CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Category: Other Topics

  • Apple/FBI: Freedom of speech vs. compulsion to sign

    – by

    Comments

    This week I signed the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s amicus (friend-of-the-court) brief in the Apple/FBI  iPhone-unlocking lawsuit.  Many prominent computer scientists and cryptographers signed: Josh Aas, Hal Abelson, Judy Anderson, Andrew Appel, Tom Ball (the Google one, not the Microsoft one), Boaz Barak, Brian Behlendorf, Rich Belgard, Dan Bernstein, Matt Bishop, Josh Bloch, Fred Brooks, Mark Davis,…

  • VW = Voting Wulnerability

    – by

    Comments

    ,

    On Friday, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “accused the German automaker of using software to detect when the car is undergoing its periodic state emissions testing. Only during such tests are the cars’ full emissions control systems turned on. During normal driving situations, the controls are turned off, allowing the cars to spew as…

  • Freedom to Tinker on the Radio

    – by

    Comments

    Today on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s CBC Radio show, “The Current”, a 20-minute segment about the freedom to tinker: “Arrested, for tinkering.  Young Ahmed Mohamed likes to take things apart, cross wires, experiment… and put things back together again. It’s the kind of hobby that once led to companies like…say, Apple and Microsoft. But is…

  • How not to measure security

    – by

    Comments

    ,

    A recent paper published by Smartmatic, a vendor of voting systems, caught my attention. The first thing is that it’s published by Springer, which typically publishes peer-reviewed articles – which this is not. This is a marketing piece. It’s disturbing that a respected imprint like Springer would get into the business of publishing vendor white…

  • Decertifying the worst voting machine in the US

    – by

    Comments

    On Apr 14 2015, the Virginia State Board of Elections immediately decertified use of the AVS WinVote touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machine. This seems pretty minor, but it received a tremendous amount of pushback from some local election officials. In this post, I’ll explain how we got to that point, and what the…

  • Android WebView security and the mobile advertising marketplace

    – by

    Comments

    Freedom to Tinker readers are probably aware of the current controversy over Google’s handling of ongoing security vulnerabilities in its Android WebView component. What sounds at first like a routine security problem turns out to have some deep challenges.  Let’s start by filling in some background and build up to the big problem they’re not…

  • A technological approach to better living, for D.C. and beyond

    – by

    Comments

    Washington, D.C., could be a leader in the United States — and worldwide — in using technology to improve the lives of its residents and visitors. As a rapidly growing city with a diverse and highly educated population, the District is a leader in law, education, tourism and, of course, government. With this mass of…

  • Four Fair Use Takeaways from Cambridge University Press v. Patton

    – by

    Comments

    The most important copyright and educational fair use case in recent memory (mine, at least) was decided by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals last week. The case, Cambridge University Press v. Patton, challenged Georgia State University’s use of e-reserves in courses offered by the university. The copyrighted works at issue were scholarly books–i.e., a…

  • Google Fights Genericide Claim (and Wins)

    – by

    Comments

    Google’s famous trademark in its name has just survived a challenger’s attempt to have it declared generic. In Elliott v. Google, a federal court in Arizona held last week that despite the public’s use of the word “googling” to mean “searching on the Internet,” the “Google” word mark still functions in the minds of consumers…

  • The End of a Brief Era: Recent Appellate Decisions in "Copyright Troll" Litigation

    – by

    Comments

    The onslaught of “copyright troll” litigation began only a few years ago, with lawsuits implicating hundreds or even thousands of “John Doe” defendants, who were identified by IP addresses with timestamps corresponding to alleged uses of BitTorrent services to share and download video content without authorization. Recently, federal appellate opinions confirmed growing consensus in district…

  • Princeton likely to rescind grade deflation policy

    – by

    Comments

    A Princeton faculty committee recommended yesterday that the university rescind its ten-year-old grading guideline that advises faculty to assign grades in the A range to at most 35% of students. The committee issued a report explaining its rationale. The recommendation will probably be accepted and implemented. It’s a good report, and I agree with its…