EFF Announces New Privacy Tool

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: EFF Press <press () eff org>
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Reply-To: <press () eff org>
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 11:11:03 -0800
To: <presslist () eff org>
Subject: [E-B] EFF: EFF Announces New Privacy Tool

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

For Immediate Release: Monday, February 07, 2005

Contact:

Seth Schoen
   Staff Technologist
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   seth () eff org
   +1 415 436-9333 x107

Chris Palmer
   Technology Manager
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   chris () eff org
   +1 415 436-9333 x124

EFF Announces New Privacy Tool

Logfinder Helps Eliminate Unwanted Logging of Personal Data

San Francisco, CA - Today the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) released logfinder, a software tool to
help people reduce the unnecessary collection of personal
information about computer users. Often computer network
servers automatically log information about who has visited
a website and when, or who has sent and received email.
Such data tells a lot about a user's browsing and email
habits and could be used in privacy-invasive ways.
Moreover, log data must be turned over to government
entities with court orders and can be subpoenaed by
opposing sides in court cases.

By finding unwanted log files, logfinder informs system
administrators when their servers are collecting personal
data and gives them the opportunity to turn logging off if
it isn't gathering information necessary for administering
the system.

Logfinder was conceived by security consultant Ben Laurie
and written by EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. It's
intended to complement EFF's recent white paper, "Best
Practices for Online Service Providers," in which the
organization argues that administrators should remove as
many logs as possible and delete all personally identifying
data from them.

"People who choose to follow our recommendations in the
white paper might not know what kinds of logs they have,"
said Schoen. "Logfinder is an example of one way a system
administrator could become aware of the presence of logs,
as well as discover sensitive information being collected
in known logs."

Download logfinder:
http://www.eff.org/osp/logfinder-0.1.tar.gz

"Best Practices for Online Service Providers"
http://www.eff.org/osp

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_02.php#002370

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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