This law journal article discusses the role of class-action litigation to secure the Internet of Things. Basically, the article postulates that (1) market realities will produce insecure IoT devices, and (2) political failures will leave that industry unregulated. Result: insecure IoT. It proposes proactive class action litigation against manufacturers of unsafe and unsecured IoT devices … Read More “Securing the Internet of Things through Class-Action Lawsuits” »
Category: courts
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The New Yorker has published the long and interesting story of the cybersecurity firm Tiversa. Watching “60 Minutes,” Boback saw a remarkable new business angle. Here was a multibillion-dollar industry with a near-existential problem and no clear solution. He did not know it then, but, as he turned the opportunity over in his mind, he … Read More “The Story of Tiversa” »
This wasn’t a small operation: A Pakistani man bribed AT&T call-center employees to install malware and unauthorized hardware as part of a scheme to fraudulently unlock cell phones, according to the US Department of Justice. Muhammad Fahd, 34, was extradited from Hong Kong to the US on Friday and is being detained pending trial. An … Read More “AT&T Employees Took Bribes to Unlock Smartphones” »
Rebecca Wexler has an interesting op-ed about an inadvertent harm that privacy laws can cause: while law enforcement can often access third-party data to aid in prosecution, the accused don’t have the same level of access to aid in their defense: The proposed privacy laws would make this situation worse. Lawmakers may not have set … Read More “How Privacy Laws Hurt Defendants” »
I didn’t know that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens “was also a cryptographer for the Navy during World War II.” He was a proponent of individual privacy. Powered by WPeMatico
Interesting essay arguing that we need better legislation to protect cybersecurity whistleblowers. Congress should act to protect cybersecurity whistleblowers because information security has never been so important, or so challenging. In the wake of a barrage of shocking revelations about data breaches and companies mishandling of customer data, a bipartisan consensus has emerged in support … Read More “The Importance of Protecting Cybersecurity Whistleblowers” »
An article I co-wrote — my first law journal article — was cited by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court — the state supreme court — in a case on compelled decryption. Here’s the first, in footnote 1: We understand the word “password” to be synonymous with other terms that cell phone users may be familiar … Read More “I Was Cited in a Court Decision” »
Impressive police work: In a daring move that placed his life in danger, the I.T. consultant eventually gave the F.B.I. his system’s secret encryption keys in 2011 after he had moved the network’s servers from Canada to the Netherlands during what he told the cartel’s leaders was a routine upgrade. A Dutch article says that … Read More “El Chapo’s Encryption Defeated by Turning His IT Consultant” »
BoingBoing has the story. I have never quite trusted the idea of a warrant canary. But here it seems to have worked. (Presumably, if SpiderOak wanted to replace the warrant canary with a transparency report, they would have written something explaining their decision. To have it simply disappear is what we would expect if SpiderOak … Read More “SpiderOak’s Warrant Canary Died” »
A group called Protect Democracy is suing South Carolina because its insecure voting machines are effectively denying people the right to vote. Note: I am an advisor to Protect Democracy on its work related to election cybersecurity, and submitted a declaration in litigation it filed, challenging President Trump’s now-defunct “election integrity” commission. Powered by WPeMatico