The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.
By Riana Pfefferkorn on July 24, 2019 at 4:01 pm
Attorney General Bill Barr gave a speech yesterday at Fordham that revived the encryption debate in the U.S. after a relatively quiet period. Since the departure of Rod Rosenstein, we hadn’t had a federal law enforcement official out there regularly giving speeches condemning encryption (though FBI Director Chris Wray threw his hat in here and there).
By Annemarie Bridy on July 8, 2019 at 2:27 pm
In the name of “brand safety,” advertisers these days are working hard to better control where their ads appear online. Programmatic advertising with real-time bidding automates the process of online ad buying and ad placement to such an extent that the entire process takes place in the time it takes a web page to load. The process is highly efficient, but a significant downside is that ads sometimes appear alongside controversial content with which an advertiser would rather not be associated. Online pornography is the classic example, but other strains of extreme content—e.g., hate speech, conspiracism, and incitement-to-terrorism—have more recently come into focus for advertisers as threats to brand reputation.
By Ryan E. Long on July 2, 2019 at 2:10 pm
If you run a billion (or even million) dollar brand, does it make sense to spend a few thousand dollars to protect your mark from copycats? Or if you are a songwriter, does it make sense to spend thirty-five dollars to register a copyright on your song? The answer is yes. But the recent "SUPREME" trademark drama shows why this answer isn't so obvious to all.
By Riana Pfefferkorn on June 20, 2019 at 5:09 pm
You may recall that in February, a federal district court in Fresno denied a petition I filed with the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Northern California, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to attempt to shed light on the Department of Justice's attempt to force Facebook to break the encryption on its Messenger app for encrypted voice calls so that Facebook could carry out a wiretap order the DOJ had obtained.
By Riana Pfefferkorn on June 14, 2019 at 12:29 pm
Today I'm submitting my latest entry in a series of comments to Australia's Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to remind them what a terrible idea the Assistance and Access Act is.
By Richard Forno on June 5, 2019 at 4:45 am
The people of Baltimore are beginning their fifth week under an electronic siege that has prevented residents from obtaining building permits and business licenses – and even buying or selling homes. A year after hackers disrupted the city’s emergency services dispatch system, city workers throughout the city are unable to, among other things, use their government email accounts or conduct routine city business.
By Chuck Cosson on June 2, 2019 at 11:27 pm
The security of our news and media information systems matters as much as the security of personal and commercial information systems. "Information warfare" shows that harms can arise even when there is no unauthorized access, when tools are used as intended, and when there’s no compromise of user privacy settings. In both cases of cybersecurity and news/media security, the threats are asymmetric, the tools readily available, usable for many purposes, and threats are easily disguised as benign.
By Richard Forno on May 30, 2019 at 7:15 am
Today I join several cybersecurity, civil liberties, civil society organizations and researchers in responding to the United Kingdom's GCHQ recent proposal to silently add 'ghost' users from law enforcement or the security services to online chats and calls, including those conducted via encrypted messaging tools like WhatApp, iMessage, or Signal.
By Riana Pfefferkorn on May 21, 2019 at 1:28 pm
After 32 months of litigation, my quest to unseal my local federal district court's sealed surveillance docket has ended with not a single page unsealed and no prospective reforms in place.
By Riana Pfefferkorn on May 16, 2019 at 1:01 pm
Today I have a response piece up on the Boston Review, responding to an intriguing essay by Bruce Schneier and CIS affiliate Henry Farrell about how to protect democracy against what they call "information attacks" designed to undermine the public's trust in elections and other institutions for
