Mon, 19 March 2018
All of Washington is mad at Silicon Valley these days, as our news roundup reveals. Democrats and the media have moved on from blaming Hillary Clinton’s loss on Vladimir Putin; now they’re blaming Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Gus Hurwitz and I have doubts about the claims of illegality, but I reprise my frequent critique of privacy laws: They are uniquely likely to be enforced against those who annoy governing elites (because they’re so vague and disconnected from objectionable conduct that they can be enforced against almost anyone). Alan Cohn describes the many regulatory agencies now feeling emboldened to take a whack at cryptocurrencies. He’s hopeful that only bad actors will actually feel the blow. I lay out the remarkably aggressive and novel enforcement philosophy behind CFIUS’s rejection of the Broadcom-Qualcomm deal—and the steadily advancing congressional effort to regulate Silicon Valley’s Chinese connections more closely. That effort has featured some remarkably harsh political attacks on tech giants like IBM and General Electric. Is all this hate for techies good or bad for the effort to re-impose net neutrality through the courts? The states? Stephanie Roy maps the terrain, which turns out to be every bit as muddled as you thought the last time you read about it. Need another reason to hate technology? How about this: It’s soon going to kill someone. I explain the latest scary reports from Saudi Arabia’s industrial control system—and America’s. Pressed for time, we do quick hits on stories that deserved more but got crowded out:
Finally, our interview is with Pete Chronis, Turner’s Chief Information Security Officer and author of a new book, The Cyber Conundrum. Pete lays out his vision for a cybersecurity moonshot, and the two of us explore particular cybersecurity remedies that make up the effort. We take detours to explore the vulnerabilities equities process, bot in the U.S. and in China. We also touch on the unwise purist stand being taken by IETF on TLS 1.3, which seems determined to offer internet users what might be called “Privacy and Insecurity—By Design.” (And to bring this post full circle, if you were wondering why ordinary people are getting sick of dancing to the tune of Silicon Valley engineers, the IETF’s stiff-necked and counterproductive position on security for corporate network users would be a good place to start.) As always The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785. The Cyberlaw Podcast is hiring a part-time intern for our Washington, DC offices. If you are interested, visit our website at Steptoe.com/careers. Download the 208th Episode (mp3). Subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast here. We are also on iTunes, Pocket Casts, and Google Play (available for Android and Google Chrome)! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.
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