...or it could be one
of China's “student” countries, like North Korea, who might find
stealing research cheaper than doing research. (Or it could be a
high school rocket club considering “going nuclear”)
German
Space Research Center Under Espionage Attack: Report
Der
Spiegel said that several computers used by scientists and systems
administrators at the Cologne-based DLR center had been infiltrated
by spy programs.
"The
government classes the attack as extremely serious because it, among
other things, is aimed at armament and rocket technologies,"
Spiegel said.
In
some computers IT experts found traces of spy programs that were set
up to destroy themselves on discovery, while others only activated
themselves after months of lying in wait.
… IT
forensic experts probing who could be behind the assault have turned
up clues that seem to point to China, but Spiegel quoted an
unidentified "insider" as saying they could also simply be
"camouflage".
Making
uncommon law, Common Law?
Daniel Solove writes:
I’m
pleased to announce that my article with Professor Woodrow Hartzog,
The
FTC and the New Common Law of Privacy, 114 Colum. L. Rev.
583 (2014), is now out in print. You can download the final
published version at SSRN.
Read more on Concurring
Opinions.
[From the Abstract:
Since
the late 1990s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been enforcing
companies’ privacy policies through its authority to police unfair
and deceptive trade practices. Despite over fifteen years of FTC
enforcement, there is no meaningful body of judicial decisions to
show for it.
(Related) “So the
rule is based on what we said a few months ago, but not what we wrote
last month because that was reversed by the court after they read
what we wrote two weeks ago which contradicted the chairman's speech
in October. Simple, right?”
As I expected, a slew
of law firms posted their analyses and commentaries on Judge
Salas’s ruling on Wyndham’s motion to dismiss the FTC’s
complaint about its data security.
I haven’t linked to
most of them, but took note of this commentary by Lance Koonce and
Christin McMeley of Davis Wright Tremaine as they take a less
FTC-friendly view on the issue of fair notice. They write, in part:
There
is a tension between Judge Salas’ rejection of numerous consistent
public statements by the FTC disavowing its power as
“unconvincing,” discussed above, and the judge’s willingness to
accept a patchwork of publications and statements and consent decrees
by the FTC as giving fair notice of a discernible standard for
reasonable data protection that businesses everywhere must understand
and follow. Indeed, the public statements and business guidance
brochures can hardly meet the specificity of an interpretive rule or
general statement of policy that would be required to go through a
rigorous public (and congressional) comment period and give affected
businesses an opportunity to conform to the any applicable standard.
[...]
The
question is whether this is the manner in which we want our agencies
to promulgate guidance for all businesses operating with the
jurisdiction of the United States on a topic as important as data
security, rather than through formal rulemaking. Moreover, do we
want agencies to then be able to bring standalone enforcement actions
for violations of that guidance? While it may be possible for
scholars to assemble lists of standards from various sources, is this
the optimal way for companies to ascertain the applicable standards
and apply them on the ground? How thoroughly must a company scour
FTC literature, public statements and settlements, and to what extent
must every piece of guidance be followed—for instance, is “Privacy
by Design” now a requirement that must be followed, and what type
of documentation of compliance with that rubric will suffice if the
FTC challenge’s a company’s compliance? How will a company ever
feel confident that it is providing “FTC-sufficient” protection
for its customers’ data?
Read more on Privacy
& Security Law Blog.
(Related)
Here’s another
commentary/analysis of Judge Salas’s ruling on Wyndham’s motion
to dismss that is worth noting here, by the law firm of Covington &
Burling: They write, in part:
The
FTC’s data-security authority is still in jeopardy.
Although the FTC is the plaintiff in this case, it is really Wyndham
that is on the offensive. If Wyndham prevails in the court of
appeals on the issue of the FTC’s statutory authority or the need
for rulemaking, it would be a major blow to the agency’s ability to
pursue companies for lax data-security practices. Wyndham could also
prevail in the district court if the FTC fails to produce sufficient
evidence in support of its claims to survive a motion for summary
judgment, a result that could be nearly as devastating to the FTC as
a loss in the court of appeal. On the other hand, if the FTC manages
to win in the district court and the court of appeals, the victory
will simply ensure that the agency can continue doing what it has
been doing for years: using its unfairness authority to regulate
data-security practices.
Read more on Covington
& Burling.
Why would this picture
sharing App be worse than any other picture sharing App? It
integrates some “photoshoping” tools to blur the picture which is
a good thing, unfortunately, blurring everything but that lightning
shaped scar won't make Harry Potter anonymous.
Carl Smith reports on
concerns about a new app called Figure 1:
A
new picture-sharing phone and tablet application for doctors and
medical students is raising concerns about patient privacy.
Figure
1 allows the sharing of medical and clinical pictures
between health practitioners to assist colleagues with patient
diagnoses and to aid studying students.
It
is one of three new clinical picture-sharing apps to hit the
Australian market this year.
But
Assistant Professor Bruce Arnold from the University of Canberra says
Figure 1′s privacy policies rely too much on individual users to
keep distinguishing features of patients confidential.
Read more on ABC.
[From
the article:
The Figure 1 app
includes tools for users to blackout distinguishing features like
eyes and tattoos.
"A lot of doctors
or students probably won't be very good at blacking out the tell-tale
spots," said Professor Arnold.
I would have thought
this was obvious. Does it really surprise anyone?
Investigative
Report Highlights Google as Washington Lobbying Powerhouse
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on April 13, 2014
Tom
Hamburger, Matea Gold, Washington Post: “…Google — once a
lobbying weakling — has come to master a new method of operating in
modern-day Washington, where spending on traditional
lobbying is rivaled by other, less visible forms of influence.
That system includes financing sympathetic research at universities
and think tanks, investing in nonprofit advocacy groups across the
political spectrum and funding pro-business coalitions cast as
public-interest projects. The rise of Google as a top-tier
Washington player fully captures the arc of change in the influence
business. Nine years ago, the company opened a one-man lobbying
shop, disdainful of the capital’s pay-to-play culture. Since then,
Google has soared to near the top of the city’s lobbying ranks,
placing second only to General
Electric in corporate
lobbying expenditures in 2012 and fifth place in 2013… This
summer, Google will move to a new Capitol Hill office, doubling its
Washington space to 55,000 square feet — roughly the size of the
White House. Google’s increasingly muscular Washington presence
matches its expanded needs and ambitions as it has fended off a
series of executive- and legislative-branch threats to regulate its
activities and well-funded challenges by its corporate rivals.”
All my students...
5
Tools That Help Students Organize Research and Create Bibliographies
For my entrepreneurial
students, who will remember me at IPO time.
New
on LLRX – eCommerce Resources on the Internet
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on April 13, 2014
Via LLRX.com
- eCommerce
Resources on the Internet - Marcus
P. Zillman’s guide is a comprehensive, diverse and wide ranging
listing of eCommerce Resources on the Web. These resources include
those in a wide range of areas such as: associations, indexes, search
engines as well as individual websites.
For my student
programmers.
– is an online editor
& sandbox that lets you write your code all from the comfort of
your browser. They do all the heavy lifting so you can just focus on
writing and learning code. Compilr has been tested across all modern
desktop and mobile web browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and
Internet Explorer.
… Compilr supports
a wide array of programming languages like Java, C#, C++ and many
more!
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