Not so hard to explain
even without statistics...
App
releases Azerbaijani election results a day early
… Dear governments
of perhaps-slightly-less-democratic-than-it-appears regimes: the
appearance of democracy is quite important. Just for, you know,
appearances sake.
… This is something
that the oil-rich Azerbaijani government might have overlooked. Or,
rather, whoever is in charge of its Central Election Commission
election mobile app.
For, as
The Washington Post reports, the app dutifully pumped out
marvelously accurate election results, heralding a stunning victory
for current president Ilham Aliyev.
The only slight kink
was that the app declared him the overwhelming winner the
day before anyone had actually voted. Or should that be "voted?"
For my nay-saying
lawyers friends. Are there any circumstances where he could
successfully refuse? (How would you advise me to set up my “secure
email service?”
Orin Kerr analyzes the
filing by Lavabit:
Today
Lavabit filed
a brief before the Fourth Circuit challenging a civil contempt
order for its refusal to turn over its encryption key that the
government wants to enable the government to conduct surveillance of
Edward Snowden. I think Lavabit faces a very uphill battle, and in
this post I’ll explain why.
First,
a bit of context. The government obtained several different court
orders requiring Lavabit to disclose the key. First, they obtained a
pen register order; next, they issued a subpoena for the key; and
third, they obtained a search warrant for the key. Lavabit refused
to comply with any of them, and the court imposed a fine of $5,000 a
day until Lavabit agreed to hand over the key in digital form. (In a
bit of a middle finger to the government and the court, Lavabit did
turn over a paper copy of the key — which was 11 pages long in
4-point type — but refused to turn over an electronic copy.
Understandably, the court didn’t consider that compliance.)
Lavabit then shut down its service and handed over the key. In this
appeal, Lavabit is appealing the lawfulness of the judge’s orders
requiring it to hand over its key by arguing that none of the court
orders were valid.
In
order to to win on appeal, Lavabit needs to show that all three
methods are improper. I don’t think they can do this. I’ll
take each argument in turn.
Read his analysis on
The
Volokh Conspiracy.
It's better than a
multi-billion dollar trading loss! Could analytics become mandatory?
Banks
Use Analytics to Detect Suspect Employee Behavior
Penny
Crosman, BankThink/American Banker: “Ten large U.S. and
European banks are using natural language processing technology from
Digital Reasoning — one of Bank Technology News’ ‘Top
Ten Tech Companies to Watch for 2012′ — to uncover such
revealing documents before lawyers and examiners do. The company
launched six Proactive Compliance analytics products six months ago.
The software is meant to find emails that reflect unethical behavior
and violations of Dodd-Frank, anti-money laundering, Know Your
Customer and other rules. Some European banks use the
software to analyze suspicious activity reports for signs of bribery.
Other banks use it to find control room violations, to make sure
their advisory services are clean, to keep insider information from
leaking out of their organization, and to maintain the Chinese wall
between trading and research. Banks’ current compliance solutions
tend to focus on monitoring transactions and trade orders, Digital
Reasoning executives say. But much valuable information is buried
not in transactions, but in emails, instant messages, Word documents,
PowerPoint presentations and other forms of “unstructured data”
(which basically means, any data not stored in a database). Three
large banks are using Proactive Compliance to catch employees who
report that everything is fine but admit behind the scenes that
disaster looms, in the manner of JPMorgan Chase’s London Whale.”
No small matter.
Google
Wins Dismissal of Suit Over Web Browser Cookies
Google
Inc. (GOOG) won dismissal of a lawsuit alleging
it violated computer users’ rights by slipping electronic “cookies”
into their Web browsers to facilitate placement of advertising.
Cookies are used to
track browsing activity and can help advertisers target potential
customers. The users claimed that Mountain View, California-based
Google, owner of the world’s largest search engine, “tricked”
their Apple
Inc. (AAPL) and Microsoft
Corp. (MSFT) browsers into accepting cookies,
according to court filings.
The consumers sued in
federal court last year saying Google impinged on their privacy in
violation of federal and state laws. The court rejected those
claims.
“Google did not
intercept contents as provided for by the Wiretap Act,” U.S.
District Judge Sue L. Robinson in Wilmington, Delaware,
said in her opinion. The users also didn’t “demonstrate that
Google intercepted any ‘contents or meaning’” under
California’s Invasion of Privacy Act, she said. Nor did the users
identify “any impairment of the performance or functioning of their
computers,” the judge wrote
[All of
this seems to be a polite way of saying “Why are you idiots suing
this poor innocent company?” Bob]
(Related) On the other
hand, there must be a formula that calculates the number of lawsuits
vs. the market value of the firm.
William Dotinga
reports:
Google
asked a federal judge Wednesday for permission to take questions
about federal wiretapping laws to the 9th Circuit before a Gmail
class action advances any further.
[...]
[Judge
Lucy] Koh [had] declined
to dismiss the majority of the sprawling class action, finding that
Gmail’s interceptions fall outside the narrow “ordinary course of
business” exception carved out of the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act, known as ECPA. She also noted that Google’s policies
do not extract explicit consent from users, another exception to ECPA
on which the company relied.
In
a filing late Wednesday, Google said it wants questions about those
ECPA exceptions sent to the 9th Circuit for review before litigation
goes forward.
“The
court’s ruling on its construction of the ‘ordinary course of
business’ exception involves a controlling question of law on which
there is substantial ground for difference of opinion, and as to
which an immediate appeal may materially advance the ultimate
termination of the litigation,” Google said in its filing.
Read more on Courthouse
News.
(Related) But it's
okay to collect information manually?
Julian Perlman writes:
In
a victory for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., a federal district court judge
has refused to certify a Rule 23(b)(3) class in a lawsuit for
violation of California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act (Cal. Civ.
Code § 1747 et seq., available here.
Plaintiff
Joel Leebove brought suit on behalf of himself and others similarly
situated against Wal-Mart over the big box retailer’s practice of
requesting telephone numbers and addresses [and there's the
difference: “requesting” Bob] in connection with certain
credit card purchases. Wal-Mart successfully argued that this
information was necessary and its collection legal, as the putative
class consisted of Wal-Mart customers whose purchases were to be
subsequently picked-up or delivered.
Read more on Baker
Hostetler Data
Privacy Monitor.
Privacy issues my
students might find interesting.
From the good folks at
EPIC:
In
a letter
to the Senate and House Committees on Education, EPIC has asked
Congress to restore privacy protections for student data. EPIC’s
letter follows a court
opinion concerning recent changes
to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. EPIC has warned
that the changes in the student privacy law allow the
release of student records for non-academic purposes and
undercut parental and student consent provisions. EPIC has urged
Congress to investigate the impact of the revised regulations.
“Students and families are losing control over sensitive
information,” EPIC wrote, “and private companies are becoming the
repositories of student data and even the data maintained by the
schools is far more extensive than ever before.” For more
information, see EPIC:
Student Privacy.
For my Ethical Hackers:
Anything we haven't thought of?
FBI
Files Reveal New Info on Clandestine Phone Surveillance Unit
Ryan
Gallagher, via Slate’s
Future Tense blog: “As part of an ongoing Freedom of
Information Act suit launched by civil liberties group the Electronic
Privacy Information Center, the FBI is turning over information
on its use of cellphone surveillance technology variously known as
“Stingrays,” “Cell Site Simulators,” “IMSI Catchers,” or
“Digital Analyzers.” These devices function as portable
surveillance transceivers that are designed to trick phones over
a targeted area into hopping onto a fake network. The FBI says it
uses the tools to track the locations of individual suspects. But
the technology is controversial because, by design, it collects data
on innocent bystanders’ phones, and it also interferes with
cellphone signals in a way that may be prohibited under a section of
the federal Communications
Act. Over the past year, the FBI has been drip-releasing
redacted portions of a trove of documents that it holds related to
the use of the Stingray technology. And late last week, the bureau
turned over a batch of 500 pages featuring newly declassified
portions that offer fresh insight into its spy tools, as well as
shining a light on a little-known internal surveillance unit that has
built up within the bureau over the past decade.”
Perspective
What
the Government Does with Americans’ Data
What
the Government Does with Americans’ Data, by Rachel
Levinson-Waldman, October 8, 2013.
“After the attacks of
September 11, 2001, the government’s authority to collect, keep,
and share information about Americans with little or no basis to
suspect wrongdoing dramatically expanded. While the risks and
benefits of this approach are the subject of intense debate, one
thing is certain: it results in the accumulation of large amounts of
innocuous information about law-abiding citizens. But what happens
to this data? In the search to find the needle, what happens to the
rest of the haystack? For the first time in one report, the Brennan
Center takes a comprehensive look at the multiple ways U.S.
intelligence agencies collect, share, and store data on average
Americans. The report, which surveys across five intelligence
agencies, finds that non-terrorism related data can
be kept for up to 75 years or more, clogging national
security databases and creating opportunities for abuse, and
recommends multiple reforms that seek to tighten control over the
government’s handling of Americans’ information.”
The B School is
interested in Big Data
… Today, as the
power of data and analytics profoundly alters the business landscape,
companies once again may need more top-management muscle. Capturing
data-related opportunities to improve revenues, boost productivity,
and create entirely new businesses puts
new demands on companies — requiring not only new talent and
investments in information infrastructure, but also significant
changes in mind-sets and frontline training. It’s becoming
apparent that it will take extra executive horsepower to navigate new
organizational hazards, make tough trade-offs, and muster authority
when decision rights conflict in the new environment.
Because the new data
analytics horizons typically span a range of functions, including
marketing, risk, and operations, the C-suite evolution may take a
variety of paths. In some cases, the way forward will be to enhance
the mandate of (and provide new forms of support for) the chief
information, marketing, strategy, or risk officer. Other companies
may need to add new roles, such as a chief data officer, chief
technical officer, or chief analytics officer, to head up centers of
analytics excellence.
Six top-team
tasks
The transformative
nature of these changes involves much more than just serving up data
to an external provider to mine for hidden trends. Rather, it
requires concerted action that falls into six categories.
Isn't this what allows
US companies to move European data to the US? If it is revoked, it
could be expensive...
Sarah Taieb and Bret
Cohen write:
On
Monday, a European Parliament Inquiry established to investigate the
recent U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance revelations
indicated that its final report would recommend suspension of the
popular EU-U.S. Safe Harbor Framework.
Read more on Hogan
Lovells Chronicle
of Data Protection.
Ezra Steinhardt of
Covington & Burling offers some comments on this latest
development on Inside
Privacy.
Will the eraser law
actually work? Stay tuned!
Gov.
Brown Signs New California Privacy Laws
“California Governor
Jerry Brown has signed several new Internet privacy bills into law.
Assembly
Bill 370 amends the California
Online Privacy Protection Act by requiring that businesses
disclose how they respond to Do Not Track signals or other mechanisms
used by consumers to prevent the surreptitious collection of their
browsing history. The Governor has also signed Senate
Bill 568, which provides for an “eraser button” that would
require websites to allow minors to remove their own information.
Finally, California has enacted Senate
Bill 255, which prohibits “revenge porn”: the posting of
explicit images or videos without the victim’s consent. The
passage of these laws has led many to observe that California
is “driving
Internet privacy policy.” For more information, see
EPIC:
Online Tracking and Behavioral Advertising and EPIC:
Children’s Online Privacy.”
Perspective
Pew
– Online Video 2013
Online
Video 2013 by Kristen
Purcell – October 10, 2013
“Over the past four
years, the percent of American adult internet users who upload or
post videos online has doubled from 14% in 2009 to 31% today. That
includes 18% of adult internet users who post videos they have
created or recorded themselves—many of whom hope their creations go
viral. The share of online adults who watch or download videos has
also grown from 69% of internet users in 2009 to 78% today, and
mobile phones have become a key part of the video viewing and
creating experience.”
Perspective Can Amazon
ever fall into the Anti-Trust legal pit?
BusinessWeek
– How Amazon Became the Everything Store
“Amazon.com
rivals Wal-Mart as a store, Apple as a device maker, and IBM as a
data services provider. It will rake in about $75 billion this year.
For his book, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Brad Stone spoke
to hundreds of current and former friends of founder Jeff Bezos. In
the process, he discovered the poignant story of how Amazon became
the Everything Store.
Within Amazon.com
there’s a certain type of e-mail that elicits waves of panic. It
usually originates with an annoyed customer who complains to the
company’s founder and chief executive officer. Jeff Bezos has a
public e-mail address, jeff@amazon.com.
Not only does he read many customer complaints, he forwards them to
the relevant Amazon employees, with a one-character addition: a
question mark… It’s easy to forget that until recently, people
thought of Amazon primarily as an online bookseller. Today, as it
nears its 20th anniversary, it’s the Everything Store, a company
with around $75 billion in annual revenue, a $140 billion market
value, and few if any discernible limits to its growth. In the past
few months alone, it launched a marketplace in India, opened a
website to sell high-end art, introduced another Kindle reading
device and three tablet computers, made plans to announce a set-top
box for televisions, and funded the pilot episodes of more than a
dozen TV shows. Amazon’s marketplace hosts the storefronts of
countless smaller retailers; Amazon Web Services handles the computer
infrastructure of thousands of technology companies, universities,
and government agencies.”
Perspective.
Infographics
What
the World Would Look Like If Countries Were As Big As Their Online
Populations
Perspective. I don't
suppose any of them would like to buy a non-functioning government?
(Might be enlightening to see what parts they'd spin off.)
All
of these companies have more cash right now than the US government
The US government is
running out of money to pay its bills. It is so close to reaching
the statutory limit on debt at this point that US Treasury secretary
Jack Lew has taken “extraordinary measures” to delay becoming
delinquent on payments owed.
Republicans offered
a deal today to temporarily raise the debt limit, but the saga
has left the Treasury with just $32 billion in its operating
accounts, less than is held by nine Standard & Poor’s 500
companies in cash and short-term investments. General Electric has
nearly three times as much readily accessible cash as the US
government right now.
For my starving
students? (But you might want to use the ID of a certain law school
professor I know. See me for all the details.)
How
to Get Free Money – These 17 Companies Will Give You $1,815.25
For my students. Is
this the first full Terabyte storage offer?
Yahoo
Redesigns Mail For Web, Mobile And Windows, Offers 1TB Storage &
Conversations View
For all my students.
You first programming tool?
FREE
MANUAL: The Ultimate IFTTT Guide, Use The Web’s Most Powerful Tool
Like A Pro
If you want to automate
your online life somewhat, look no further than IFTTT. IFTTT is an
automation tool that will enable you to connect two services so that,
when something happens with one service, a trigger goes off and an
action takes place automatically on the other.
Albert Martinez has
written this guide to cover everything you need to know about IFTTT,
including what it is, how it works, and some of the most useful
things you can do with it. It’s everything you could possibly need
to know in order to get started with IFTTT.
No passwords
required. Read online, download free PDF or EPUB files or buy for
Amazon Kindle.
For my website
students. See what a little HTML5 can do?
Super
Mario fully playable online using HTML5
You could plug in your
old Nintendo Entertainment System, load up a vintage Super Mario
Brothers cartridge, and play one of the greatest games of all time.
Or you could just pop over to Full
Screen Mario and get your fix online.
Josh
Goldberg is behind this perfectly reproduced Super Mario remake
done entirely with HTML5. If you're looking to switch things up and
you like surprises, then you can play through randomly generated
levels. Purists can stick with recreations of the levels from the
original game.
There must be money in
Math education. Are iPads and Kindles the razor and the Apps razor
blades? If so, the price must be zero.
Amazon
buys math education company TenMarks
Amazon has purchased
TenMarks, an online math tutoring service, the companies announced
Thursday.
Dave Limp, Amazon's
vice president of Kindle,
said in a press release that TenMarks
is a good match for Amazon. With this acquisition, Amazon will focus
on developing education content and applications.
"Amazon and
TenMarks share the same passion for student learning. TenMarks's
award-winning math programs have been used by tens of thousands of
schools and Amazon engages with millions of students around the world
through our Kindle ecosystem," he said in the release.
TenMarks offers
personalized online math instruction and practice, including video
lessons, for K-12 students.
Education is an area
other tech giants, like Apple, are trying to break into. Amazon's
efforts include Whispercast, a free online tool that lets schools
and businesses manage a fleet of Kindle tablets
and wirelessly distribute Kindle books, documents, and apps.
