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The Supreme Court Should Confirm, Again, that Abstract Software Patents Don’t Need a Trial to be Proved Invalid This year, we celebrated the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Alice v. CLS Bank . Alice made clear that generic computers do not make abstract ideas eligible for patent protection. Following the decision, district courts across the country started rejecting ineligible abstract patents at early stages of litigation. That has enabled independent software developers and small businesses to fight meritless infringement allegations without taking on the staggering costs and risks of patent litigation. In other words , Alice has made the patent system better at doing what it is supposed to do: promote technological innovation and economic growth. Unfortunately, Alice ’s pro-innovation effects are already in danger. As we’ve explained before, the Federal Circuit’s decision in Berkheimer v. HP Inc. turns Alice upside-down by treating the legal q...

Honoring the 2018 Pioneer Award Winners and John Perry Barlow EFF’s annual Pioneer Awards Ceremony recognizes extraordinary individuals for their commitment and leadership in extending freedom and innovation on the electronic frontier. At this year’s event held on September 27 in San Francisco, EFF rededicated the Pioneer Awards to EFF co-founder and Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow. Barlow’s commitment to online freedom was commemorated by dubbing the Pioneer Awards statuette the “Barlow.” EFF welcomed keynote speaker Daniel Ellsberg, known for his work in releasing the Pentagon papers, to help award the very first Barlows. This year’s honorees were fair use champion Stephanie Lenz, European Digital Rights leader Joe McNamee, and groundbreaking content moderation researcher Sarah T. Roberts. Read the transcript of the full 2018 Pioneer Awards Ceremony here . The evening kicked off with EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn who had the honor of renaming the Pioneer Award as ...

Most of us have individually engaged in eCommerce one way or another and are likely to make more online transactions in the coming years. We know B2C eCommerce intimately and enjoy the ease of finding great products, seamless services, and fast delivery. In fact, our eCommerce user experience (UX) gets better, faster, easier, and more efficient over time. As a result, our expectations of the “norm” get redefined all the time. Today, more and more of such buying experience is being brought to life for business buyers too. In fact, what most people don’t realize is that B2B eCommerce has been growing to many times the size of B2C, accounting for $9 trillion in sales this year . Manufacturers like Schneider Electric are in an emerging and central role of this trend. We are focusing on understanding the drivers of adoption to enable us to succeed in this evolving and disrupting channel. Our value chain partners are strategically placed to benefit the most from this growth opportunity. Tr...

Evgeniya Gorizontova has been successfully working for Schneider Electric for 8+ years.  In her current role, she is a Project Manager for HR Services Europe in charge of leading cross-country projects. She would like to share some tips & tricks for those early in their careers. 4 Key Points Be ready to take on extra responsibilities: show interest in new projects, suggest and lead new ideas implementation. Be open, flexible, and agile. Schneider Electric is a company where changes happen constantly at every level. Our company is a company for ambitious and active people. If you are interested in developing within the company, Schneider Electric will always support you. Have a proactive attitude. You do not need to wait for something, you are encouraged to act like an owner, lead the change, and improve things by yourself. Build your network. People should know your name. Participate in team events and international calls and be sure to ask questions. Job Relocat...

What happens when a software architect starts to implant an industrial revolution in the hive? Schneider Electric colleague Marcus Zinn advanced it. Full of anticipation, Marcus Zinn stands on a small meadow behind his workplace in Marktheidenfeld . The view of the surrounding fields is far and mostly yellow. Rapeseed blooms as far as the eye can see. Usually, Marcus Zinn is a software architect at Schneider Electric , but today he slips into his alter ego. Like Peter Parker and Spiderman or Superman and Clark Kent. Self-confident, but thoughtful and focused on every impression, he approaches a wooden box which stands inconspicuously in the sun. With a net in front of his face and wrapped in a white suit, he opens the lid: The hum is deafening. “Like standing next to a highway,”, he explains. For Marcus, this a moment of pure relaxation. Now he is a beekeeper. He can leave his everyday life and his daily work completely behind. Or at least almost. “Leading Edge Technology: That’s w...

Appeals Court’s Disturbing Ruling Jeopardizes Protections for Anonymous Speakers A federal appeals court has issued an alarming ruling that significantly erodes the Constitution’s protections for anonymous speakers—and simultaneously hands law enforcement a near unlimited power to unmask them. The Ninth Circuit’s decision in   U.S. v. Glassdoor, Inc. is a significant setback for the First Amendment. The ability to speak anonymously online without fear of being identified is essential because it allows people to express controversial or unpopular views. Strong legal protections for anonymous speakers are needed so that they are not harassed, ridiculed, or silenced merely for expressing their opinions. In Glassdoor , the court’s ruling ensures that any grand jury subpoena seeking the identities of anonymous speakers will be valid virtually every time. The decision is a recipe for disaster precisely because it provides little to no legal protections for anonymous speakers. EFF...

¿Dónde Están Mis Datos en Colombia? Nuestro tercer informe anual muestra el progreso La Fundación Karisma en cooperación con EFF ha lanzado su tercer año, ¿Dónde Estan Mis Datos? Informe que es la versión colombiana de Who Has Your Back de EFF. Y la edición de este año tiene algunas buenas noticias. Según el Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones de Colombia, la penetración de Internet de banda ancha en Colombia supera con creces el 50% y está creciendo rápidamente. Al igual que los usuarios de todo el mundo, los colombianos ponen sus datos más privados en línea, incluidas sus relaciones en línea, debates políticos, artísticos y personales, e incluso sus movimientos minuto a minuto. Y todos esos datos necesariamente tienen que pasar por alguno del puñado de ISP disponibles. Pero sin transparencia por parte de esos ISP, ¿cómo pueden, los colombianos, confiar en que sus datos están siendo tratados con respeto? Este proyecto forma parte de una serie a lo la...

Who Has Your Back in Colombia? Our Third-Annual Report Shows Progress Fundación Karisma in cooperation with EFF has released its third-annual ¿Dónde Estan Mis Datos? report, the Colombian version of EFF’s Who Has Your Back. And this year’s report has some good news.   According to the Colombian Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, broadband Internet penetration in Colombia is well over 50% and growing fast. Like users around the world, Colombians put their most private data, including their online relationships, political, artistic and personal discussions, and even their minute-by-minute movements online. And all of that data necessarily has to go through one of a handful of ISPs. But without transparency from those ISPs, how can Colombians trust that their data is being treated with respect?   This project is part of a series across Latin America, adapted from EFF’s annual  Who Has Your Back?  report. The reports are intended to evaluate ...

20 Years of Protecting Intermediaries: Legacy of ‘Zeran’ Remains a Critical Protection for Freedom of Expression Online This article first appeared on Nov. 10 in Law.com . At the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), we are proud to be ardent defenders of §230. Even before §230 was enacted in 1996, we recognized that all speech on the Internet relies upon intermediaries, like ISPs, web hosts, search engines, and social media companies. Most of the time, it relies on more than one. Because of this, we know that intermediaries must be protected from liability for the speech of their users if the Internet is to live up to its promise, as articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in   ACLU v. Reno , of enabling “any person … [to] become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox“ and hosting “content … as diverse as human thought.” As we hoped—and based in large measure on the strength of the Fourth Circuit’s decision in   Zeran —§230 has pro...

Guest Blogger: Oliver Kleineberg is responsible for Advanced Development in Belden’s Industrial IT platform. In this role, he plays an active role in shaping the future of Industrial Ethernet. He is a significant contributor to the IEEE 802.1 standard for Time Sensitive Networking (TSN). This standard enables deterministic, time critical packet delivery using standard Ethernet.  He also contributed to the PRP and HSR standards (IEC 62439) which provide seamless Ethernet redundancy mechanisms. With both undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering Oliver combines rigorous thinking with a can-do attitude to define the industrial networking products of the future. In some environments, networking products are placed in clean air-conditioned offices, where installers often give less thought to hardening characteristics of switches, routers, and the cables used to connect them. But, other environments are less “pristine”. Here, industrial communications and automation contro...

EFF’s Street-Level Surveillance Project Dissects Police Technology Step onto any city street and you may find yourself subject to numerous forms of police surveillance—many imperceptible to the human eye. A cruiser equipped with automated license plate readers (also known as ALPRs) may have just logged where you parked your car. A cell-site simulator may be capturing your cell-phone data incidentally while detectives track a suspect nearby. That speck in the sky may be a drone capturing video of your commute. Police might use face recognition technology to identify you in security camera footage. EFF first launched its Street-Level Surveillance project in 2015 to help inform the public about the advanced technologies that law enforcement are deploying in our communities, often without any transparency or public process.  We’ve scored key victories in state legislatures and city councils, limiting the adoption of these technologies and how they can be used, but the surveillanc...

How does the condensation process affect electrical and electronic equipment during winter? On one hand, automation and control facilities with critical functions and processes are always exposed to changing environments in both thermal and environmental terms. On the other hand, when winter arrives, there can be an acceleration of the phenomenon of corrosion. With winters approach enters the two most important variables that affect corrosion: Low or very low temperatures (<5 ° C) High relative humidity (> 70%) No matter the time of year, surface condensation will occur in areas if – and when – the temperature drops below the dew point . Add that to industrial environments, and you get corrosion rates that rise nearly to the maximum, as indicated in Table 1. Table 1: The (uniform) corrosion rate of steel in different atmospheres. Source: American Galvanizers Association http://ift.tt/2zCc8kQ Now, just why does the dew point exist at all? What sets the onset of condensa...