CITP Blog is hosted by Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, a research center that studies digital technologies in public life. Here you’ll find comment and analysis from the digital frontier, written by the Center’s faculty, students, and friends.
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A little over two months ago, we joined with the Think Computer Foundation to offer a set of grants in memory of our friend Aaron Swartz. Aaron worked on many…
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The District of Columbia Claims Copyright on the Law
Update: They released the unofficial version of the DC Code under a CC-0 License. Josh Tauberer has the backstory. Copyright exists to incentivize people to create new works. The federal…
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Security Lessons from the Big DDoS Attacks
Last week saw news of new Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. These may be the largest DDoS attacks ever, peaking at about 300 Gbps (that is, 300 billion bits…
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How the DMCA Chills Research
I have a new piece in Slate, on how the DMCA chills security research. In the piece, I tell three stories of DMCA threats against Alex Halderman and me, and…
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The New Freedom to Tinker Movement
When I started this blog back in 2002, I named it “Freedom to Tinker.” On the masthead, below the words Freedom to Tinker, was the subhead “… is your freedom…
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How the DMCA Serves as a Barrier to Accessibility
My op-ed on the DMCA’s barriers to accessibility just went live at Slate’s Future Tense. Here’s an excerpt: [A]mong the DMCA’s many flaws is a significant one of which most…
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First Principles for Fostering Civic Engagement via Digital Technologies #2 and #3: Keep it Simple and Leverage Entrepreneurial Intermediaries
In my previous blog post, I set out the first of ten principles that local governments and communities should look to as they evaluate whether their community is using digital…
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Singapore Punishes Net Freedom Advocate
Over the last few days my activist self has come out. I was a tenure reviewer for Dr. Cherian George at Nanyang Technical University, one of Singapore’s most high-profile universities. …
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White House Statement on Cell Phone Unlocking: A First Step Toward DMCA Reform?
Yesterday, the White House officially responded to the online petition to “Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal,” which garnered more than 100,000 signatures in under 30 days. The Administration’s headline was…
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How much does a botnet cost, and the impact on internet voting
A brief article on how much botnets cost to rent (more detail here) shows differing prices depending on whether you want US machines, European machines, etc. Interestingly, the highest prices…