From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
is an international
non-profit
based in
San Francisco
,
United States
. It was started in July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote
Internet
freedoms
.
[1]
The EFF sponsors legal defense, defends individuals and new technology from
unfair legal threats
. It also monitors proposals that may weaken internet freedoms and liberties. It also monitors for possible weakening of
fair use
.
One of the first high profile cases of the EFF was
Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service
.
In early 1990,
Steve Jackson Games
was under a massive
search and seizure
operation. Copies of the game
GURPS Cyberpunk
was considered as proof by mistake. Emails were also modified and were a new technology at the time. It was not considered to be protected by the
right to personal privacy
at the time.
[1]
[2]
Bernstein v. United States
was the second large case of the EFF. Programmer
Daniel J. Bernstein
had sued the
US Government
for permission to release his
cryptographic
software
against limits put by the government.
[1]
[3]
During the mid-1990s, the
United States Government
did not allow for international use of any
cryptographic
product unless the
ciphertext
could be
decrypted
by a third-party with a promise that the government could not read messages protected by the
Data Encryption Standard (DES)
even after it was shown as weak and broken. The EFF had made a piece of hardware called the
EFF DES Cracker
that could crack a message within 24 hours.
[4]
The plans and source code were made public.
[5]
The EFF has made software and browser add-ons like Switzerland,
HTTPS Everywhere
,
[6]
and
Privacy Badger
.
[7]
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