Disk encryption, which people rely on for protecting sensitive data on laptops, can fairly easily be foiled, security researchers said in presenting a paper on a so-called "cold-boot attack" at the Usenix security conference on Wednesday.

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In addition to Halderman, the research team included Princeton professor Ed Felten, as well as Nadia Heninger, William Clarkson, Joseph Calandrino, and Ariel Feldman of Princeton; Jacob Appelbaum; Seth Schoen of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and William Paul of Wind River Systems.

A federal judge has dismissed radio host Michael Savage's copyright infringement lawsuit against the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations, which had posted excerpts of one of his programs online.

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A similar issue came up in late 2006 when the blogger "Spocko" posted audio files of comments made by right-wing talk show hosts at Bay Area ABC affiliate radio station KSFO. there, ABC Radio sent a cease-and-desist letter to Spocko's hosting company, 1&1 Internet, which then took down his site. The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation intervened, and ultimately, Spocko found a new host.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also got involved in the Savage case, weighing in on behalf of the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations.

Radio show host Michael Savage's copyright infringement claim against a Muslim rights group has been thrown out, with the judge ruling that the group acted well within the doctrine of fair use when it posted a clip from his show on its website. The case may be dead in the water for now, but likely won't remain there for long; Savage plans to amend his claims and continue going after what he describes as a terrorist group that is using his words for its own benefit.

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Further, he said that the group had caused him to lose $1 million in advertising revenue, and that it was using his words for its own fundraising purposes. CAIR responded to the suit with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, merely saying that US copyright law allows for anyone to use clips of copyrighted material for criticism or commentary, and that Savage's complaint is "laced with falsities and xenophobic fantasies to punish and intimidate the Council for American-Islamic Relations."

Driving down its ribbon-thin roads, rolling through the long shadows of tall redwoods, people gain a certain sense of seclusion and privacy.

But some are now wondering if Google killed that feeling -- at least in part -- after it posted to the Web in June thousands of detailed photos taken along county roads.

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"This is not the first time this incidence has come up," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet watchdog group.

But so far it's been rare, he said. If Google has only trespassed twice, then it's not a huge concern, Opsahl said.

"But if this is only the tip of the iceberg, then with each additional incident it becomes more troubling," he said.

Q. Is it true that laser printers put an invisible code that contains the printer’s serial number on every document printed?

A. Some, but not all, laser printers do leave a series of nearly imperceptible yellow dots on the printed page. These dots usually contain the encoded serial number of the printer and may also include the time and date that the document was printed.

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The existence of these dots has long had privacy advocates worried. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy rights group, has been closely following the yellow dots issue because there are no legal provisions to stop government agencies from using the technology to track documents in cases unrelated to counterfeiting.

A U.S. appeals court has for the third time struck down a law intended to keep Web sites with sexually oriented themes away from children, with judges saying the law is a vague and overly broad attack on free speech.

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Opponents of the law, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Nerve.com, Salon.com, the Urban Dictionary and the Sexual Health Network, argued the law amounted to government censorship and was so broad that it would affect many Web sites, including those that included information on sexually transmitted diseases.

Did you break the law today? If you've created something on the Internet, probably. Artists, librarians, tech geeks, and software engineers are now fighting over a miserably shrinking public domain. This isn't what copyright was supposed to be about, and only a popular uprising will stop the current trend.

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One of the great tech stories of the past decade has been how technology has enabled a tremendous explosion of creativity. This is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Consumer Electronics Association, and the Center for Democracy and Technology are involved in the debate over a new Orphan Works Act, which is supposed to expand the public domain. Your camera-phone photos, YouTube mashups, blog posts, home-burned DVDs, iMovies of your kids—even your Facebook status updates—are creative works.

The New Yorker magazine cover cartoon this week shows a turban–wearing Barack and gun–toting Michelle Obama in the White House. An American flag burns in the fireplace. The New Yorker says the cartoon satirizes the worst scare tactics being used against Obama. Obama's campaign manager calls it tasteless and offensive. What do you think?

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And for the past 18 months, immigration officials at border entries have been searching electronic files on some citizens' laptops and cellphones when they return from international trips. Civil rights groups say it's unconstitutional and they want the Department of Homeland Security to stop.

Guests

Lee Tien is a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. He testified in favor of a probable cause standard for laptop searches at a Congressional hearing last month.

The Senate approved a major revision of the 30-year-old law regulating the government's electronic surveillance program Wednesday, ending a debate that threatened to freeze intelligence operations.

The bill, which President Bush promised to sign, is designed to end at least 40 lawsuits against telecommunication companies that have aided the government.

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Opponents said the bill codifies an unconstitutional program. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation vowed a court challenge.

"This program broke the law, and this president broke the law," said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a leading opponent. Senators will regret they passed the law if they learn more about the program, he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit Thursday over a controversial wiretapping law, challenging the constitutionality of the expanded spy powers Congress granted to the president on Wednesday.

The federal lawsuit was filed with the court just hours after Bush signed the bill into law.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is expected to challenge the provision of the bill that gives retroactive amnesty to telecoms that are being sued for helping the government spy on Americans without warrants.

But the San Francisco-based online rights group also announced in a fund-raising letter on Thursday that it too would challenge the constitutionality of the bill's expanded spying powers. An EFF lawyer said the group was still developing the case and could not provide details of when or where the case would be filed.

Bowing to President Bush's demands, the Senate sent the White House a bill Wednesday overhauling bitterly disputed rules on secret government eavesdropping and shielding telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California civil rights organization, intends to challenge the constitutionality of the immunity provision.

The Senate is expected to vote on a controversial measure to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act tomorrow. The legislation would rewrite the nation’s surveillance laws and authorize the National Security Agency’s secret program of warrantless wiretapping. We speak with Mark Klein, a technician with AT&T for over twenty-two years. In 2006 Klein leaked internal AT&T documents that revealed the company had set up a secret room in its San Francisco office to give the National Security Agency access to its fiber optic internet cables.

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Mark Klein is also a witness in a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which alleges AT&T illegally gave the National Security Agency access to its networks. Mark Klein joins us now from San Francisco, California.

Two civil liberties groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government yesterday, seeking records related to the government's use of cellphones as tracking devices.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the government in federal court in Washington under the Freedom of Information Act. Last November, the ACLU had filed a FOIA request with the Justice Department for documents, memos and guides regarding the policies for tracking people through the use of their cellphones.

In the latest turn in Viacom's copyright infringement suit against YouTube and parent company Google, a federal judge ruled that Google must hand over YouTube users' IP addresses and user names, plus a history of videos they've viewed. The court order stipulates that data turned over to Viacom by Google must be used solely to prove Viacom's claim that YouTube is a hotbed of pirated video content. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation stills sees the ruling as a blow to user privacy. CNET News.com reporter Caroline McCarthy tells News.com's Leslie Katz why.

In a ruling that could have serious privacy implications, a federal judge has ruled that popular Internet video site YouTube must hand over details about what people watch online.

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"The court's order grants Viacom's request and erroneously ignores the protections of the (act) and threatens to expose deeply private information about what videos are watched by YouTube users," Kurt Opsahl, senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a blog posting. "As Congress recognized, your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection."

The record industry is urging a federal court to let a copyright infringement verdict stand against Minnesota resident Jammie Thomas, who was found liable last year by a jury for copyright infringement based on placing files in a Kazaa folder.

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The case has drawn significant attention by digital rights advocates as well as media executives. Digital rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge filed papers on behalf of Thomas. They argue that equating making files available with distribution will broaden copyright law in a way that could harm many Web companies. "An inappropriately expansive reading of the distribution right will have far-reaching effects on the rights of users of digital works as well as the ability of innovators to find new, legal uses for those works," they wrote.

A European Union lawmaker who frequently travels to the United States is suing the U.S. government for access to her personal records, such as credit card information and travel history, that the Department of Homeland Security and other security agencies may have gathered.

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"The bottom line is, the U.S. is trying to give the impression in Europe that there's a simple, well-established process for records access that any European can avail themselves of," said David L. Sobel, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is filing the lawsuit on in't Veld's behalf. "But as this lawsuit shows, it's a difficult, time-consuming process that might ultimately not result in anything being obtained."