Fergie's Tech Blog

Black Hat: EFF Launches Coders' Rights Website

John Timmer writes on ARS Technica:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is using the Black Hat USA conference, taking place in Las Vegas, to launch a site designed to help security researchers navigate the treacherous legal waters they face when exploring the vulnerabilities in commercial software. The EFF will be making lawyers available at its booth on the conference floor, but the long-term aid will come in the form of a Coders' Rights web site that aggregates relevant legal information from elsewhere on the EFF site. Although the site is information-rich, it's not meant as a standalone resource: the phrase "talk to a lawyer" appears throughout its content.

The project is being spearheaded by the EFF's Civil Liberties director Jennifer Granick. "Coders who explore technology through innovation and research play a vital role in developing and securing the software and hardware we use everyday," she stated in announcing the site. "Yet this important work can be stymied by bogus legal threats."

posted by Fergie @ 8/06/2008 01:02:00 PM