[IRP] EFF: Hardware Hacker, Anti-ACTA Activist, and Groundbreaking Anonymity Group Win EFF Pioneer Awards

[Katitza Rodriguez]

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

For Immediate Release: Monday, August 27, 2012

Contact:

Rebecca Jeschke
   Media Relations Director
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   press at eff.org
   +1 415 436-9333 x125

Hardware Hacker, Anti-ACTA Activist, and Groundbreaking
Anonymity Group Win EFF Pioneer Awards

EFF to Honor Andrew (bunnie) Huang, J?r?mie Zimmermann, and
the Tor Project at San Francisco Ceremony

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is
pleased to announce the distinguished winners of its 2012
Pioneer Awards: hardware hacker Andrew (bunnie) Huang,
anti-ACTA activist J?r?mie Zimmermann, and the Tor Project
? the organization behind the groundbreaking anonymity tool
Tor.

The award ceremony will be held the evening of September 20
at Project One Gallery in San Francisco.  The founding
developer of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, will be the keynote
speaker.

Andrew (bunnie) Huang is an activist who takes a
push-and-pull approach to open hardware: he contributes
original open designs and also liberates closed designs.
Huang's book on reverse engineering, "Hacking the Xbox," is
a widely respected tool for hardware hackers.  Huang has
also released an open implementation of a man-in-the-middle
attack on HDCP ? enabling overlays on encrypted video
without circumventing access controls.  As part of his
long-term advocacy for users' rights, Huang worked with EFF
to help encourage more than 25,000 people to ask the
Copyright Office for the right to install the software of
their choice on their smartphones, tablets, and video game
consoles.  Huang serves as a Research Affiliate for the MIT
Media Lab and a technical advisor for several hardware
startups and MAKE magazine, and he shares his experiences
manufacturing hardware in China through his blog.

J?r?mie Zimmermann is the co-founder of La Quadrature du
Net, an influential French advocacy group defending the
rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet.
Zimmermann has been instrumental in the fight against the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a far-reaching
international treaty that would curtail many Internet
freedoms in favor of extremist intellectual property
protectionism.  Zimmermann has worked tirelessly to spread
the word about ACTA and the ways in which it would put a
chokehold on Internet and digital rights.  This July, after
years of secretive negotiations, ACTA was defeated in the
European Parliament.  Zimmermann has also worked on
numerous other technology policy topics, including freedom
of expression, copyright, regulation of telecommunications,
and online privacy.

The Tor Project is a group of software developers and other
advocates who maintain Tor, free software that helps
Internet users circumvent Internet censorship and protect
their anonymity.  Tor enables activists, journalists, and
others to keep websites from tracking them and to connect
to uncensored news sites and services.  Tor's hidden
services let users publish web sites and do other online
work without needing to reveal their locations.  Tor also
enables software developers to create new communication
tools with built-in privacy features.  Ongoing global
trends in law, policy, and technology threaten anonymity as
never before and undermine our ability to speak and read
freely online, but the groundbreaking work from the Tor
Project helps users everywhere improve the safety of their
online communications.

"Every year, our Pioneer Awards celebrate those who have
made a difference for digital freedom.  We are
extraordinarily proud of this year's winners and their
unflagging dedication to protecting the rights of
technology users around the world," said EFF Executive
Director Shari Steele.  "Whether it's your right to reverse
engineer a game console, or to avoid the interference of
overbroad IP enforcement, or to block websites or
governments from tracking your every online move, these
winners are working hard to protect our online freedom.
We're honored they will be at our annual awards ceremony on
September 20."

Tickets to the Pioneer Awards are $75 and can be purchased
online at https://www.eff.org/awards/pioneer.  Also
available are tickets to a special VIP event featuring the
Pioneer Award winners and keynoter Matt Mullenweg.  In
addition to being founding developer of WordPress ? the
open source blogging software that runs millions of sites
around the world ? Mullenweg also started Automattic,
Akismet, Gravatar, bbPress, IntenseDebate, and BuddyPress.

Awarded every year since 1992, EFF's Pioneer Awards
recognize leaders who are extending freedom and innovation
on the electronic frontier.  Previous honorees include Tim
Berners-Lee, Senator Ron Wyden, Limor "Ladyada" Fried,
Linus Torvalds, and Tunisian blogging collective Nawaat,
among many others.  Sponsors of this year's Pioneer Awards
include JibJab, JunkEmailFilter.com, and Orrick, Herrington
& Sutcliffe LLP.

To buy tickets to the Pioneer Awards:
https://www.eff.org/awards/pioneer

For this release:
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/hardware-hacker-anti-acta-activist-and-groundbreaking-anonymity-group-win-eff-pioneer

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading
organization protecting civil liberties in the digital
world. Founded in 1990, we defend free speech online, fight
illegal surveillance, promote the rights of digital
innovators, and work to ensure that the rights and freedoms
we enjoy are enhanced, rather than eroded, as our use of
technology grows. EFF is a member-supported organization.
Find out more at https://www.eff.org.


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