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Peter Eckersley (computer scientist)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Schoen (talk | contribs) at 04:48, 4 September 2022 (Correct Let's Encrypt chronology (it was launched several years after it was founded, not at the same time that it was founded!)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For other people named Peter Eckersley, see Peter Eckersley (disambiguation).
Peter Eckersley
Peter Eckersley standing, wearing a grey button-down shirt, smiling slightly.
Peter Eckersley in the Netherlands, ca 2009.
Born(1979-06-15)15 June 1979
Died2 September 2022(2022-09-02) (aged 43)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne
Occupation(s)Computer scientist, computer security researcher, activist
Known forInternet privacy activism, Let's Encrypt, AI ethics
Websitepde.is

Peter Daniel Eckersley (15 June 1979 – 2 September 2022) was an Australian computer scientist, computer security researcher, and activist. From 2006 to 2018 he worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, including as chief computer scientist and head of AI policy. In 2018 he left the EFF to become director of research at the Partnership on AI, a position he held until 2020. In 2021 he co-founded the AI Objectives Institute.

While at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Eckersley started projects including Let's Encrypt, Privacy Badger, Certbot, HTTPS Everywhere, SSL Observatory, and Panopticlick. Eckersley was an outspoken advocate on topics including internet privacy, net neutrality, and the ethics of artificial intelligence.

Education

Eckersley earned a Ph.D. in computer science and law from the University of Melbourne in 2012.[1][2]

Career and activism

From 2006 to 2018 Eckersley worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in roles including technology projects director, chief computer scientist, and head of AI policy.[3][4][5] Eckersley advocated openly for net neutrality while with the EFF. In 2007, Eckersley and other collaborators conducted a controlled experiment to prove that the Comcast telecommunications company tampered with peer-to-peer protocols such as BitTorrent through the use of forged reset packets.[6] In 2010, Eckersley again collaborated with the EFF on an open letter against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was signed by almost 100 computer scientists and internet privacy advocates.[7] This led him to collaborate with Aaron Swartz, another online privacy advocate with close ties to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[8]

In 2012, Eckersley co-founded Let's Encrypt, a publicly accessible certificate authority that provides valid, short-lived SSL certificates for free.[9] A year after its launch, Let's Encrypt announced they had signed one million certificates.[10]

One of Eckersley's core activistic focuses was internet privacy, and he was openly critical of web tracking technologies and companies that use them. In 2007, he criticised Facebook for their lack of transparency in user tracking services[11] as well as the use by internet service providers of deep packet inspection of peer-to-peer networks to seek out copyright infringement, often relying purely on IP addresses to identify users in court.[12] His later work in this field resulted in the Panopticlick, an EFF website to test the identifiability of users' web browsers, as well as advocacy for stronger enforcement of the Do Not Track header.[13]

Eckersley was outspoken against the centralisation of cloud hosting providers, particularly that of AWS, fearing that cloud providers could be compelled to look into users' data,[14] plausibly allowing a government agency to bypass the protections afforded by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, such as was later seen in PRISM.

In 2018 he left EFF to become director of research at the Partnership on AI, a position he held until 2020.[15][16] In 2021 he was the co-founder of the non-profit AI Objectives Institute, conceived to interrogate the values and politics around artificial intelligence.[13] He also was a visiting senior fellow at OpenAI.[13] His research and policy work focused on applications including predictive policing, autonomous vehicles, cybersecurity, and military uses of artificial intelligence.[13]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Eckersley advised several groups working on contact tracing and exposure notification on how to preserve user privacy.[13]

Personal life and death

Eckersley was originally from Melbourne, Australia. He moved to San Francisco, California when he started working for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and set up a sharehouse there, where he lived with roommates including computer scientist and activist Aaron Swartz.[17][8]

Eckersley died on 2 September 2022.[13]

References

  1. ^ "Peter Eckersley". Open Tech Fund. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  2. ^ Eckersley, Peter Daniel (January 2012). Digital Copyright & the Alternatives (PDF). Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  3. ^ Wortham, Jenna (27 September 2014). "The Unrepentant Bootlegger". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  4. ^ Masunaga, Samantha (14 June 2018). "Google's retreat from AI contract is unlikely to cool the Pentagon's love for Silicon Valley". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  5. ^ Singer, Natasha (11 April 2018). "What You Don't Know About How Facebook Uses Your Data". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  6. ^ Eckersley, Peter; von Lohmann, Fred; Schoen, Seth (28 November 2007). "Packet Forgery by ISPs: A report on the Comcast Affair". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  7. ^ a b McCullagh, Declan (22 January 2013). "How Aaron Swartz helped to defeat Hollywood on SOPA". CNET. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  8. ^ Aas, Josh (8 March 2016). "Our Millionth Certificate". Let's Encrypt.
  9. ^ Perez, Juan Carlos (5 December 2007). "Experts to Facebook: Mind your manners". InfoWorld. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  10. ^ Tynan, Dan (27 August 2007). "Get paranoid: Hollywood wants to terminate you". InfoWorld. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  11. ^ a b c d e f Schoen, Seth (3 September 2022). "Peter Eckersley may his memory be a blessing". Let's Encrypt Community Forum. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  12. ^ Gallagher, Sean (28 October 2014). "Fear of a cloud planet". Ars Technica. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  13. ^ "Partnership on AI Announces Peter Eckersley as Director of Research". Partnership on AI. 10 September 2018. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  14. ^ Hodgson, Camilla (26 April 2019). "AI tools in US criminal justice branded unreliable by researchers". Financial Times. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  15. ^ Eckersley, Peter (25 January 2013). Aaron Swartz Memorial at the Internet Archive - Part 1. Event occurs at 42:10.
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