Can Antivirus Companies Use ‘Good Samaritan’ Defense to Block Rival Software?
Is the Good Samaritan clause, intended to protect against harmful materials, too broad and ripe for abuse? The essence of information security is to allow “good” things in and keep “bad” things out, and various tools assist us in doing that. Included in this list is anti-malware software, filtering software, ... Read More
Don’t (Geo)Fence Me In: Courts Order Google To Give Up Location Data
The danger in forcing companies with location-tracking apps to hand over the data to help solve crimes When you install a “Black Friday” app on your cellphone, you aren’t really expecting it to be used to identify you as a suspect or a witness to a crime—particularly one unrelated to ... Read More
PA Supreme Court Rules Defendant Need Not Decrypt Drive
One of the perennial issues facing courts is the extent to which the government can compel an individual to decrypt the contents of a file, a computer or a server. Jumping into the fray, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, on Nov. 20, considered the case of a child pornography suspect whose ... Read More
Twitter and the Saudi Computer Crime – Or Was It?
What the two Twitter employees’ actions in accessing user data for use by the Saudi Kingdom was not technically a criminal offense On Nov. 7, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) charged two individuals, one a U.S. citizen the other a citizen of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with ... Read More
FTC Enforcement Action May Open Way for Punishment of Hacker Tools
An FTC suit against a software developer may open the door for prosecution of hacker tools On Oct. 22, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled an enforcement action against a software developer because its software could be used by users for purposes that would invade privacy. The government filed ... Read More
U.S. AG Wants Legal Back Door to All Facebook Postings (and Everything Else)
When it comes to encryption, we are having another Groundhog Day. The U.S., UK and Australian governments are pressuring Facebook to stop its plans to include “end to end” encryption, which would enhance the privacy and security of the social media platform. Such encryption would ensure—or at least help to ... Read More
Trump, Ukraine, Crowdstrike and Servers – What Gives?
From 2015 through 2016, during the run-up to the presidential election, certain cloud servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were attacked and infiltrated by advanced persistent threat (APT) actors from Russia. This resulted in the release of thousands of DNC e-mails and what now is called “Pizzagate”—the unfounded ... Read More
Beyond Security to Risk Management
Insurance companies are moving to a holistic model to measure risk, not just security. Businesses should, also Reinsurance giant Swiss Re, together with British reinsurer Capsicum Re, launched a reinsurance product Sept. 8. Ho hum. Insurance is MEGO—that is, My Eyes Glaze Over. And reinsurance is MEGO-squared. But for those ... Read More
Court Says Minor Can Be Prosecuted for Sexting
A law designed to protect minors from child pornography was used to prosecute a Maryland high school student for sexting During the 2016-17 school year, a high school student with the initial S.K. posted in a group chat for her cell phone a one-minute video of herself performing fellatio on ... Read More
Biometrics, Facial Recognition, Privacy, Security and the Law
The danger in using biometrics and facial recognition is that they’re not always accurate. A recent article in the L.A. Times indicated that facial recognition software proposed to be used for police bodycams falsely indicated that about 20% of California legislators were criminals (insert political joke here), just as a ... Read More
