here on Boing Boing two weeks back and which is co-hosted by Tom Merritt. The podcast series goes deep into the science, tech, and sociological issues explored in my present-day science fiction novel After On – but no familiarity with the novel is necessary to listen to it. — Read the rest
Cindy Cohn, Legal Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, will take over from Shari Steele, who is retiring from EFF after 14 years as Executive Director.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cindy Cohn appeared on The Colbert Report last night. Unsurprisingly, the resulting segment is full of hearty LOLs. Ms. Cohn doubts Obama is coming for our guns online, and does not appreciate Colbert's Hitler jokes. Henceforth, I will always think of the EFF as the "Fightin' Effers." — Read the rest
This just in: Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director Cindy Cohn will be a guest on The Colbert Report on Comedy Central tonight. Show airs at 11:30pm, and video will of course be available on the internets tomorrow.
Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Today is the day when bloggers around the world celebrate women in technology who have inspired them.
My Ada Lovelace hero this year is Cindy Cohn, the Legal Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cindy is a litigator, which means that she really, really understands how to construct an argument (and how to demolish someone else's argument). — Read the rest
In 2005, Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician,
brought to public attention documents which showed that
the National Security Agency had obtained copies of Internet traffic flowing through an AT&T facility in San Francisco and through several other AT&T locations across the country. — Read the rest
[Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian journalist and owner of the independent media outlet Saraha Reporters; shortly after the election of President Buhari, Sowore was arrested under the country's anti-cyberstalking laws for "causing insult, enmity, hatred and ill-will on the person of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria." — Read the rest
For ten years, activists and theorists have been developing a critique of "algorithms" (which have undergone numerous renamings over the same time, e.g. "filter bubbles"), with the early critiques focusing on the way that these can misfire with dreadful (or sometimes humorous) consequences, from discrimination in which employment and financial ads get served to the "dark patterns" that "maximized engagement" with services that occupied your attention but didn't bring you pleasure.
Even though I'm at Burning Man, I've snuck out an extra scheduled podcast episode (MP3): Barlow's Legacy is my contribution to the Duke Law and Tech Review's special edition, THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THE INTERNET: Symposium for John Perry Barlow:
The Duke Law and Technology Review has released a special edition dedicated to examining the legal and philosophical legacy of John Perry Barlow: co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; junior lyricist for the Grateful Dead; biofuel entrepreneur; philosopher; poet; hacker Zelig; and driven, delightful weirdo.
I'm heading back to Austin for the SXSW Interactive festival and you can catch me three times this weekend: first on the Untold AI panel with Malka Older, Rashida Richardson and Christopher Noessel (5-6PM, Fairmont
Manchester AB); then at the EFF Austin Party with Cindy Cohn and Bruce Sterling (7PM, 1309 Bonham Terrace); and on Sunday, I'm giving a keynote for Berlin's Re:Publica conference, which has its own track at SXSW; I'm speaking about Europe's new Copyright Directive and its dread Article 13 at 1PM at Buffalo Billiards, 201 East 6th Street.
The Safe Face Pledge launched last month as a "pledge to mitigate abuse of facial analysis technology," with four themes: "Show Value for Human Life, Dignity, and Rights;" "Address Harmful Bias"; "Facilitate Transparency"; and "Embed Commitments into Business Practices" (SAFE).
I'm heading to San Francisco next week for a launch party on December 11th celebrating the release of The End of Trust, a collaboration between EFF and McSweeney's on internet surveillance and the future of the net; the event is at 7:30PM at Manny's at 3092 16th Street (RSVP here), and I'll be on a panel with EFF exec director Cindy Cohn, moderated by the amazing Annalee Newitz!
The End of Trust (previously) is a special issue of McSweeney's, produced in collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on the themes of technology, privacy and surveillance: it's in stores today, and free to download under a Creative Commons license.
The End of Trust will be McSweeney's issue 54, the first-ever all-nonfiction issue of McSweeney's, with more than 30 contributions on "surveillance in the digital age."
EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow died last month, and though his death had been long coming, it's left a hole in the hearts of the people who loved him and whom he inspired.
I met John Perry Barlow in 1999, and I was awestruck: here was the legend whose Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace had profoundly changed my life, making me realize that the nascent internet that I'd dropped out of university to devote my life to could be more than a communications tool: it could be a revolutionary force for good.
Last week, cowards from both sides of the aisle caved into America's lawless spy agencies, and today bipartisan senators reprised that cowardice to ensure that the Senate would not get a chance to vote on amendments to the renewal of Section 702, the rule that has allowed the NSA to conduct mass, warrantless surveillance on Americans in secret, without meaningful oversight or limits.
With the rise of white nationalist groups whose allies in government extend all the way to the President of the United States, tech companies are finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of deciding where tolerance begins and ends — where they have a duty to step in and silence certain kinds of speech.
