Tom's Hardware and Tom's Guide will be hosting an Ask Me Anything session with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on Wednesday, March 4 starting at 12 p.m. EST. The AMA will be open for a full 24 hours, leaving you plenty of time to ask questions about policy, privacy, advocacy, free speech, net neutrality and other topics relevant to your digital rights.
What: Ask Me Anything – Electronic Frontier Foundation
When: Wednesday, March 4, 12:00 p.m. EST
Where: The Antivirus / Security / Privacy Category of the Tom's Hardware forums (www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2541338/electronic-frontier-foundation-eff.html)
The thread is locked now, but it will be unlocked when the AMA starts. Be sure to bookmark it!
Who: Nate Cardozo, Staff Attorney (username: natecardozo)
Parker Higgins, Director of Copyright Activism (username: xor_eff)
Nadia Kayyali, Activist (username: Nadia_K)
Andrew Crocker, Legal Fellow (username: AndrewEFF)
Jeremy Gillula, Staff Technologist (username: jgillula)
Joseph Bonneau, Technology Fellow (username: jcbeff)
Ask Me Anything Rules:
• All Rules of Conduct apply. • Keep questions direct and to the point. • Avoid opinion bias. • Be respectful of our guests, no insults, no leading questions. • Do not post duplicate questions or repost your question multiple times. • Not all questions may be answered. Questions may not be answered in the order in which they are received or posted.
This AMA will be a tad different from our usual fare. Because the EFF deals in complex issues, we have compiled an explainer about the EFF and what they do.
What is the Electronic Frontier Foundation?
The EFF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit group that advocates for digital rights. They are in favor of privacy, freedom of speech and digital innovation. They use grassroots campaigns, impact litigation and their own technologies to advocate for these causes.
That all sounds cool, but what have they worked on, specifically?
More than we can list here, but we'll list some interesting projects.
The EFF has put together a list of resources regarding the NSA's mass surveillance program, which you can find here.
The organization is also fighting to maintain legal safe harbors for those who jailbreak devices and bypass DRM (as long as it's fair use), and they want the Supreme Court to extend the right to privacy to include genetic material.
They are for net neutrality and an open Internet and have encouraged the public to reach out to the FCC.
The EFF also provides a number of tools (it's most well-known is the HTTPS Everywhere browser extension). You can find out more about those tools here.
More broadly, the EFF has been tackling free speech, anonymity, net neutrality, encryption, privacy, SOPA/PIPA and more.
I want to be educated going into the AMA. What resources can I look at?
You should probably start with the EFF's website.
And I can ask questions about any of these? They won't violate the Tom's Community GRAPES policy?
Absolutely! We encourage you to ask any questions you may have about these topics, policy, advocacy and more.
Because the EFF folks are our guests, no questions about what they do will violate our policy, as long as you keep it civil. Some of these issues are polarizing. Breaking the Ask Me Anything rules may result in a one-day ban from our forums.
Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.