EFF's Coders' Rights Project

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, August 06, 2008

EFF Launches Coders' Rights Project at Black Hat Conference

New Initiative to Protect Programmers From Legal Threats

Las Vegas - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today
launches its Coders' Rights Project -- a new initiative to
protect programmers and developers from legal threats
hampering their cutting-edge research.

In conjunction with the project's launch, EFF is staffing
an "EFF Is In" booth at Black Hat USA 2008 in Las Vegas on
August 6 and 7.  At the booth, EFF attorneys will provide
legal information on reverse engineering, vulnerability
reporting, and copyright law, as well as patent, trade
secret, and free speech issues.

"Coders who explore technology through innovation and
research play a vital role in developing and securing the
software and hardware we use everyday.  Yet this important
work can be stymied by bogus legal threats," said EFF Civil
Liberties Director Jennifer Granick, who is heading up the
project.  "EFF's Coders' Rights Project will provide a
front-line defense for coders facing legal challenges for
legitimate research activities."

The Coders' Rights Project will build upon EFF's long
history of work to limit the anti-circumvention provisions
of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) from
reaching security and encryption researchers.  EFF will
also expand its involvement in matters involving the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and state computer crime laws.
Additionally, EFF has created resources for programmers
doing work involving reverse engineering and vulnerability
reporting, available at http://eff.org/coders.

"Those of us doing research on computer security and
privacy need to be able to discuss and publish our work
without fear of legal threats," said EFF Board Member
Edward W. Felten, a security researcher and Princeton
University professor who challenged provisions of the DMCA
with EFF in 2001.  "The Coders' Rights Project will give
critical legal help to programmers and developers who do
the hard work in keeping technology robust and users safe."

Other goals of the Coders' Rights Project include narrowing
computer crime laws and limiting the power of End User
License Agreements (EULAs) to protect reverse engineering,
reviews, benchmarking, and the consumer's right to tinker.

For more on the Coders' Rights Project:
http://eff.org/coders

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/08/05-0

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/


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