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Ten Years of Giving to the EFF

EFF Proud Member

This year marks ten years of charitable giving for me to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF is by far my favorite charity that we give to each year and I can’t stress enough how important the work they do is.

A number of years ago my wife framed my letters and stickers I’ve received from my favorite non-profit organizations (pictured above) including the EFF, Creative Commons and Minnesota Public Radio.

Who is the EFF and why is it important? From their About page:

When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990—well before the Internet was on most people’s radar—and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.

While most of America was shocked at Edward Snowden’s revelations this year about the NSA spying, EFF supporters have known about the NSA’s taps on the internet for years – it was in January, 2006 when Mark Klein became a whistle blower, sharing with the EFF information about the NSA internet taps at AT&T. (The full timeline of NSA spying is staggering).

This is just one of many important projects that EFF works on to protect our digital rights. Check them out with the full list:

A few examples:

Their work is important. Support them and support your digital freedom.

Thank You EFF

For the last 8 years I’ve donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of my favorite non-profit organizations.  The EFF continues to fight to protect our freedoms in the digital world – and for that I’m grateful.

Stop the Spying

A big thank you to the EFF and Sen. Chris Dodd for helping to kill the Telecom Immunity bill yesterday in the Senate. The EFF has been at the forefront of this issue from day one, and Sen. Dodd’s leadership and bravery in taking a stand yesterday threatening to filibuster this bill until it died caused Sen. Reid to pull it at this point in time.

Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow sums it up well:

Here’s the thing: EFF and others are suing the telecoms for participating in the wiretapping program. These lawsuits are the best chance we have of getting the details of the program into the public, so we can finally find out what the NSA have been doing to us all these years. The reason the government wants to grant the telecoms immunity is to keep the dirty laundry in the closet — to keep us from finding out how they’ve been breaking the law.

Read more:

Reno vs. ACLU

Today is the 10th anniversary of the landmark Reno vs. ACLU decision, which set the course for free speech on the internet.

From the EFF:

Tuesday marks the ten year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme CourtÂ’s landmark decision in Reno v. ACLU, which recognized that free speech on the Internet merits the highest standards of Constitutional protection. EFF participated as both plaintiff and co-counsel in the case, which successfully challenged the online censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996. The CourtÂ’s decision — its first involving the Internet — was issued on June 26, 1997.

The CDA fight was one of the first big rallying points for online freedom. When the law passed, thousands of websites turned their backgrounds black in protest. EFF launched its “blue ribbon” campaign and millions of websites around the world joined in support of free speech online. Even today, you can find the blue ribbon throughout the Web.

The Blue Ribbon campaign was the first introduction I had to the EFF – I remember the day the web turned black to fight the CDA, and I remember putting a Blue Ribbon on one of the first very basic websites I created.

Ten years later, I am still a believer and supporter of the EFF – wearing their swag, blogging their causes, and supporting them financially by having become a Pioneer level contributor for the last 5 years.

The EFF supports many different worthy causes, including: fighting for free speech, fair use (including fighting the broadcast flag), illegal spying, and anonymity.

Thanks to all the fine folks at the EFF for all their hard work.

The iPhone Moral Quandary

Gizmodo covers what’s been on my mind since it was announced Apple’s iPhone partner was AT&T: the moral quandary of doing business with AT&T.:

So what we have is a company that doesn’t have privacy at the top of its priority list, not to mention the anti-trust laws of this country. It’s setting terrible precedents left and right, and its vast power that comes from its huge size makes it all the more unlikely to change for the better. We, as contentious, tech-savvy individuals, should go out of our way to deprive this company of money, power, and influence.

And for more information about AT&T, visit the EFF’s page.

The above paragraph sums up exactly why I won’t buy, or even consider, an iPhone.

Dear Lazyweb: Bluetooth Adapters on Linux

Dear Lazyweb: I’m looking for a USB Bluetooth adapter that is Linux friendly.

I have two headsets with boom mics I’ve used on my desktop – one is a cheap off-brand, and one is a very nice Plantronics. I have been working on a podcast off and on for the last couple of months using Jokosher, more as a test to learn Jokosher so I can add audio to screencasts and help show users how to use Foresight.

Unfortunately, the sound quality on the boom mics is lacking – the cheap off brand sounds tinny, and the Plantronics makes it sound like the mic is 10 feet away from my voice, and doesn’t really move on the headset so I can position it better.

However, I just received a Jawbone bluetooth headset for my cellphone. The Jawbone’s claim to fame is that they made it for DARPA, and it blocks all ambient noise so you only hear the user’s voice. My hope is that it might work well for voice recording on Linux. But I’m not sure how compatible the different USB Bluetooth adapters are for pairing a device like a headset, and I don’t even know if Jokosher or other applications will see the headset as a microphone for voice recording.

If anyone has any thoughts, please leave a comment here, or drop me a line at pcutler _at_ foresightlinux dot org.

Thanks!

Digg Melts Down (and DRM continues to break)

In what surely will be the most talked about story of the week (just above Dell shipping Ubuntu on PCs), Digg melted down last night. I watched it in real time last night as more and more users added stories displaying the banned HD-DVD encryption key.

It’s amazing how one 16 digital hexadecimal string of numbers (and a little bit of censorship) can wake up a community.

The blog at Franticindustries has the best recap of the story I’ve seen yet.

But never until today has the entire Internet risen as one to protect their right of free speech, with one string of hexadecimal numbers being their defeaning shout.

As the article goes on to say, Digg was only the catalyst – almost every other major tech site of note has the key displayed in a story or a user submitted comment. The early adopters and tech enthusiasts are rising up against DRM – it’s now becoming more than a movement. In the year when major record labels are going DRM free in music, users patience with digital rights management for next gen technologies is wearing thin. Users want to use their content how they want to – they don’t want to be told when and how they can use their content. If I want to listen to music I legally purchased online on the device of my choice, I should have that ability. If I want to buy a movie on DVD, and encode it to watch on a portable player, I should be able to do that. If I want to watch a DVD movie on my computer, that doesn’t run Windows, I should be able to do that.

This is how we got DVD playback on Linux – one software company left a hole open displaying the encryption key, and it happened again with HD-DVD. When both parts of the key are available to the user – one half on the hardware or in software playback, and the other half in the media itself, users are going to figure it out. Just like the Digg users rising up as one, the community dedicated to breaking the encryption is united as well.

For some reason, this key has become more than just a way to circumvent copy protection: it is now a statement.

It says: information must be free.

In as little as 24 hours, countless iterations of the key have sprung out. ThereÂ’s a registered domain containing the key; thereÂ’s a string of colors equivalent to the key value; hell, if license plates were allowed to have 32 digits I bet there would be a great demand for a particular number.

09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0

Remember this number.

And get involved. Learn more at Defective by Design and join the EFF.

Stop the RIAA – Join the Petition

The EFF has started a petition to send to Congress regarding the RIAA’s tactics in stopping music piracy.

From the petition:

We respect reasonable copyright law, but we strongly oppose copyright enforcement that comes at the expense of privacy, due process and fair application of the law.

We urge you, as our representatives in Congress, to stop this madness.

As of this morning, the petition is at 80,758 signatures – with 100,000 signatures the EFF can send this to the Senate and House Commerce and Judiciary Commitees.

I purchased 3 CD’s last night – I’m all for supporting the artists, but the music industry’s governing body is out of control when they’re blackmailing 12 year old girls and suing families who don’t even own a computer.

Sign the petition today, the RIAA’s madness has to be stopped.