 Hi everybody. Welcome and thanks for joining us. My name is Cindy Cohen and I'm the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Thank you so much. You're at home with EFF and tonight we're going to be talking about the COVID-19 crisis and your digital rights. If you have questions, please put them in the Twitch TV chat. That's where my team will be monitoring the chat and can get the questions to me and others so that we can get them answered. That's twitch.tv slash EFF live. One word, EFF live. We'll get to them as we go. And also, if you look in the Twitch chat, you can see the link for the closed captioning. We're going to be closed captioning this event. We want everybody to be able to hear it. So we will post that link there periodically so that if you want the closed captioning, you've got easy access to it. So this is an experiment. Thank you so much for coming along with us. Like all of us, we're working hard to find ways to keep in touch and more importantly, to keep you informed about your digital rights in this strange new timeline we find ourselves in. So I hope you'll join us in the spirit of adventure here. This is a scary time, but I think we can take a time together and learn a lot and think a lot and go out of this stronger. So tonight, we're going to have three segments. We're going to talk about the opportunities created by the COVID-19 crisis. We're going to talk about some of our bigger worries about the crisis and in between, we're going to have some trivia. So it's going to be hopefully fun and informative. And I hope you'll enjoy it. Before we get to the COVID-19 thing, I want to make two starter points. First, I want to note that one of our oldest fights, the one for your basic ability to have a private conversation online, is happening right now and it's happening hot and heavy in our Congress. Just as everyone in the world is holding extremely private, confidential, and sensitive conversations online since we can't be together physically, a bill in Congress called the Earn It Act threatens to create an internet where everything we say online will be read by government scanning software. Now to be clear, this bill, which is sponsored by Senators Graham and Blumenthal, existed before the COVID-19 crisis. But I think that the increasing amount that all of us are relying on our digital networks for basic communication should give us all pause before we start trying to undermine the security of it. And that's exactly what this bill would do. Basically, the companies that handle your messages wouldn't be allowed to securely encrypt them if this bill passes. Because if they do, they'd lose the legal protections that allow them to operate. Now ultimately, while this bill presents itself as a sheep, that it's only presenting best practices, there is no question that this bill is a wolf. A wolf with the goal of preventing you from having a private conversation online. And right now, when we're all worried about governmental cyber attacks and political malware and personal spouseware all the way from the home all the way up to the issues of straight craft, we are suffering from the lack of security online. This bill would actually make you even less secure. Really. Oh, and it's unconstitutional. So if it passes, we're going to unleash EFF litigators on it. But honestly, we've all got better things to do. Let's just not do the dumb thing rather than have the dumb thing happen and we have to sue to stop it. So on its face, the earned act would create a 19 person commission that's controlled by the attorney general and law enforcement. And it's supposed to set best practices for those who host or carry the speech of others. Any host who doesn't comply with these best practices will be held legally responsible for the content of all the message that flow through that they host that flow through their systems. In lawyer speak, the bill would remove CDA 230s protections against civil liability for anyone who doesn't implement the so called best practices. The commission is stacked with encryption haters who are already on the record is intending to use the law to require this kind of mass screening and elimination of end to end encryption. As my colleague Joe Mullen wrote recently, you can't have an internet where messages are screened on mass and also have end to end encryption any more than you can build a back door that can only be used by the good guys and not by the bad guys. In both cases, the two are mutually exclusive, but Congress seems to be doubling down on bad ideas these days. We need to tell Congress don't fall for the sheepy clothing. This bill is aimed at our privacy and our security. You can go to act.eff.org, the EFF Action Center, and send the message loud and clear. Tell Congress that we need a secure and private internet now more than ever. And to reject the Earn It Act, also known as the Graham Blumenthal Bill. So you can see our Action Center there, act.eff.org. It's easy to go there. Please take a moment, send the message, tell your friends. Encryption is one of those geeky things that EFF members understand pretty deeply, but a lot of other people don't. But they need security and privacy just as much as those who understand technology and support the EFF do. So make sure that your friends know about this. There's a lot going on right now and we don't want this bill to slide in in the confusion. So second, I want to talk about the elephant in the room, Zoom. As you can see, we're using Zoom for this event and we're also streaming it on Twitch, on Facebook, and on YouTube. Just so there's no confusion, EFF uses many tools, but we do not endorse any. This has been true for 30 years and it's not about to change. So what we're seeing right now with Zoom is interesting for those of us who follow digital security. We're seeing in real time what happens when security experts take close look at a sufficiently complicated tool. Bugs, security floors, all everywhere you look. Now, as a society, I think we should embrace those who are telling us the truth about the security flaws and also work hard to close them. But also, this could give somebody a competitive edge. We need people to be racing to try to make better tools. So for EFF, choosing to use Zoom for this is a reasonable choice given the lack of equivalent services and our need to keep connected with you and everybody right now. We urge Zoom to do better and especially to increase their transparency about what they're doing right now. But we've seen that their recent responses and updates are at least encouraging. They're certainly starting to say some of the right things, but we're EFF. We don't just take what you say. We're going to watch and we're going to see what they actually do. And we're going to continue to keep the pressure on them. So whether you're looking on Twitch, which is an Amazon company, Facebook or YouTube or Zoom, you can go on the EFF website. We hold them all to the same standards of being reliable. The tools that we use are the tools we think will reach you best. They're not an endorsement. So next, but let's just not stop there. Many people who are EFF members, you're the kind of people who can build better systems. So please beat the pants off them. Build a better system. Build one that's user-friendly, that's reliable, that's scalable, and that has better privacy and security sessions. What we need to do right now is we need to launch the race to the top. So I say race to the top, engage. But now, back to our scheduled program. EFF and its members work to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all the people of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has made obvious how important the internet and digital tools are to our lives and how vital it is that we maintain an open and secure approach to them. So as I said in the beginning, our thinking about COVID-19 kind of has two main parts. First, we think about the opportunities that could be presented here to make the world better and how digital technology could help us solve some of these problems or at least make them better. But we also are very, very worried. We're very aware that times of crisis often create situations that are where we don't use the kind of careful thinking we do about the things that we deploy. So tonight, we're going to focus a little on both of those, but I want to talk a little bit about both of them first. First, on the opportunity side, my colleagues, Elliot Harmon and Corey are going to do a deeper dive in a moment. But really, we've seen an explosion of creativity online. For those of us living under quarantine, shelter in place orders, or just staying home voluntarily to help protect our communities, we now rely on the internet and digital tools more than ever. We're sharing information and advice. We're creating art and hilarious and awesome memes. We're listening to our favorite musicians perform live in their living rooms. And we're using it to feel less alone. We are seeing now in real time how technology can help us cope with the loss of in-person contact. Many others are using digital tools to organize mutual aid for their neighborhoods and communities in this time of crisis and to support those who have fallen ill and their loved ones. That's the opportunity we see here and it's exciting. As Elliot and Corey are going to drill down a little deeper, thanks to Open Access Science, scientific and medical teams are able to instantly share their work and build on efforts to track this virus, study its effect on people, and develop further tests and potentially also a vaccine. Others are developing ways to create and repair vital medical equipment using open tools. We're coming together online now in new and creative ways. In some ways, the explosion of open creativity online to keep us connected and sane during these scary times is really one of the bright spots in what is otherwise a pretty dark time. But especially in the United States, it also shows how this crisis disproportionately impacts those who are already marginalized in our society. The unsheltered, those who cannot afford or access reliable broadband services to continue their school or their work. The consultants and retail workers who have little reserves and all of those falling through our frayed social safety net. Innovation is needed here too, like ensuring that robust broadband access is available and works for everyone. It's not just for the wealthy, it is something we all need and shouldn't be dependent on the temporary largesse of a couple giant companies. So we're pushing hard for that at EFF. And now on the un-good side, which my colleague, Saira Hussain will tell us about in the third segment of our show, we know that the virus requires us to take steps that would be unthinkable in normal times. Staying inside, limiting public gatherings and cooperating with medically needed attempts to track and treat the virus are when approached properly, reasonable and responsible things to do. But we must be as vigilant as we are thoughtful. We must be sure that measures taken in the name of responding to the COVID-19 crisis are in the language of international human rights law necessary and proportionate to the needs of society in fighting the virus. Above all, we need to make sure that these measures end. We also must ensure that the data collected for these purposes is not repurposed for either governmental or commercial ends. We've seen all of those happen in the past due to societal panic and a lack of will. We need to double commit that we will not do it this time. So while we all recognize the needs, we also see that this moment brings an old familiar risk that forces the seat to limit our rights and freedoms will take advantage of this situation to put in place more surveillance of us, limit transparency and set in place new norms that will reduce our civil liberties. This is because we know the times of great public fear come with great public risk. Public fear has driven some of the worst human rights atrocities and given opportunities for those who would seek power from us and reduce or even erase our hard-won human rights and civil liberties. Already we've seen efforts to use this public health crisis as an excuse to place irrational blame on our Asian communities and direct even more pressure and discrimination against refugees and immigrants. We also see calls from companies seeking to cash in on this crisis for unchecked space surveillance, social media monitoring and other efforts far beyond what medicine or epidemiology require. So when fear threatens to undermine our rights and pervert justice, that's where EFF and you come in. As we head further into these difficult times, EFF is standing strong to make sure that we both take advantage of how technology can help us now and equally importantly that we emerge from this time with our freedom and our democracy as strong if not stronger than when we went in. Because we at EFF have a committed membership, people like you, as our primary support we are able to pivot our attention to these issues even as we continue our ongoing fights. Our lawyers are scrutinizing proposed laws and regulation and corporate privacy moves, especially the growing and concerning raft of joint corporate government surveillance efforts. Our technologists are digging into the digital tools we rely on during this crisis to make sure that your privacy and security are protected and we're pushing to lower artificial barriers to information sharing and working to make sure that access to knowledge is one of the things we keep as we emerge these times and more. So we have an issue page dedicated to our COVID-19 focused work and we're going to continue to highlight efforts there as well as publish little things that can help you along the way like how to avoid COVID-19 fishing attempts and show your EFF support as we head into our 30th year of standing strong for your rights. So thank you very much for listening. If you joined late, we're at home with EFF talking about the COVID-19 crisis. And if you have questions, please write them into the Twitch TV chat, that's twitch.tv slash EFF live. And also in there is in the Twitch chat is the link to the closed captioning version of that if that helps you. So next up, let's take a deeper dive into the opportunities we're seeing as a result of the COVID-19 crisis with EFF's Activism Director, Elliott Harmon in conversation with EFF's special advisor, Cory Doctorow. Thank you so much, Cindy. As Cindy said, my name is Elliott Harmon. I am the Activism Director here at EFF and I'm here with Cory Doctorow who among other things is a special advisor at EFF. Hi, Cory. Hi, Elliott. How are you doing? Washing your hands? I just did before this. I hear that this is the third online conference that you've spoken at today. Oh, yeah. And I've been high-fiving the camera the whole time. So I've been washing my hands too. So I like the way that Cindy started this discussion by saying that we're here to talk about the opportunities and we're also here to talk about the threats. And I guess you and I are here to talk about the opportunities, but I think we're probably going to be talking a little bit about both. The way that I see it, what we're really here to talk about is the potential of the internet as a place for cooperation, a place for knowledge sharing. And I think over the past four weeks, we've seen examples of the internet at its best as a tool for knowledge sharing. And we've also seen it at its worst. We've also seen the old culprits of creating friction to cooperation and sharing online, rearing their heads at the worst possible time. But on the side of sharing at its best, we've seen, as Cindy mentioned, open access research kind of taking on a new urgency and a new vibrancy with these big commercial academic publishers, often our enemies in the fight for open access, stepping up and doing the right thing and sharing widely the papers that will be most useful to people trying to fight COVID-19. Of course, we hope that we see that as a foundation on which to build more progress once we get out of this. We've also seen medical professionals sharing information with each other in real time, sharing information about how to repair medical devices, which of course brings us to the worst is bad actors using copyright and other tools in order to stop that knowledge sharing. Why don't you lead us into that a bit, tell us about right to repair and why it's important and what it means right now. Sure. Well, you know, to give you a little background on right to repair, it's kind of a weird idea because it implies that you don't have the right to repair your stuff now. And it's not like Congress ever passed a law that said, you know, having bought a thing from a manufacturer, you have to promise that manufacturer you won't fix it or that you'll only let them fix it. In fact, quite the opposite. Congress passed a law that said, you buy a thing from a manufacturer, you can get it fixed by an independent repair store, and they can't void your warranty because, you know, there is an interest in being able to fix your own stuff. But as industry has gotten more concentrated as firms have got bigger as they've had more money to kick around on weird socially useless projects, one of the socially useless projects has been figuring out sneaky ways of expanding copyright, patent, trade secrecy, and other laws that are really not about repair to make it so that you have to get your stuff fixed by them using their parts and also like throwing their stuff away when they decide it's not fixable anymore and they want you to go and buy another one. And so these laws can take and tactics can take all kinds of different shapes. The one that I work on the most is related to section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That's a law that Bill Clinton signed into into being in 1998. Primarily is a way to make sure that you didn't like de-regionalize your DVD player and watch European DVDs in America before they've been released here. And that law has been repurposed by manufacturers to say, if you repair a device and that device has a lock that stops it from recognizing the repair, like say you put a part in a phone or a car and that part doesn't talk to the engine until you've given it an unlock code to say I am an authorized technician and I just did this repair and I'm not just the person who owns it or a third party repairer, then bypassing that lock under the DMCA is a crime. In fact, giving someone a tool to bypass that lock is a potential felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. We're actually suing the U.S. government on behalf of a couple clients, Bunny Wang and Matthew Green, to overturn this. But in the meantime, the people who fought hardest for right to repair have been farmers because farmers have this funny thing. They've got to make hay when the sun shines. If your tractor breaks and there's a hail storm coming that's going to destroy your crops or things are ripe and they need to come in or whatever it is, you need to fix your tractor now, not fix your tractor now, and then wait up to 72 hours for John Deere to send a technician out to collect $200 from you and type an unlock code into your keyboard, which is the status quo. These days, we're basically all farmers. We are all sitting at the end of a lonely country road with no one around to help us because all the places we would go to get our help, they shut down and all the supply chains we would use to get the regular part, they shut down too. And so right to repair has become very urgent, especially for doctors. You talk about the urgency of bringing in the crops before the hail storm comes, the urgency of fixing the ventilator before your patient stops breathing. That's a pretty white-hot emergency. And the idea that you can only do that if it doesn't make the shareholders of a distant manufacturer sad, well, that's just pretty gross. And so right to repair has become very salient at this moment. So let's talk a little bit about what happened in Italy with the ventilator parts that people were sharing information about. This is one of those like feel good, then feel bad, then feel, stories. So the feel good part is there was a busted ventilator. Obviously in Italy, they need all the ventilators they can get. The part wasn't available. The docs in the hospital called the local 3D printing outfit or they made contact with the makerspace and made contact with the 3D printing outfit. They showed up with their printer, measured the part, figured it out, printed it out on the spot, got it working, tested it, the patient lived, the device is still working as far as anyone knows. The feel bad part is that depending on which of the three people involved you ask, the company either just refused flat out to help in any way or threatened to sue them for patent infringement or the third guy is not talking. So either none of those are a great look. The very minimum we would expect from a firm, even under the best of circumstances, if you bought a thing from them is to help you keep it running, but especially an emergency that they would go the extra mile to help independent repairs affecting field expedient repairs on the ground in a matter of life or death to give them all the information they need. I mean one of the skeptical things that people quite rightly ask is like what if this part doesn't work? That's a great question because if the part doesn't work someone might die. Well how do we make sure the part works? The best way we can think of to make sure that part works if you can't actually get the part from the manufacturer is for the manufacturer to do everything they can to help the independent repairs get everything fixed and it would be great if all of these med tech firms whose field material is out of the field and experiencing mechanical failures. We're just preemptively publishing shapefiles and everything else that the independent repair sector needed to keep this stuff running while the supply chains are hobbled. I feel the need to interject here that of course you and I are not doctors. We're not medical professionals at all. We have no way of evaluating the quality of these diagrams that people were sharing with each other. The way that I sort of think about it it's like yes medical professionals should be the one making those assessments absolutely and not copyright lawyers right and not whoever wrote the terms of service agreement. Well and you know like this is this is not a an unusual circumstance like the urgency and the widespreadness and the you know the salience of it is higher than ever but hospitals are full of mechanical things that and electronic things that break down all the time and sometimes there isn't time for people to come and do the official repair. Doctors, engineers, medical technicians they do this kind of thing all the time and they're the ones who should be making that call and you know sometimes it isn't safe right like sometimes it is not the best thing that you could possibly do. Sometimes the best thing you could do is get in a time machine go back a week earlier and order the part that just broke but in the absence of that time machine this second best thing which is keeping someone alive using ingenuity and field expedient repair that's the right thing to do and the person who makes that call should be the person who is at the coalface at the patient's bed who knows and appreciates the consequences and has experience with the equipment. This might be a good time to turn a little bit to talking about patents which have also if there is ever a good time to talk about patents. You know one of the weirdest stories to come out of this entire crisis is about this patent troll called Labrador Diagnostics that was suing a company that made and distributed COVID-19 tests. Now Labrador Diagnostics despite its name is not a practicing company it does not do anything but one of the weird things about this story is where the patents actually came from which is if people remember Theranos that weird scammy fake blood testing company that went under and now I think is being investigated by the SEC for fraud it was the Theranos patents that have now become this weapon being wielded against the people who are actually trying to fight COVID-19. Yeah you know it is it's like a matryoshka terrible you know where each layer has got another one so you know start with like a grifter who pretends to have invented a blood testing machine then go to the US Patent and Trademark Office granting a patent on a thing that doesn't exist and that they don't know how to make and then to SoftBank the company that brought you Uber and WeWork having this entire patent troll division let me get their name for you oh they're called the Fortress Investment Group Fortress Investment Group spins out this subcompany called Labrador Labrador then goes after Biofire who actually make a COVID test and sues them or threatens to sue them for patent infringement on these garbage patents granted to this con artist that who sold her patents to these you know financial engineers who are busily destroying the world one bad tech company to fund and and and you know you add it all up together and then you get the fact that after the story broke their lawyers tried to spin that they were just that they had offered a royalty-free license to this technology and there was no problem except they weren't offering a royalty-free license to the part of the technology that this company that made the test was using and there were also all the other possible companies that might come into existence that would make tests because it seems pretty unlikely that the very best test you could possibly make would be invented by the first person to make one so yeah it's just it's just a whole mess of terrible to me it's such a kind of perfect like reverse image of the way that the patent system is supposed to work like when you strip it down to everything else patents are supposed to be about knowledge sharing like the idea is you have created this invention that is useful to society it's more beneficial to society if you share that information with the world about how that invention works so we create this legal incentive for you to share that information with the world this is the exact opposite it's an invention that didn't work in the first place that was kind of the center of this entire fraud and now this this patent is being used not for for sharing knowledge or for for incentivizing innovation but for the exact opposite it's being used against the people who are who are trying to fight COVID-19 yeah you know like that there's this progress clause in the constitution you know Congress is allowed to grant exclusive rights for the promote the progress of these full arts and sciences that's the basis of these these regimes and you know here you have someone who's engaged in the most socially useless thing you can imagine right a company whose sole product is lawsuits assuming a company whose sole product is helping us figure it if we have coronavirus goodness me this does not seem like it's promoting the useful arts and sciences maybe full employment for patent lawyers there's now I do want to kind of before we turn to questions I want to end this on a little bit of a hopeful note which is there is something that the that the public can do right now about patent abuse during COVID-19 I co-wrote a blog post with our colleague Alex Moss about this maybe somebody can put it into the chat there is a law that lets the government essentially step in and license an invention to others so the government could step in and say okay now we are granting a license to the the the Theranos patents to the public for the purposes of fighting COVID-19 the owner laboratory diagnostics would still be able to sue but they'd be suing the government instead of suing the the company is creating COVID-19 tests yeah you know in Canada where I'm from parliament sat really early in this emergency and passed an act that effectively nationalizes patents related to COVID including for PPE and and other related systems where they create a compulsory licensed regime that sets a price the government collects that money and disperses it to the patent holders but the patent holders don't get to pick and choose right if you've got a a cool idea that would save lives and get equipment into people's hands you just get to execute on that idea there's a price schedule you pay the price you get your stuff Costa Rica has petitioned the world intellectual property organization which is a specialized UN body that I was a delegate to for a while for EFF has petitioned them to make this the global norm there's a proposal that I'm a big fan of called the open COVID pledge that that protects folks working on fighting COVID-19 against any kind of IP enforcement be it copyright or patents or whatever it is until it's been a year after the WHO has stopped calling it a pandemic and just to be clear it's not that a year later they get to sue you it's that you get a you you are immunized from liability for the duration of the emergency and then 12 months more exactly I would like to see governments and other funders of research start making something like the open COVID pledge a condition of funding yeah all right let's turn to some questions because we just have about 12 more minutes before we get to the break the first question is from Urza's Bay and it is should we be equipping every hospital in the world especially in the developing world with 3d printers so they can print the equipment they need in real time so look I love 3d printers I wrote a book about 3d printers I am all over 3d printers I have to say they aren't like they're they're cool but they're not the ones doing the workhorse work in these in this situation you know laser cutters might be better that that's where you're seeing like really high speed high volume manufacturing and unlike 3d printers laser cutters need some pretty heavy duty ventilation and stuff and some PPE but I don't think that it's the worst thing at all to imagine small scale manufacturing migrating to all kinds of places you know it's the there are lots of places that have machine shops in the basement that aren't that aren't manufacturers that are just places that have equipment that needs to run you know I used to work for for uh imagineering and there are there's you know shops that Disney keeps on site at the theme parks to fix their rides because of course they do I mean they're amazing rides and they have to be in good repair you know so yeah I definitely think we should see lots of of small scale manufacturing equipment machining equipment and so on spread more widely uh and hospitals already have you know repair shops a lot of them uh here's a question from Curve Summit uh which is do we need to think about hospital software and interoperability as well as hardware um and then you know what what's that mean for free and open source software yeah you know I I have spoken to medical audiences about this a specific question about whether free and open source software should be mandatory for a hospital and I would say like look if if you asked a firm of engineers to build you a hospital and you know like most modern hospitals you had a great sweeping atrium for your entryway and the firm of engineers said we are going to build you a really good atrium but we're not going to tell you like where in the walls the wiring is we're not going to give you an asbuilt diagram and we won't reveal the math we use to make sure the ceiling doesn't fall down because that's our proprietary advantage and if we let you know that stuff then we wouldn't make as much money like they wouldn't be lying right you definitely would make more money if you had proprietary math that worked better than your competitors math but as a hospital administrator you shouldn't buy that hospital right and as we learned during the ransomware epidemics if you have a hospital whose software stops working you don't have a hospital anymore either you have a place where people just go to die right and so um I do think that at a very at the very minimum the people who run and own the hospital should be able to scrutinize audit and improve their software in the same way that they shouldn't have to like call the firm of architects over if they want to change the signs or or or knock out a wall um and you know I'm not under any uh illusions that that will make the software work right you could you could have open source software that's bad but I think that it's a big stretch to say that the software gets better if you don't have to show your work and expose any dumb mistakes you might have made to your customers you know at the very least this affords the opportunity which may or may not be seized upon to audit and hold to account firms that do bad or substandard work um here's an interesting question which is how do we make sure that those who are temporarily relaxing their DRM slash copyright restrictions during this crisis aren't simply reputation laundering and and then proceed to go back to business as usual? Well I don't know that we can make sure of it I I think that like with a lot of the questions that are arising out of this emergency in which restrictions that we had grown accustomed to are being suspended whether that's liquid bans on airplanes or data caps for ISPs or restrictions on on how copyrighted works are used or or how you can interact with software and other tools on your computer that at the very least what comes out of this is our ability to say you told us before that you had to do this if the sky would fall then there was an emergency and you didn't do it anymore and the sky didn't fall can we talk about why you're really doing it like maybe you even believe the sky would fall can we adjust your priors now because the sky didn't fall let's let's figure it out um some companies are doing this not because they're mustache twirling villains but because they think it's an existential issue others are doing it because it's a smoke screen either way having evidence in hand instead of a hypothetical discussion about what might happen is only going to help us to the extent that we are on the side of right and I think the evidence has been that we are to me this question makes me think about the the little controversy that there was over Gilead and its patent on Remdesivir which is one of the experimental drugs that people are talking about a lot and you know ultimately Gilead backed away from from requesting the orphan drug status for its patent which is good it it it's not good for uh for us to rely on you know PR crises as as as the way to make progress um and I think that you know these are the hard questions that we should be asking as we're thinking about reform going forward and do you know there's that old Albert Camu quote right sometimes you execute an admiral to encourage the others right you know the lesson of Gilead may be taken to heart by all the you know Shkreli ask patent trolls out there who are you know are twirling their mustaches and thinking about how they can jack up prices on life-saving drugs in this moment of global crisis uh and and maybe make them reconsider the kind of reputational damage that will be inflicted on them yeah uh here's a question from eggs biscuits which is do you think there will ever be a do not pay equivalent for patent trolls to automatically shut them down on smaller cases or is that impractical you know I I've wondered about this that you know this is a question that like really lawyers should be answering and so I'm going to be really careful here but it strikes me that the the core of the troll problem is that um it's a collective action problem right if you've got a patent troll that's going around and shaking down a bunch of little sites so like there was a there was a troll who was who asserted a patent on video streaming right this what we're doing now we started off by going to tiny little porn sites back before they were all consolidated and saying I want a hundred bucks from you for a license and a hundred bucks is cheaper than it would cost to ask a lawyer right and so then they collected a bunch of these hundred dollars and they stuck them in the bank but more importantly what they did was they started to go into larger site and saying I have a thousand of your competitors who just paid for a license to my patent how much do you want to bet a court will find that it's valid I want a thousand bucks from you right then they racked up some thousand dollar license fees and then they started going after bigger and bigger broadcasters now the reality is that of all of those companies or even a substantial portion of those companies have gotten together and said none of us will pay if we all agree that we will give that hundred dollars or thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars to a firm of really good white shoe lawyers to sue these guys into a smoking hole well then it wouldn't have been worth the while of the patent role to shake people down in fact if there was like a fund somewhere where you you know when you googled what do I do this patent role is shaking me down the first link was we're being shaken down by this patent role and we have all agreed that if he ever sues us we'll come back to him and and sue and you know and and fight this patent and get it invalidated well then you know the patent role like the harder they push the harder the more people there would be joining this pool of people willing to pay to litigate their patent I called it the magnificent seven business model you know after that movie where you have the people who live in the sleepy town and every year the banditos come in and they demand tribute and one year they're like you know what's cheaper than tribute hiring seven totally badass mercenaries to just kill these bandits and they do it and they win you know no Brenner it was great and and so you know for me I wonder if there isn't a way to use these threshold things like Kickstarter where no one has to pay any money until everyone agrees but once everyone agrees everyone pays in as a way to create this like preemptive defense right to show that the harder they push the more they'll get pushed back and and basically end trolling and this the socially useless practice I mean I wrote about this 10 years ago and no one's done it since so it may be that there are that there are hidden problems with it that I'm not seeing but you know I think that might be at least one way out it is inspiring when people do stand up to trolls some people watching this might be familiar with the story of a patent troll called my health which we've we've gotten quite a bit of mileage out of them over the years we gave them our stupid patent of the month award a couple of years ago you know this is a patent on the idea of a doctor diagnosing a patient remotely that are utterly routine practices in telehealth and they just went through and demanded licensing fees from all of the different telehealth companies until one of them finally did fight back and it was this this guy in Nebraska named Justice Decker who ran this small telehealth company and like the my health patent is interesting in the context of the COVID-19 discussion too because it's an example of how we're not just talking about pharmaceutical patents here we're talking about a whole kind of ecosystem that can be that can have a pretty big wrench thrown into it by a bad actor with a patent yeah I mean if there's one thing we're learning from the from the pandemic it's just how many moving parts there are in a supply chain that that you know getting food onto your table is not a matter of merely keeping the grocery stores open right you also have to keep the deliberators and you need to get the agricultural workers and the packers and the you know like like all of the people in between and so when we talk about what we're going to need to do to ensure supply chains of life-saving equipment of the things that will keep our children's education going of you know the provision of health and so on you know it's important to not just narrowly construe this as dumb theranos patents on on diagnostic tech but you know the the entire scale of things that serve the emergency response we have just a minute before we we go to the next segment but I have one last question for you which is when is your book coming out and when are you when are you coming to our town oh my goodness well I have three books coming out in 2020 because I picked a great year to have three books come out that the first one is a reissue of little brother in homeland from tour books that's coming out on July the 7th and it has a new introduction by Edward Snowden and then a week later on July the 14th my first picture book posy the monster slayer comes out it's about a little girl who's like a maker and really into monsters and at night she refuses to go to bed because it's more fun to tear apart her super girly toys and turn them into field expedient monster killing weapons and and then the the third book I've got out is the third little brother book which is a book for adults called attack surface that we just finished recording the audiobook for yesterday with amber Benson from Buffy and and skyboat media we were all zoomed into a a collective session while amber read in her basement studio and it's about masha who appears at the beginning in the end of the little brother books and who is a surveillance contractor who in this book has to have a reckoning with the life choices that she's made to make technology that takes away people's freedom uh thanks a lot for joining me in this discussion Corey I've really enjoyed this stay safe keep washing your hands yeah you too used to stay safe um okay now I think we're going to turn it over to cooper cyber tiger quinton who is who's going to lead us in a little bit of trivia hello hi cooper hi eliot and indeed I am going to lead you all in some trivia uh let me get my screen sharing going and there we are uh so hello everybody I hope you've all been uh enjoying the excellent talks so far I'm going to lead you in just a quick round of trivia uh this is a small version of the tech trivia event that we do every year as an eff fundraiser in san francisco and def con uh we'll be doing it this year at some point later in the year uh it has been postponed for now but if you are in the bay area uh definitely please come check it out uh it's a really fun time um and I now know how the all the late night hosts feel uh doing their shows from their houses without any audience to laugh at them because normally I tell a lot of jokes and get really involved and it's fun and I ask everybody how they're doing and uh I feel like that's going to fall a little bit flat here just talking to my screen or at least it feels really awkward so uh but enough with that let's get into the trivia um a couple of rules please don't google the answers uh just because it's no fun that way um and also you shouldn't be able to google this first round hopefully um secondly if you do know the answer go ahead and type it in the twitch chat uh you will win nothing other than a hearty pat on the back from everybody else in the twitch chat if you get it first but uh we're not here to win we're here to have fun so yes uh duck duck go the answers not google the answers that's what I meant I met duck the answers it was a typo um okay so uh so uh the first round is name the surveillance company uh we'll have five questions here I'm going to show you emojis and you have to name the surveillance company that these emoji represent uh so this first one's kind of a softball uh and if you know the answer go ahead and type it in chat and somebody yep somebody already got it right it looks like the rungaron got it right with ring uh that's correct amazon's ring maker of cameras we have a lot of uh articles about them next one uh what is this surveillance company this one's a little bit harder get a little harder now but if you sound it out uh I think that it shouldn't be too hard to figure it out uh too bad duck that goes in a verb yeah it's uh I mean you could duck things I feel like I feel like we can make that happen go go duck that you know that's that shouldn't be too hard to do right we just have to start saying it over and over and over again um yeah you got it uh oh false mirror wins it is palantir indeed next one this one's a little harder once again so uh yeah congratulations uh looks like a lot of people got it at the same time well barb ref or sorry false mirror marry very well oh no egg biscuits oh yep okay good job uh the the rungaron and flex believer has got it roughly about the same time again that one this one is indeed a clear UAI next one um so I'm actually uh really annoyed I didn't come up with these questions uh somebody else did uh and they're fantastic questions I think I'm gonna have to come up with some new ones for when uh for when we do the tech trivia in person um so so let's see has anybody got this one beer beer honey dock is unfortunately not a real you are you are information super highway you're getting close uh but also still not a real uh yeah no they're not beer I'll I'll give you that hint there nobody puts ice and beer may very well be as indeed correct okay I'm only gonna give it another 30 uh 30 seconds because we only have about 15 minutes for this okay so you have two shots and then yeah you got it BL BPL made he got it shot spotter we have a winner indeed and the last one the last the last question here this one um has been the target of some pretty hilarious news articles um in the past uh no it's not night sky uh night scope you got it the rungaron again wins it uh so the rungaron so far has gotten a few of these actually and it is indeed night scope maker of hilarious robots that often try to drown themselves in um in uh the fountains and stuff so moving on the next question the salt site simulator brand stingray is named after an aquatic wild animal what's the name of the celebrity killed by a stingray in 2006 yes r.i.p press f to pay respects uh if you know who it is okay good good may very well be got it that was an easy one too soon what is what is the appropriate amount of time to wait thank you for everybody for pressing f um it's important to spare respects to to the man the master the legend steeper win spelling doesn't count it's okay i can't type either may very well be uh moving on next question today hdbs has supported on millions of websites but that was not always the case what was the name of the first browser to implement hdbs nope net skate may very well be gets it again walks away with it that's gave navigator was in fact the first browser to implement hdbs and forever chain links no it was not links uh unfortunately although that was my favorite browser um of all time and still is to this day um it's the only browser that uh doesn't run javascript so you know it's uh it's a solid choice for the modern web uh emacs server site emacs is also a browser that doesn't run javascript that's a fair point curl okay fine fine moving on uh as of february 2019 according to digiconomist.net annual bitcoin production generated an estimated 23 000 kilotons of greenhouse gases and used power at an average of 75 terawatts per hour approximately how many us households could be powered by this energy i'm gonna wait a minute for some guesses to come in one bloomberg mansion yeah but how many bloomberg ads could it power i'll give i'll give this one maybe another 30 seconds for people to put their guesses in the efft in here you paying your respects to the world okay so yes i believe you are correct and as just as cynical as i hope you would be the answer is in fact d uh the 4,400,000 uh us households could be powered by the energy we use to make bitcoin is there possibly a better use for that energy than making funny virtual internet currency maybe uh i'm just saying perhaps we should explore some options um and uh another question next question um let's see oh keep my face in the camera window five minutes left great uh this is what i was wondering um when the bbs sysoutsable started becoming fully fledged system system administrators they found that no text file out there caught the frustrations and issues of computer hackers settled with responsibility more than the bofh series the initial bfh have become one of the better kept inside jokes of the system admin trade what does bofh stand for yep that was an easy one and rkow got it bofh stands for bastard operator from hell which is probably what many of your sys admins are turning into right now keeping your networks up so if you know a sys admin if you work with a sys admin don't go give them a hug because that would violate social distancing rules but you know maybe uh order them a pizza or or have your drone fly a beer over to them um yeah i'm really i'm really uh dating myself with this one but bastard operator from hell is great and if you can go find the old text files you should read them because they're really a treat okay and the final question of the night which of the following famous essays was written by late the ff founder john perry barlow a declaration of the independence of cyberspace b a cyborg manifesto c the conscience of a hacker or d a cyberpunk manifesto cipher punks manifesto uh i'll give you all a few seconds to answer because it looks like i have um a few seconds left okay so we have a couple of votes for a vote for b a vote for d a vote for e tron and vaporwave diary uh which is unfortunately not the right answer but could you send me a link to that because i would love to read it um and yeah nice uh and yes the correct answer is a uh the declaration of independence of cyberspace which he wrote while attending the world economic club uh good job flex rebus good job everybody else uh this is the end of the trivia round thank you all so much for coming uh if you liked this uh check it out at defcon if defcon is not canceled and uh check us out in person uh later this year details will be up on the e f f website thanks everybody and bye bye see you later enjoy your social isolation hey thanks cyber tiger if you joined late we are at home with e f f talking about the coven nine crisis and if you have questions please write them into the twitch tv chat which is twitch.tv slash e f f live um that was great fun um so we that was a really fun conversation with cori and elliott um thinking about the opportunities and kind of the way especially intellectual property law could either help or really get in the way right now um but we all know that this is a particularly dangerous time too um of course we're all worried about the health of our loved ones um but we also know that people can try to take advantage of that worry and that fear um and that there's really tremendous opportunities for the forces of repression um and we also know that once put into place um reductions in our freedoms are notoriously hard to remove um within 20 days of the horrific 9 11 attack congress rushed through a set of changes to our laws um including a set of hidden changes um that reduced our privacy affected our freedom of expression and disproportionately impacted already marginalized people in our society e f f has now been trying to undo the central pieces of some of those laws especially in the usa patriot act um since 2006 we started and that's five years after they got in put into place so things were kept secret for five years and now we're headed uh into 15 years of trying to undo them in the courts and in the court of public opinion now it's not all bad we've been able to roll back lots of it um and currently some of the pieces of the patriot act have actually lapsed um so it's another area where we need to keep our vigilance up but what we especially don't need to do now is make it worse and go backwards um so now more than ever we need to stay vigilant and keep our heads about us um so I'd like to bring on my colleague Syrah Hussein who is a staff attorney on e f f civil liberties team and part of our team focusing on racial justice and surveillance and specifically focusing right now on surveillance and racial justice in the context of the COVID-19 crisis um welcome Syrah thank you Cindy yeah so um Syrah could you give us an outline of how e f f thinks about the many of the proposed technological responses to help with the COVID-19 crisis sure and just from the outset you know I want to reiterate something that you said earlier on that this is an unprecedented time that we are going to have to think really crucially and critically about the ways in which the good of society may interact in uncomfortable ways with civil liberties so the way that we think about it here at e f f is sort of a three-prime framework the first is that if the government is proposing some sort of surveillance powers to enact during this time the first question we want to ask is does it work is this a proposal that has been thoroughly vetted is it something that we we think is actually going to help during this crisis or is this just another way of increasing the surveillance powers that will remain after this crisis has abated then we move on to are the freedoms um are the harms too great there are going to be some proposals during this time that may help but may also end up heavily burdening our individual liberties in a way that's not compatible with a democratic society and if it the proposal happens to pass those first two tests we then ask how are we ensuring that surveillance powers are limited what types of safeguards are we putting into place thanks so right now there are seemingly thousands of ideas about how to use cell phone location data to try to help with the coven 19 uh uh crisis um uh it seems like uh no matter what your issue is cell phone location data seems like the nail that people are trying to hit or the hammer maybe so um tell me how are we thinking specifically about this this issue traditionally EFF has been opposed to cell phone surveillance we've written about it in um our many amicus briefs we bought affirmative litigation on it um and there are many reasons good reasons for why we oppose it you know it chills and deters free speech and association think about the amount of information you can get about somebody based on what type of health clinic they visit or whether they're whether they go to a religious institution often or they're visiting an immigration law office that's all very revealing information it also disproportionately impacts communities of color and there's always the threat of breach right if it gets in the hand if it gets into the wrong hands so in this particular instance when we're looking at at all these proposals on um cell phone location we believe that the government has not yet demonstrated that cell phone location would be helpful to solving this crisis um in that there's been all kinds of proposals around the world there have been some that are really privacy invasive and here in the US what we've heard most often relates to de-identified aggregated data but de-identified information can often be re-identified and that's when it's really revealing um when we're looking at you know the the different proposals that have come out I think one of the main questions is exactly why we why the government would need this information um and in many cases location records are not sufficiently granular so if what you're trying to do is enforce for example social distancing it's going to be very hard to determine when people are actually six feet apart based on cell phone location information especially because information like cell site location information is shows a range from half a mile to two miles in urban areas and even larger ranges in rural areas um this type of information often excludes older people and low income people who may not have smartphones and it's also unclear at this time what their contact tracing through cell phone location data would be helpful because if the disease has spread to sufficiently large um you know large number of the population in a given area it's going to be very hard to then make sense of cell phone location information as a means of contact tracing and then you know lastly I think this is really important to mention when we're talking about surveillance um and enhanced surveillance powers that may prevent people from actually seeking healthcare when they need it during this time and it's really important to remember that during times of crisis like this pandemic punitive measures like surveillance may strip people's trust in government when it's the most important time for people to have trust in the government. Great thank you um are there any um technologies that we kind of know right now are just going to fail this test that we should just kind of put off the table for now um and turn to ones that might present harder questions so what what do you think is kind of already just off the table? You know for us what's already off the table is face recognition um we've heard of these proposals existing long before this pandemic came on and now people are trying to say this is the silver bullet if we can just identify people who may be positive then we can go back and sort of identify others who may be around them and warn them that way and you know we have said time and time again that face recognition the the burdens that it imposes are just too great to be compatible with a democratic society especially if you have real-time face recognition and you're able to identify where people go um and and link that up with um CCTV systems that are already in place in many places in this country it just poses too great of a risk um to our freedoms. So let's flip it around are there some that you think might uh the the thinking about our framework might be reasonable things to do in response to the crisis? Yeah and it's really important to look at these on a case by case basis um something like the CDC's proposed program for contact tracing on international air travel may pass muster that's where the government has suggested that airlines maintain names and contact information for passengers and then if somebody on the flight test positive then the airline can give those that passenger contact information to the CDC and the CDC can then reach out in a form of of the risk um and in that situation you know it's it's limited to a group of people it's limited in time um but we we also we need to see what types of safeguards there are and we haven't seen that mentioned as of yet. So for example we wouldn't want the airline um or the government to keep the passenger info in perpetuity right once the crisis has abated again it's really important to make sure that the government's surveillance powers that have been enacted during this time are also um curtailed. That's great and so let's talk about guardrails so you know assuming we're going to go forward with some of this stuff we think it's it's past the efficacy test we think it's going to help um while we are not comfortable with it as a long-term problem on our freedom if it's going to help in the short term we think the trade-off is right what are the guardrails what are the things that people when they're hearing about these proposals ought to ask themselves um in order to evaluate whether something's a good idea because too often once somebody gets the big idea we skip that part so and that that's kind of where we come in so what are the things that people should be asking themselves when they hear about these proposals. So when we're talking about guardrails there are a number of things that come up over and over again and this isn't only here during this pandemic we have pointed to these guardrails and other sorts of situations as well oftentimes when we're talking about legislation that isn't active um so I'm going to mention a few of the guardrails here um but I'm sure that there are many more that I'll be missing out on um so you know paramount I think is transparency governmental transparency and making sure that the government is explaining why they need to enact certain surveillance powers during this time um and what they'll be using it for so you know one example where this one terribly arrived was after 9-11 um during the creation of the no-fly list that was intended to try to identify people that pose a harm to national security here in the US and ultimately what it became was a black box um where it was impossible to know who was on the list it was impossible to get off the list and we still have it in place today over 18 years later um you know that is exactly what we don't want during this crisis uh another and that goes hand in hand with the idea of due process and the right to appeal um you know it in China what they have done is um in response to to try to identify people who may be high risk of of getting covid or transmitting covid they put into place this red yellow green system where people who were maybe at most were most risky were identified as red but there wasn't much indication as to what went into that and there was no way for people to get off of this sort of color coding um and so you were left with people who were you know very limited in their movements without any sort of explanation for why and even if they could prove that they weren't a risk um some other things to consider are a minimization and of information so the the data the government should collect should be only what they absolutely need and then the government should make sure that they're they're they're doing everything possible to keep that information secure um we're also we also have to make sure that that it's free of discrimination that any proposals are actually backed up by public health and scientific evidence and that we're not putting in place um place policies that are going to disproportionately impact um you know vulnerable already vulnerable communities and then the last piece is retention making sure that there is a termination date for these sorts of surveillance powers that it does not become part of our everyday life long after this crisis is averted. Great thank you so much um well let's go to some questions because I see some coming in um this is a question from Thuriga would you be on board with vitals data gathering assuming that the hardware and software are free or Libra it seems like being able to map fevers in real time would be very valuable to the health department. So in some cases we have seen um we have seen healthcare workers actually um being tested you know for for fevers as they're walking in the clinics and that may there may be actually really good public health reasons for doing that right if the people who are working at the front lines and are working with people who may be sick we need to make sure that they're healthy and that they're not transmitting um the the virus as they're assisting other people right and that is um that that's one measure that's been put into place now um you know there has there has been the idea of using some of these like internet connected thermometers in order to make sure everybody you know nobody has a fever but another thing to remember is that people also have different body temperatures that not everybody is at 98.6 degrees and so if you're going to be imposing some sort of limitations on people because of something you know that their body is at a completely normal temperature for them but may not pass medical muster then you have to think about the ramifications that could result as well um so you know once again I think we should consider all the proposals but we should be really mindful to think about the potential pitfalls of um putting into place uh you know some an idea that maybe hasn't been completely vetted yeah um we're also seeing some stuff in the in the context of artificial intelligence where companies are claiming that they can tell whether somebody's sick or whether they have a fever based on you know kind of facial issues or looking into their eyes or things like that I mean there's a lot of you know what I think of is um digital phrenology going on there by usually by companies who've got a product to sell so I think uh you know really relying on what medically would be helpful here um and and not you know kind of resisting the kind of solutionism that we sometimes see from you know a company trying to get a big government contract so um that's another area where I think we just have to put our skeptical glasses on about you know what's likely to help and I've seen this with beavers already um the next question uh from Thrungeron how do we shift the narrative away from South Korea as the best example of COVID-19 containment which involved lots of warrantless digital surveillance towards a country like Taiwan which used modern technology to control the outbreak in a way that was much more respectful of privacy. Cindy I think that may be a question for you. Yeah I think that um shifting the narrative I mean this is what we're doing this is why we're here right is so that we can arm you with some facts and figures and that that you're aware of these kinds of things I think that you know one of the concerns in South Korea was the something that Syrah mentioned which is the a lot of people did not participate um because of the tracking people were afraid to go get medical help there was some stigmatizing that happened as a result of this and I think as we get further away from the South Korean example we're going to see some real science come out of that um and we'll see the value of the surveillance I think the Taiwan story could use a lot more attention I I've only seen a little bit of it and you know one of the things that happens in these crisis moments is that um people who want you to be afraid will push a narrative um we saw a poll recently that said you know majority of Americans would accept more tracking if it meant that they were meant they were kept safer um well that's an interesting poll but it doesn't tell you anything about any of the specifics any of the efficacy any of you know it assumes the efficacy it doesn't talk about guardrails and it frames the question in a way that kind of only a moron would say no to um so um I apologize for that but you know it really is trying there's a lot of push polling going on right now and examples and so one of the things we can do is make sure that we're augmenting the stories that are um are are are are showing us how we can do this without surveillance that can show us how we can do this in a way and I think the Taiwan one is one I'd like to see a lot more attention to um the next question is from lazy geniuses um if legislation does pass that infringes or limits democratic rights would it be easy to repeal and what would the strategies be for repealing such a bill you know once we have once we pass something it's not that the government ever takes back the surveillance power that they enact uh willingly right we have seen this time and time again and I think that the examples from the war on terror in post 9 11 really indicate how much the surveillance state has grown um in the past you know 20 years and you can imagine that if you don't put any safeguards around new powers that they will just become a part of our lifetime after after that and it's it's going to just be part of the surveillance state moving forward so um you know I think that uh it would be naive to think that the government would willingly stop it if we don't if we don't ensure that there are safeguards in place yep and and one of the things that we've seen um again in the post 9 11 thing was that we did have a series of surveillance laws that expired um and then we had to renew them and that was a moment for us to raise uh to raise concern um but we've really only ever repealed uh surveillance law once and that was the shifting around of section 215 of the Patriot Act that happened with the USA Freedom Act and even that was you know a half measure right it didn't it didn't go nearly as far as we liked it to be but it was I think the first time in the history of the NSA that they'd ever had a power taken away and so I think that the you know one of the reasons why we're raising the alarm now as opposed to waiting and seeing is that we know that once these things get into place it's very very difficult to uh to undo them and again we're in the middle of undoing another part of the Patriot Act section 215 entirely right now it has technically lapsed and it did last week but um uh but I think that nobody thinks that the the government is going to come is just going to walk away from that we're going to have to say look and this is a program section 215 of the Patriot Act the telephone records program that had never in the 20 years it's been in existence helped us solve a pretend terrorism or solve a terrorism crime it's got some tiny little things it's done nowhere near worthy of the expense so this is an experience that we should take and move forward and learn from um it's better to stop these things before they get into place than to think that we could repeal them later now if they get into place will EFF work hard to repeal them you betcha I got a legislative team I've got india mckinney and Ernesto Falcone and Lee TN the EFF legislative team is amazing and um they've gotten us as far as we've gotten them um we'll be there we'll be fighting but you know we'd really again as with the ernan act these are these are things that we'd be so much better off if we could stop before they got in place because undoing these things is very very hard um so a question from eminence front governments are seeming pretty strapped for resources both in terms of brain power and time and they seem like targets for surveillance snake oil how do we best case scenario make sure that they do due diligence or make sure they keep people as informed as we can and help mitigate the risk of things are subject to this is a very important question yeah no this is really important and I I've actually been using the term snake oil for some of the things that um certain vendors have been trying to sell uh where we know it's just not going to work um so you know in this particular instance I think there there's some ways that the government can try to vet these proposals one is I'd say all you know consulting with civil society there are so many civil society groups that are looking at these proposals um you know both civil libertarian organizations like EFF but also other organizations um that are are just trying to get to the bottom of some of these proposals um and it's you know it would it would be really beneficial to the government to have some of us stakeholders also participate in looking at these proposals um you know there's also experts within the government that can look at these I think it's just really making sure that we're not looking at any technology as sort of being the silver bullet right this is a really difficult time and I don't think any of us can say that one thing is going to get us out of this pandemic so we should be critical we should look towards things with the you know proposals with a critical eye um and that's I think how we ultimately try to distinguish what would be helpful versus what would be nothing more than waste at best and this is an area where EFF really is the anchor organization EFF has more public interest technologists more technologists dedicated to helping explain and understand how these sophisticated technologies work than any other organization we had the very first public interest technologists and now we've got the biggest crop of them so you know EFF is available to and we spend a lot of time with congressmen and with administrative officials trying to make sure that they understand how these technologies work so that they can make informed decision but there's not enough of them we need more public interest technologists we need more technologists being willing to you know swallow hard and go sit down with a bunch of those people in suits and explain to them how this technology works on the other side of this and referencing back to what Elliot and Corey talked about you know we need to fight back hard on companies claims that this information is proprietary that they can't share what's going on that they can't explain how these systems work you know governments are often too often really by trade secret arguments and patent arguments from people who are trying to sell them information that really they shouldn't and you know as Corey said about the hospital atrium you know nobody should buy a piece of technology for governmental use that doesn't show its work that doesn't show how it works what it's relying on what are its assumptions and how it's been vetted and you know EFF can help we can certainly help but you know it would be much much better if as a condition of selling something to the government you had to come clean about how it worked and you had to let people in under the hood and do red teaming do other things kind of figure out how it can be misused and there's a lot of work that could be done there we're starting to see more open access and there are parts of the government that really get this but it's not widespread enough and we really do worry at this time of crisis that that stuff will you know be seen as a something they can't afford to to to do as opposed to something that's more important than ever next question i know that EFF does a lot at the federal level in the united states but i fear that a lot of these projects might happen locally or at the state level or the city level how can i get involved at the state or city level if i want to stand up for digital privacy i am so glad you asked that question so if you don't know already EFF also has a whole member-based network called the electronic frontier alliance with various organizations throughout cities across the country and these are people who care about digital rights they care about privacy and oftentimes they're fighting the really hard fights at the local level right and so we want to make sure that you all know about it that you can join it and if you don't have one already in your city you know you can possibly bend together with a few more people and and create a local your local EFA chapter i'm not i don't have the the link off hand but i'm hoping that whoever is working on twitch for us is popping that link in there but take a look and and you'll be able to see some of the amazing work that EFA chapters have done across the country yeah i'm sorry could you talk a little bit about the face surveillance work that the EFF chapters have been doing because i think that is really heartening and it really it really shows that if you get involved locally you know sometimes the federal government can seem very far away and you know the corporate interests and the powerful interests have such sway there but locally we've really seen people being able to pick things up so i and i know you've been deeply involved in this so can you talk about the face surveillance stuff yeah absolutely so i'm not too long ago we started this program called about face um and what it is is basically a way to communicate with your local legislators to let them know that you want a ban on face surveillance in your local community and so you plan a petition and it basically basically tells you how to get involved and once you reach us you reach a certain threshold in your city then we automatically send your petitions over to that local city council or or a board of supervisors to let them know that you all are watching and that's a way to start the sort of the initiation to have these dialogues with your local legislators and hopefully put forward some really good and solid legislation putting a moratorium or ban or a ban on face recognition you know that's how working together with people on the ground is how we've been able to get face surveillance bans in san francisco in oakland um in in berkeley here in california in three cities in massachusetts and now there are all types of face surveillance ban proposals at the state level as well i know that michigan was considering one um massachusetts is considering one so you know this is just like one small way of getting involved but this is um you know it's it's been very successful and it's been really heartening to see how people across the country have also expressed their concerns about the expansion of face surveillance yeah thanks so much i mean it really is and honestly this is a face surveillance is one of the things that um we were very nervous about we did not think we were going to get to a ban on this we thought that uh people didn't care enough and it really is the efa chapters and people stepping up and making their voices heard that has taken this issue from something where i think we were only looking at guardrails to one where we've seen actual bans pass about this extremely dangerous technology and that's due to the good work of people like you and so um don't think you can't have power because that's one where we've really seen shifts um i'm i'm told that i think and we put a link into the efa groups in the twitch um chat so if you want to um go look around see if there's one in your area that seems like a good fit for you and if not start your own it's a pretty low bar to do that so um i have one more question i think that we've got time for um the uh uh uh carl frostman asked is eff doing anything to fight surveillance of immigrants and undocumented people during the covid crisis syrah yes um so i'm really glad that you asked that question you know we are monitoring what is going on um during this time and which communities are facing the the front of the burden right um i think that apart from this this crisis we are also very concerned about um particular surveillance issues that affect immigrant communities you know we have a few lawsuits a few FOIA lawsuits that particularly impact immigrant communities one is about rapid DNA testing at the border um which is a proposal that came out last year um and it's basically to quote unquote fight family fraud is how the administration is justifying it but it's it's collecting DNA from um from individuals who are believed not to be biological parent and child and then using that determination to to decide whether to house them together in immigration detention or house them separately it is another form of family separation as we've seen the horrific images come out at the border of issues like this so we have filed a FOIA um FOIA lawsuit we are trying to get records about this program um we also just recently filed comments um to a department of justice proposal that has now unfortunately been enacted um to collect DNA from um immigrants detainees and put that into codis now that proposal would affect 750 000 people a year which is a huge number and the vast majority of them are going to be people of color and particularly from Latinx communities um so you know these are issues that we work on COVID or not um and so you know it is important to be involved in the fight um stay tuned look we have a lot of this information up on our website but um I'm really glad that we are having this discussion and we will be monitoring to make sure that none of the proposals that come out of this time of pandemic are um harmful toward vulnerable communities including immigrant communities yeah thank you so much well um uh there is much much more on our blog um we've got um uh the COVID-19 blog has over 20 blog posts already just from when the crisis went my team is fast and furious on this we're talking about location tracking we can give you the download on privacy and zoom we can talk about phishing and there's many many more in the hopper so please um and and Cyrus Foyac so many of these things are really covered on our blog um the uh social distancing has had no no impact on our ability to keep you informed there um and now um thank you so much for taking the time to listen to us um EFF relies on our members we were over half of our support comes from individuals and over half of that comes from small donors people who give us less than a thousand dollars per year and it's because of you that we can stand tall um in the last week our membership support led us let us pivot and focus on these issues all this good work that we've talked about now was not on our quarterly agenda it wasn't on our yearly agenda it wasn't even our decade long agenda but we were able to pivot to do this because we've got the support of ordinary people who want us to be able to shift to what's on fire and be on control um so we can be here celebrating the good ideas and the communities that are arising online and standing vigilant for those who would use this crisis so now more than ever your financial support means that we can be on patrol that we can stand up for what's right and we can stand up for you so if you have the ability I hope you will join us by giving your financial support and if you're already a member this is a really good time to double down on your support for us because we're going to be really busy as this crisis unfolds um so if you're an EFF member you want to renew you can go to EFF.org slash EFF at home it's a special page we've put up for this and there's a great picture um of uh uh Rob O'Donnell who uh who is a big EFF supporter and brought you Mr. Robot um so as we head into these difficult times EFF standing strong to make sure that we both take advantage of how technology can help us and equally importantly that we emerge from this time with our freedom and our democracy as strong if not stronger than when we went in experience teaches us that civil liberties are at their most crucial and most vulnerable in times of crisis and panic and now is no different this is when EFF redoubles its commitment to you to protecting your privacy your free speech and your innovation for for all the people of the world so I want to thank you so much for watching I want to give a special shout out to all the people at EFF who made this uh happen uh behind the scenes uh in the in the twitch channel and and elsewhere uh especially big thanks to Jason Kelly Naomi Gillins Matt Garglia I'm going to mess that up Bill Buddington Danny O'Brien Louis Gittens Christian Romera Saraya Okuda Hannah Diaz Jillian and Jillian York and of course our speakers Elliott Harmon the amazing Corey Doctorow and Syrah Hussein and of course our own cyber tiger Cooper Quinton EFF is here uh this has been a really fun experiment let us know if you liked it if you want us to do more um we're proven we're ready we're strong we're 30 years old this summer um sadly we're probably not going to all get to get together and do a toast but uh we are going to be celebrating our 30th year 30th anniversary in ways that would make Barlow proud um and with the support of our members both new and old we're going to be there every step of the way through this crisis so thank you very much for listening in and see you next time