Danny O'Brien
EFF
San Francisco, CA, United States
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Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
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Past articles by Danny:
The Enclosure of the Public Interest Internet
This is the second in our blog series on the public interest internet: past, present and future.It’s hard to believe now, but in the early days of the public internet, the greatest worry of some of its most high-powered advocates was that it would be empty. As the Clinton administration prepared to... → Read More
Introducing the Public Interest Internet
Say the word “internet” these days, and most people will call to mind images of Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, of Google and Twitter: sprawling, intrusive, unaccountable. This tiny handful of vast tech corporations and their distant CEOs demand our online attention and dominate the offline headlines. But on the real internet, one or two clicks away from that handful of → Read More
Indian Government's Plans to Ban Cryptocurrency Outright Are A Bad Idea
While Turkey hit the headlines last week with a ban on paying for items with cryptocurrency, the government of India appears to be moving towards outlawing cryptocurrency completely. An unnamed senior government official told Reuters last month that a forthcoming bill this parliamentary session... → Read More
Statement on the Re-election of Richard Stallman to the FSF Board
We at EFF are profoundly disappointed to hear of the re-election of Richard Stallman to a leadership position at the Free Software Foundation, after a series of serious accusations of misconduct led to his resignation as president and board member of the FSF in 2019. We are also disappointed that... → Read More
An Antitrust Exemption for News Media Won’t Take Us Back to the Time Before Big Tech
Something is rotten online. Facebook and Google dominate the market on online advertising, depleting the resources needed by any other company reliant on serving digital content. For news media, the confluence of an increasingly digital world with Google and Facebook’s siphoning of online... → Read More
Beyond Platforms: Private Censorship, Parler, and the Stack
Last week, following riots that saw supporters of President Trump breach and sack parts of the Capitol building, Facebook and Twitter made the decision to give the president the boot. That was notable enough, given that both companies had previously treated the president, like other political... → Read More
The Github youtube-dl Takedown Isn't Just a Problem of American Law
The video downloading utility youtube-dl, like other large open source projects, accepts contributions from all around the globe. It is used practically wherever there's an Internet connection. It's especially shocking, therefore, when what looks like a domestic legal spat–involving a take-down... → Read More
Orders from the Top: The EU’s Timetable for Dismantling End-to-End Encryption
The last few months have seen a steady stream of proposals, encouraged by the advocacy of the FBI and Department of Justice, to provide “lawful access” to end-to-end encrypted services in the United States. Now lobbying has moved from the U.S., where Congress has been largely paralyzed by the... → Read More
EU Court Again Rules That NSA Spying Makes U.S. Companies Inadequate for Privacy
The European Union’s highest court today made clear—once again—that the US government’s mass surveillance programs are incompatible with the privacy rights of EU citizens. The judgment was made in the latest case involving Austrian privacy advocate and EFF Pioneer Award winner Max Schrems. It... → Read More
Uruguay Steps Too Quickly into the Right to be Forgotten Quagmire
The further the "Right to be Forgotten" (RTBF) online progresses from its original creation by Europe's Court of Justice, the broader and more damaging its ramifications seem to be. The latest attempt to insert it is a rushed proposal in Uruguay. The complaints of multiple digital rights groups... → Read More
Data Privacy or Data Protection Day? It’s a Human Right, Either Way
Today marks the 39th anniversary of the Council of Europe's "Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Automatic Processing of Personal Data", or, more catchily, Convention 108. It is the root treaty that spawned the first European Union-wide data protection laws, including... → Read More
Apple’s Split Brain: Building Levers for Improved Security or Content Censorship?
For many years, Chinese users of Apple devices have had a very different experience from non-Chinese users. Chinese users can’t type or see the Taiwanese flag emoji (which has even caused severe bugs in the past); iCloud backups and encryption keys for Chinese users are stored locally within China... → Read More
EFF Urges Congress Not to Dismantle Section 230
The Keys to a Healthy Internet Are User Empowerment and Competition, Not CensorshipThe House Energy and Commerce Committee held a legislative hearing today over what to do with one of the most important Internet laws, Section 230. Members of Congress and the testifying panelists discussed many of... → Read More
Telnet Is Not A Crime: Unconvincing Prosecution Screenshot Leaked in Ola Bini Case
Since EFF visited Ecuador three weeks ago, the investigation into open source developer Ola Bini has proceeded as we described then: drawn out, with little evidence of wrong-doing, but potentially compromised by acts of political theater outside the bounds of due process and a fair trial.Last week... → Read More
EU’s Parliament Signs Off on Disastrous Internet Law: What Happens Next?
In a stunning rejection of the will of five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market... → Read More
OpenAI’s Recent Announcement: What Went Wrong, and How It Could Be Better
Earlier this month, OpenAI revealed an impressive language model that can generate paragraphs of believable text. It declined to fully release their research “due to concerns about malicious applications of the technology.” OpenAI released a much smaller model and technical paper, but not the fully... → Read More
Massive Database Leak Gives Us a Window into China’s Digital Surveillance State
Earlier this month, security researcher Victor Gevers found and disclosed an exposed database live-tracking the locations of about 2.6 million residents of Xinjiang, China, offering a window into what a digital surveillance state looks like in the 21st century.Xinjiang is China’s largest province,... → Read More
Article 13 and 11 Update: Even The Compromises are Compromised In This Copyright Trainwreck
Update, January 18: EU ministers have failed to approve the compromise text—with Germany, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland and Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, and Portugal all voting against the current Article 13/11 proposal.Keep up the pressure! If you’re in the Czech... → Read More
New Copyright Powers, New "Terrorist Content" Regulations: A Grim Day For Digital Rights in Europe
Despite waves of calls and emails from European Internet users, the European Parliament today voted to accept the principle of a universal pre-emptive copyright filter for content-sharing sites, as well as the idea that news publishers should have the right to sue others for quoting news items... → Read More
Fake Compromises, Real Threats in Next Week’s EU Copyright Vote
In July, millions of Europeans called on the Members of European Parliament (MEPs) to vote down a proposal that would impose copyright filters on European social media, and create a new power for newspapers to charge or sue anyone linking to their news stories. The MEPs listened to that call, and... → Read More