Deeplinks
In February 2016, a team of scientists published one of the most important pieces of scientific research so far this century. For the first time, researchers had directly observed gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime whose discovery Albert Einstein first predicted a century ago. The team effectively placed the last piece in the puzzle confirming Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity—in doing so, they took a giant leap forward in humans’ understanding of how the universe works.
Censorship comes in many forms. Most often, when we talk about it at EFF, we’re talking about the measures that governments take to restrict their citizens’ freedom of expression or access to information. Online, that can mean blocking websites, restricting the right to anonymity, or shutting down the Internet, among other things.
In classrooms across the country, students as young as kindergarteners are turning on school-issued devices and logging into their online school accounts. While students and teachers can benefit from educational apps and services, behind the scenes edtech companies are inhaling troves of data on students, often without the awareness and consent of students and their families. Over the past year, EFF has fought for the privacy and security of student data on multiple fronts.
For the twelfth and final day of the 12 Days of 2FA, we will look at how to enable two-factor authentication on Slack. If you are a member of multiple Slack “teams” (e.g. work.slack.com and school.slack.com), you will need to set up 2FA separately for each account you use.
Yesterday, EFF and its allies Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy & Technology filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down under the First Amendment a North Carolina law that bans “registered sex offenders” (RSOs) from using all Internet social media. This law sweeps far too broadly. Social media are one of the most important communication channels ever created. People banned from social media are greatly handicapped in their ability to participate in the political, religious, and economic life of our nation.
In 2016 we won one battle in the fight for the Open Internet – but several others are well underway and we expect Team Internet will have to mobilize once again to protect our gains and prevent further efforts to undermine network neutrality.
Almost two years ago, thanks in large part to a massive mobilization of Internet users, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finally issued an Open Internet Order to protect net neutrality. While far from perfect, the new Order was on strong legal footing, with some limits in place to help prevent FCC overreach. Before the year was out, however, the battle for the Internet moved to the courts, as broadband providers tried to get a judge to derail the new rules. After months of wrangling, in June 2016 a federal appeals court instead approved the Order – a crucial win for Team Internet.
As you head home for the holidays, perhaps passing through a checkpoint or two, take some time to think about U.S. Patent No. 6,888,460, “Advertising trays for security screening.” The owner of this patent, SecurityPoint Holdings, Inc., has sued the United States government for infringement. SecurityPoint recently won a trial on validity [PDF] and the case will now proceed to a damages phase. So, unless the validity decision gets overturned on appeal, we’ll soon be paying tax dollars for the idea of moving trays on carts.
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