The Cyberlaw Podcast

Episode 140 features long-time New York Times reporter, John Markoff, on the past and future of artificial intelligence and its ideological converse—the effort to make machines that augment rather than replace human beings. Our conversation covers everything from robots, autonomous weapons, and Siri to hippie poetry of the 1960s and Silicon Valley’s short memory on use of the term “cyber.”

In the news, Maury Shenk reports that five EU members now say they want EU-wide crypto controls. And that’s not counting France and Germany.  Maybe the real question is whether any EU countries oppose encryption regulation.  We can’t find any. Tongue firmly in cheek, I thank Tim Cook for bringing the need for government crypto regulation to the attention of governments around the world.

It turns out that the FBI actually hacked more than 8,000 computers in 120 countries in a single child porn investigation. Wow. And the Justice Department is lecturing me on the risk that active defense could cause unexpected foreign relations problems? Well, I guess they would know.

We-Vibe’s undisclosed collection of data about users of its smart-phone enabled vibrators spurs a class action. Or should that be a “lacks class” action? I confess to being nonplussed by the uses to which an Internet-connected vibrator app can be put. And even more nonplussed when Jennifer Quinn-Barabanov explains how We-Vibe could contribute to the law of standing.

The Wages of Defeat, part one: Election hack fever seizes the left, and I ask Alan what the law should do about vulnerable election infrastructure. Jill Stein is almost certainly wrong about election hacking this year (or in it for the money), but now that everyone has some reason to question the integrity of our election process, Alan and I ask whether there’s room for bipartisan improvements in electoral systems.

Wages of Defeat, part two: Fake news fever seizes the left. For sure it’s a real problem, and Putin is part of it, but solutions are hard to find. Fake news is often in the eye of the beholder, and neither the mainstream media (see, e.g., here or here) nor the barons of social media (Milo Yiannapoulos, call your office) have been exactly even-handed in dealing with conservative views. If we want to go after foreign government sponsored fake news, I suggest, maybe an updated Foreign Agent Registration Act is worth looking at. Between the first amendment and a lack of trust in would-be fake news umpires, there aren’t a lot of other attractive solutions out there.

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback.  Send an email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Direct download: SteptoeCyberlawPodcast-140.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:54am EDT

In this week’s episode, we guess at the near-term future with Betsy Cooper and Steve Weber of UC Berkeley’s Center for Long Term Cybersecurity. In all of their scenarios, the future is awash in personal data; the only question is how it’s used. I argue that it will be used to make us fall in love—with our machines.

In the news of the week, we explore the policy consequences of President-elect Trump’s personnel choices. I point out that the quickest route to the new administration’s short list seems to be an interview on the Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast.

The internet advertising industry is trying to stamp out ad malware so that firms following a set of guidelines will earn a seal of approval Katie Cassel explains. Color me skeptical: would you buy an antivirus product that proclaimed that it scans “a reasonable percentage of” incoming code?

It’s apparently guidelines week in cybersecurity-land, as agencies rush to release their work before the transition. Two agencies issued guidelines on security practices. The Department of Homeland Security released the recommendations for internet-connected devices that Rob Silvers forecast on the podcast last month. Alan Cohn summarizes the principles, which include steps like security by design and regular vulnerability patches. Meanwhile, Katie tells us, NIST has released its  guidance for small business network security. We compare its guidance to the FTC’s. NIST wins.

Two Chinese Android phone backdoors have emerged in one week. Researchers at Kryptowire have uncovered a secret backdoor in large numbers of Android phones that ships users’ personal data, including their SMS messages and location, back to China. The company responsible, Shanghai Adups Technology Company, says it was a mistake, and that the software wasn’t supposed to be installed on phones for sale in the US.  Or perhaps the mistake was in getting caught. Investigations will follow, one hopes.

The second backdoor is an unsecured firmware upgrade channel that would allow a man-in-the-middle to add arbitrary code to an upgrade. I point out that Apple uses the same backdoor—just better secured—for the same purpose.  So its claim that it’s fighting the FBI to protect us from backdoors and their security risks is balderdash.

The 1990s have called, and they want their competition policy back. At least that seems to be the gravamen of Kaspersky’s complaint that Microsoft Defender is killing third party antivirus companies.

In other news that isn’t new, the effort to override Rule 41 changes still looks as dead as General Franco. That doesn’t mean that a forlorn left-right coalition will give up, of course, since there is still sympathetic lib/left press coverage to be milked from the issue.

Finally, in a sign of just how serious the cybersecurity crisis is, almost 2 in 5 American adults said they would give up sex for a year in exchange for never having to worry about being hacked.

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback.  Send an email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Direct download: SteptoeCyberlawPodcast-139.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:32am EDT

We couldn’t resist.  This week’s topic is of course President-elect Trump and what his election could mean for All Things Cyber.  It features noted cybercommentator Paul Rosenzweig and Daily Beast reporter Shane Harris. 

In the news, we’re reminded of the old Wall Street saying that bulls and bears can both make money in the market but pigs eventually get slaughtered. The same goes for the pigheaded, as the FTC has learned. Whatever modest satisfaction the FTC got from denying a stay of its order against LabMD surely evaporated when it forced the Eleventh Circuit to make an early call on the stay. The result: the court of appeals practically overrides the FTC decision on the motion. Or was the Commission just trying to make sure the proposed television series about LabMD had an ample supply of villains? If so, way to go, guys!

Katie Cassel announces her imminent retirement from the podcast. She also explains the DMCA’s new exemption for security researchers

This is getting ugly: Yahoo now says that some of its employees knew about its massive data breach in 2014 – two years before it was disclosed. Why the delay?  Yahoo says it’s investigating – and that it can’t be sure Verizon will follow through on the deal to buy the company.

Russia is getting ready to put some teeth in its data localization law. LinkedIn looks like the sacrificial goat, Maury Shenk tells us, and that’s just the camel’s nose under the tent.

How can section 230 immunity provide protection against one claim but not another based on the same facts? Katie makes it sound almost reasonable. Boy, are we going to miss her.

The Germans have revived an investigation of Facebook for not blocking Germany’s idea of hate speech, which probably includes hats that say “Make America Great Again.” Oh, this is going to be a fun four years.

Speaking of which, I wonder if the GRU woke up with the same hangover as the rest of the United States, suddenly realizing that they had no freaking clue what policies a Trump administration would follow. That would explain the rash of phishing attacks on Washington think tanks.

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback.  Send an email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Direct download: SteptoeCyberlawPodcast-138.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:59am EDT

The episode features a vigorous and friendly debate between me and Frank Cilluffo over his Center’s report on active defense, titled “Into the Gray Zone.”  It’s a long and detailed analysis by the Center for Homeland and Cyber Security at GW University. My fear: the report creates gray zones for computer defense that should not be seen as lawful—and turns far too many genuine gray zones black. 

Maury Shenk returns after missing last week due to the British determination not to follow US daylight savings practice. He updates us on challenges to the Privacy Shield Agreement in EU courts by privacy true believers (two and counting) and EU court challenges to government data practices in China, Russia, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia (none in evidence). Speaking of which, China has actually adopted the cybersecurity law it’s been threatening Western tech companies with for months, if not years.

Congress is starting to notice the FDA’s hapless response to medical device security. I predict that the FDA will not take serious notice until heart implants start tweeting: “I’d give this guy a cardiac arrest shock, but I’m too busy DDOSing the DNC.” 

Michael Vatis tells us what’s in the FTC’s Business Guide to Data Breach Response. It’s pretty good, but even if it weren’t, no one can ignore it, since it’s as close to rulemaking as the FTC gets in this field.

A remarkable official leak says that U.S. Cyber Command has pwned Russia’s IT infrastructure from its power grid to its military command system and is ready to strike if the Russians mess with the US election. Is it true? Clint Eastwood has the best answer.

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback.  Send an email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Direct download: SteptoeCyberlawPodcast-137.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:01pm EDT

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