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Electronic Frontier Foundation Censorship Privacy

EFF Recognizes Signal, Library Freedom Project for Protecting Privacy (eff.org) 16

For over 30 years the EFF has presented awards recognizing those "advancing innovation and championing digital rights," according to its web site, celebrating "the accomplishments of people working toward a better future... both in the public eye and behind the scenes."

This year's ceremony — hosted by Cory Doctorow — didn't just recognize Sci-Hub's founder. The EFF also gave its award for "Communications Policy" to the Signal Foundation — and its "Information Democracy" award to the Library Freedom Project.

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation web site: Since 2013, with the release of the unified app and the game-changing Signal Protocol, Signal has set the bar for private digital communications. With its flagship product, Signal Messenger, Signal provides real communications privacy, offering easy-to-use technology that refuses the surveillance business model on which the tech industry is built. To ensure that the public doesn't have to take Signal's word for it, Signal publishes their code and documentation openly, and licenses their core privacy technology to allow others to add privacy to their own products. Signal is also a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, ensuring that investors and market pressure never provides an incentive to weaken privacy in the name of money and growth. This allows Signal to stand firm against growing international legislative pressure to weaken online privacy, making it clear that end-to-end encryption either works for everyone or is broken for everyone — there is no half measure.

The Library Freedom Project (LFP) is radically rethinking the library professional organization by creating a network of values-driven librarian-activists taking action together to build information democracy. LFP offers trainings, resources, and community building for librarians on issues of privacy, surveillance, intellectual freedom, labor rights, power, technology, and more — helping create safer, more private spaces for library patrons to feed their minds and express themselves. Their work is informed by a social justice, feminist, anti-racist approach, and they believe in the combined power of long-term collective organizing and short-term, immediate harm reduction.

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EFF Recognizes Signal, Library Freedom Project for Protecting Privacy

Comments Filter:
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16, 2023 @11:39AM (#63853378)

    ...I dreamed of someday being cool and quick enough to claim first post.

    Now, I suspect I've claimed it, but... it's certainly not as intense as it would have been, back in those heady days.

    First NT

  • Foundation vs LLC (Score:4, Informative)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday September 16, 2023 @11:53AM (#63853406) Homepage Journal

    The Signal Foundation is responsible for the protocol, which is a good protocol.

    Signal LLC is responsible for Signal Messenger, which is bloated crapware. They ignore severe security flaws too, like the very long standing issue with touch keyboards. They won't federate either, so the Signal Messenger is a walled garden.

  • I get he used to be an EFF member and has associated with the hacker scene, but what has he done lately? Has he done anything specifically important? I don't know anyone working on cybersecurity who even brings up Doctorow ever. Seems like he writes children's books, some blog articles and a NYT opinion piece about burning man. Seems like he's famous for being famous in a small scene.
  • by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 ) on Saturday September 16, 2023 @12:29PM (#63853490)
    Cory Doctorow [media.ccc.de]: “Back then, free software was icing on the cake. Then they stole the cake and left us hoping for a little icing every now and then. Now, software has eaten the world and shit out a dystopia.
  • I don't want "...network of values-driven librarian-activists taking action together to build information democracy". Maybe I just want someone who will basically help with the function of you know, USING A LIBRARY?

    And I definitely don't want a library service person "... informed by a social justice, feminist, anti-racist approach, and they believe in the combined power of long-term collective organizing and short-term, immediate harm reduction."
    How about the librarians just be information-agnostic, and n

  • by sinkskinkshrieks ( 6952954 ) on Saturday September 16, 2023 @06:53PM (#63854034)
    Use Session, a Signal fork, that doesn't have this myopic privacy invasion.
    • Another risk is Signal is distributed as a binary produced by Signal. There is zero guarantee that the binary matches the code on github. Because Session has binaries produced by f-droid, we are sure that no malicious patches added when producing the binaries.

Let the machine do the dirty work. -- "Elements of Programming Style", Kernighan and Ritchie

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