Martin Shelton

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Dr. Martin Shelton is the principal researcher at Freedom of the Press Foundation, conducting user research on harassment of journalists and digital security education in J-schools. He also leads security editorial and the U.S. J-school digital security curriculum.

As a UX researcher, he previously worked with Google Chrome and the Coral Project at The New York Times, where he learned from journalists and at-risk groups about their security concerns. In a former life, he was a disaffected academic and earned his Ph.D. at the University of California at Irvine.

Articles

WhatsApp now supports messages with third-parties

Under the new European Union law, the Digital Markets Act, Meta is required to allow interoperability between third-party chat software and its WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger apps. These tools offer end-to-end encryption using the Signal protocol, the strong encryption specifications pioneered by the Signal encrypted messaging app.

Post-quantum iMessage

Both in the U.S. and abroad, governments are capturing encrypted connections that pass over the public internet and saving them for later use. Within years or decades, post-quantum computers could meaningfully shorten the amount of time required to unscramble encryption, allowing attackers to read previously private messages. So a growing number of organizations, including Apple, are preparing for attacks like these with post-quantum encryption. Read more in our newsletter.

Avast caught selling browsing data

Aye hearties, gangway — the Avast cor-pirates are walking the plank. That’s because the company sold user data without consumers’ knowledge, according to the Federal Trade Commission, which ordered U.K.-based Avast Limited to pay $16.5 million and will also bar the antivirus company from selling or licensing browser data for advertisements. Read more in our newsletter.