Deeplinks Blog posts about Export Controls
It’s looking like we might be on the brink of another crypto war. The first one, in the 90s, was a misguided attempt to limit the public’s access to strong, secure cryptography. And since then, the reasons we need the good security provided by strong crypto have only multiplied. That’s why EFF has joined 20 civil society organizations and companies in sending a letter to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to “re-emphasize the importance of creating a process for establishing secure and resilient encryption standards, free from back doors or other known vulnerabilities.”
Update 9/26/14: Recently Apple has announced that it is providing basic encryption on mobile devices that they cannot bypass, even in response to a request from law enforcement. Google has promised to take similar steps in the near future. Predictably, law enforcement has responded with howls of alarm.
It’s no secret that EFF is strongly opposed to the United States’ piecemeal approach to updating sanction provisions for the five U.S.-embargoed countries of Sudan, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran. We’ve noted that the fundamental problem with the United States’ reform method is that it’s “largely reactionary and ultimately prioritizes certain countries over others for reasons that are, to put it charitably, hard to discern.” For example, according to an article published by the Open Technology Institute, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued Iran a new General License D-1—which replaces the old General License D—making it acceptable for U.S.
Case Argues Cisco Built Surveillance Tools Specifically Designed to Help Chinese Authorities Target Falun Gong
EFF filed a request to submit an amicus brief today in the Federal District Court of the Northern District of California, urging the Court to let a case entitled Doe v. Cisco Systems go forward against Cisco for its role in contributing to human rights abuses against the Falun Gong religious minority in China. China's record of human rights abuses against the Falun Gong is notorious, including detention, torture, forced conversions, and even deaths. These violations have been well-documented by the U.N., the U.S. State Department, and many others around the world, including documentation of China's use of sophisticated surveillance technologies to facilitate this repression.
When Amir Shafi got the notification from Airbnb saying that his account had been terminated, he was surprised. The Iranian national, who is a resident of Switzerland, had recently returned from a trip to Istanbul, where he had successfully rented accommodation through Airbnb. When he returned from the trip, he received a notification asking him to verify his account.
“I was happy to see there is a verification process,” says Amir, which is why he immediately uploaded a scanned copy of his Iranian passport. “It makes any community work better, so I immediately did what the website was asking me to do.” A few minutes later, he received notification that his account had been verified.
But just hours later, Amir received an email that Airbnb had closed his account. The message read:
Hi Amir,
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