One of
those, “Can this happen here?” questions.
John E. Dunn reports:
A
small US law firm has bravely admitted losing its entire cache of
legal documents to the Cryptolocker Trojan despite attempting to pay
the $300 (£180) ransom in a bid to have them unscrambled.
According
to
TV reports, Goodson’s law firm in the North Carolina state
capital Charlotte [The Law Offices of Paul M. Goodson, P.C.] became
the latest victim of a malware menace that was custom-written to
lever ransom money from precisely this type of relatively cash-rich
but time-poor firm.
Read more on
Computerworld
UK.
This is not
what I expected. Aaron's has settled with the FTC but if they had
this software on all the computers they rented, didn't tell their
customers, and took 185,000 photos, how is this NOT a class?
Associated Press
reports the latest development in a lawsuit
I’ve
been
following
on this blog because consumers sued Aaron’s over spyware on their
computers:
A
federal magistrate has recommended against class-action status for a
lawsuit filed over spyware installed on computers leased from
furniture renter Aaron’s Inc.
If
accepted by a federal judge, the recommendation would mean the
lawsuit would be reduced to the original claim filed by Crystal and
Brian Byrd of Casper, Wyo.
Read more on New
Haven Register.
(Related)
...but this is nothing new.
Back in November 2012,
Nationwide Mutual Insurance disclosed an
attack on their network that compromised customers’ personal
information. The breach turned out to be pretty
large, with over
1 million affected.
Two potential class
action lawsuits were filed following the breach, including Galaria
v. Nationwide and Hancox v. Nationwide. The Hancox
case was transferred to the Southern District of Ohio in March and
consolidated with the Galaria complaint.
Now Judge Watson has
granted Nationwide’s motion to dismiss both suits. To cut to the
chase: as other courts have held, unless the named plaintiffs can
demonstrate injury-in-fact (e.g., if their information had been
misused) or impending as opposed to speculative
harm, they’re not going to survive a motion to dismiss.
I’ve uploaded the
court’s opinion and order here
(pdf), and am trying to find out whatever happened to the California
Insurance Commission’s investigation of the breach. I’ll update
this post if/when I get an answer from the Commission.
Is this all they can
think of?
7
Industries Drones Are Set to Revolutionize
… But I’d like to
introduce you to seven industries that are ready and braced to be
(mostly positively) impacted – if not revolutionized – by
the technological progress that’s surrounding drones right now.
While you’re reading, why not think about how drones might impact
your own industry?
I usually
wait for these to settle into their final form, but this one might be
interesting in draft.
HR
3696 the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure
Protection Act of 2013
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on February 11, 2014
H.R. 3696, (Mr. McCaul)
To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to make certain
improvements regarding cybersecurity and critical infrastructure
protection, and for other purposes. The “National Cybersecurity
and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act of 2013”. Full text of
H.R. 3696, as introduced [PDF]
- Subcommittee Markup, January 15, 2014 | Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies
- Full Committee Markup, February , 2014
Interesting
article. What would it be worth to prevent/avoid half of a companies
lawsuits? Even 10%
PreSuit:
How Corporate Counsel Could Use “Smart Data” to Predict and
Prevent Litigation
Another “Big Data and
the law” article.
UK
– Big Data for Law
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on February 11, 2014
“The National
Archives has received ‘big data’ funding from the Arts and
Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to deliver the ‘Big
Data for Law‘ project. Just over £550,000 will enable the
project to transform how we understand and use current legislation,
delivering a new service – legislation.gov.uk Research – by March
2015. There are an estimated 50 million words in the statute book,
with 100,000 words added or changed every month. Search engines and
services like legislation.gov.uk have transformed access to
legislation. Law is accessed by a much wider group of people, the
majority of whom are typically not legally trained or qualified. All
users of legislation are confronted by the volume of legislation, its
piecemeal structure, frequent amendments, and the interaction of the
statute book with common law and European law. Not surprisingly,
many find the law difficult to understand and comply with. There has
never been a more relevant time for research into the architecture
and content of law, the language used in legislation and how, through
interpretation by the courts, it is given effect. Research that will
underpin the drive to deliver good, clear and effective law.
Researchers typically lack the raw data, the tools, and the methods
to undertake research across the whole statute book. Meanwhile, the
combination of low cost cloud computing, open source software and new
methods of data analysis – the enablers of the big data revolution
– are transforming research in other fields. Big data research is
perfectly possible with legislation if only the basic ingredients –
the data, the tools and some tried and trusted methods – were as
readily available as the computing power and the storage. The vision
for this project is to address that gap by providing a new
Legislation Data Research Infrastructure at
research.legislation.gov.uk. Specifically tailored to researchers’
needs, it will consist of downloadable data, online
tools for end-users; and open source tools for researchers to
download, adapt and use.”
For my students, all of
whom will get great jobs and earn more money than they can possibly
spend.
Pew
– The Rising Cost of Not Going to College
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on February 11, 2014
“For those who
question the value of college in this era of soaring student debt and
high unemployment, the attitudes and experiences of today’s young
adults—members of the so-called Millennial generation—provide a
compelling answer. On virtually every measure of economic well-being
and career attainment—from personal earnings to job satisfaction to
the share employed full time—young college graduates are
outperforming their peers with less education. And when today’s
young adults are compared with previous generations, the disparity in
economic outcomes between college graduates and those with a high
school diploma or less formal schooling has never been greater in the
modern era… The economic
analysis finds that Millennial college graduates ages 25 to 321 who
are working full time earn more annually—about
$17,500 more—than employed young adults holding only a high
school diploma. The pay gap was significantly smaller in previous
generations. College-educated Millennials also are more likely to be
employed full time than their less-educated counterparts (89% vs.
82%) and significantly less likely to be unemployed (3.8% vs.
12.2%).”
1 comment:
Hey, there is a broken link in this article, under the anchor text - economic analysis finds that Millennial college graduates ages 25 to 321 who are working full time earn more annually
Here is the working link so you can replace it - https://selectra.co.uk/sites/selectra.co.uk/files/pdf/SDT-higher-ed-FINAL-02-11-2014.pdf
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