Library of Congress Archives

Episode 84: Free Alexa! Cory Doctorow on jailbreaking Voice Assistants and hacking diversity with Rapid7’s Corey Thomas

February 19, 2018 Paul Roberts

In this week’s Security Ledger Podcast (#84): The 1990s era Digital Millennium Copyright Act made it a crime to subvert copy protections in software and hardware. We speak with Cory Doctorow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation about his group’s efforts to win an exemption from that law for voice assistants like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Also: February is Black History Month in the United States. We interview Corey Thomas, the Chief Executive Officer of the firm Rapid 7 about what it means to be a black man in the information security industry and about his path to the field.

EFF Seeks Right to Jailbreak Alexa, Voice Assistants

February 9, 2018 Paul Roberts

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is asking the Library of Congress to give owners of voice assistant devices like Amazon’s Echo, Google Home and other voice assistants the right to “jailbreak” the devices: freeing them from content control features designed to prevent users from running unauthorized code on those platforms.

DMCA Exemptions will Boost IoT Security Research

October 31, 2016 Paul Roberts

In-brief: After a year in limbo, the Librarian of Congress moved last week to allow a number of exceptions to the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that will clear the way for researchers to explore smart vehicles and other products.

Grease Monkeys: EFF Wants You to fight DMCA

April 3, 2015 Paul Roberts

In-brief: the Electronic Frontier Foundation is looking for stories of car hackers who have been thwarted by copyright protection features in vehicle software or hardware. The group says the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is being misapplied to prevent owners from repairing their vehicles.