How to Fix the Internet

Marc Maron is the host of a successful podcast, and when he and some other pioneers started out he didn’t have to think much about the layers of technology he was using, until a patent troll came to call, asking for thousands of dollars to pay for the “rights” to  podcasting because of a patent they were mis-using to get money from the nascent podcast world. Marc and his producer Brendan knew that...

What if we re-imagined the internet to be built by more people, in new ways, that actually worked for us as a public good instead of a public harm? Join Ethan Zuckerman in conversation with Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they fix and reimagine the internet. They’ll talk about what the internet could look like if a diversity of people built their own tools, how advertising could be less creepy, bu...

Financial transactions reveal so much about us: the causes we support, where we go, what we buy, who we spend time with. Somehow, the mass surveillance of financial transactions has been normalized in the United States, despite the fourth amendment protection in the constitution. But it doesn’t have to be that way, as explained by Marta Belcher, a lawyer and activist in the financial privacy world...

One of the supposed promises of AI was that it would be able to take the bias out of human decisions, and maybe even lead to more equity in society. But the reality is that the errors of the past are embedded in the data of today, keeping prejudice and discrimination in. Pair that with surveillance capitalism, and what you get are algorithms that impact the way consumers are treated, from how much...

Matt Mitchell started Crypto Harlem to teach people in his community about how online and real life surveillance works, and what they could do about it. Through empowering people to understand their online privacy choices, and to speak up for change when their privacy in real life is eroded, Matt is building a movement to make a better future for everyone. In this episode you’ll learn about:  Cryp...

We don’t always think about what it means to have the information on our devices stay secure, and it may seem like the locks on our phones are enough to keep our private lives private. But there is increasing pressure from law enforcement to leave a back door open on our encrypted devices. Meanwhile, other government agencies, including consumer protection agencies, want more secure devices. We di...

There are flaws in the tech we use everyday- from little software glitches to big data breaches, and security researchers often know about them before we do. Getting those issues fixed is not always as straightforward as it should be. It’s not always easy to bend a corporation's ear, and companies may ignore the threat for liability reasons putting us all at risk. Technology and cybersecurity expe...

The bots that try to moderate speech online are doing a terrible job, and the humans in charge of the biggest tech companies aren’t doing any better. The internet’s promise was as a space where everyone could have their say. But today, just a few platforms get to decide what billions of people see and say online.  What’s a better way forward? How can we get back to a world where communities and pe...

Open source software touches every piece of technology that touches our lives- in other words, it’s everywhere. Free software and collaboration is at the heart of every device we rely on, and much of the internet is built from the hard work of people dedicated to the open source dream: ideals that all software should be licenced to be free, modified, distributed and copied without penalty. The mov...

Your phone is a window to your soul - and that window has been left open to law enforcement. Today, even small-town police departments have powerful tools that can easily access the most intimate information on your cell phone. Upturn’s Executive Director Harlan Yu joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to talk about a better way for law enforcement to treat our data.  When Upturn researcher...

How to Fix the Internet from the Electronic Frontier Foundation brings you ideas, solutions, and pathways to a better digital future for all. 

Chris Lewis joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss how our access to knowledge is increasingly governed by "click-wrap" agreements that prevent users from ever owning things like books and music, and how this undermines the legal doctrine of “first sale” – which states that once you buy a copyrighted work, it’s yours to resell or give it away as you choose. They talk through...

Abi Hassen joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss the rise of facial recognition technology, how this increasingly powerful identification tool is ending up in the hands of law enforcement, and what that means for the future of public protest and the right to assemble and associate in public places. In this episode you’ll learn about: The Black Movement Law Project, which Abi...

Cory Doctorow joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss how large, established tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook can block interoperability in order to squelch competition and control their users, and how we can fix this by taking away big companies' legal right to block new tools that connect to their platforms – tools that would let users control their digital li...

Jumana Musa joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss how the third-party doctrine is undermining our Fourth Amendment right to privacy when we use digital services, and how recent court victories are a hopeful sign that we may reclaim these privacy rights in the future. In this episode you’ll learn about: How the third-party doctrine is a judge-created legal doctrine that impac...

Gigi Sohn joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss broadband access in the United States – or the lack thereof. Gigi explains the choices American policymakers and tech companies made to create a country where there are millions of Americans who lack access to reliable broadband, and what steps we need to take to fix the problem now. In this episode you’ll learn: How does the F...

In the inaugural episode of EFF's "How to Fix the Internet" podcast, the Cato Institute’s specialist in surveillance legal policy, Julian Sanchez, joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they delve into the problems with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISC or the FISA Court. Sanchez explains how the FISA Court signs off on surveillance of huge swaths of our...