Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. Additionally, he has a tech entrepreneur background and loves good whisky and fast motorcycles.
The fight over the Internet has happened before, almost step by step, with the fight over the printing press 550 years ago. As the Catholic Church lost its power to…
Every now and then, we see regulators trying the most asinine move toward the Internet: banning encryption, requiring this, prohibiting that. They seem to be trying things at random, and…
While the Internet has turned into a global surveillance machine, with only tech-aware and privacy-aware people opting out of the surveillance, it's important to remember that we could have had…
As US authorities decide they have the right to seize any data, the mandatory privacy suite expands: full-disk encryption goes from optional to very recommended, in addition to using a…
Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, groups in the European Parliament wants to give police the power to censor the Internet and even individual accounts with social media providers at…
Five years with the "cookie law", taking effect in 2011, shows how politicians' good intentions - when coupled with incompetence - can create a security and privacy nightmare. It was…
While the Police complain about shortage of resources, it turns out the most investigated "crime" on the net is ordinary people sharing music and movies with each other. This is…
The crowdfunding to the investment company "The DAO", which has exceeded one hundred million US dollars and counting, has the old world in confusion. "How can something leaderless run a…
In the years 1791 to about 1850, laws were passed that abolished trade guilds as the permission-givers to run a business. But as we speak of "permissionless innovation" today, and…
Germany's ruling coalition has decided to abolish the liability for users' copyright infringements and other behavior when operating an open wi-fi access point. This weird and anachronistic liability has seriously…