Try
not to become collateral damage.
Covert
Military Information Operations and the New NDAA: The Law of the Gray
Zone Evolves
In
recent years, Congress has been building a domestic legal framework
for gray zone competition (that is, the spectrum of unfriendly
actions that states may undertake against one another,
surreptitiously, that are below the threshold of actual hostilities
yet more serious and disruptive than the ordinary jostling of
international affairs) for military operations conducted in the cyber
domain. That project has gone rather well, compared to most things
Congress undertakes. Last year, it culminated in National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provisions that
clarified CYBERCOM’s authority in this area while also ensuring a
sound degree of oversight of the resulting activities. So far, so
good. But the gray zone challenges that define our times of course
are not limited to cyber operations as such.
… Read
on for an explanation of the nuts-and-bolts. Or, if you prefer, you
can read the full
text of
the gigantic bill, or just the “joint
explanatory statement”
issued
Dec. 9 after the House and Senate conferees reached agreement at
last.
(Related)
The
Year 2019 in Review: Same Threats, More Targets
In
2019, almost ten years after the discovery of Stuxnet, the United
States fell victim to the first cyberattack that disrupted operations
in the electrical grid. Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are
becoming increasingly dangerous, yet little has been done to address
them. With the modernization of old systems and the introduction of
IoT devices and smart city technology, adversaries have a growing
list of potential targets to attack. In 2020, governments need to
adopt concrete measures to address these threats.
For
the Hacker toolkit.
A
technical look at Phone Extraction
Hard
to reconcile.
Iran
says it foiled "very big" foreign cyber attack
Iran
has foiled a major cyber attack on its infrastructure that was
launched by a foreign government, the Iranian telecoms minister said
on Wednesday, two months after reports of a U.S. cyber operation
against the country.
(Related)
Iran
Banks Burned, Then Customer Accounts Were Exposed Online
After
demonstrators in Iran set fire to hundreds of bank branches last
month in antigovernment protests, the authorities dealt with another
less visible banking threat that is only now coming to fuller light:
a security breach that exposed the information of millions of Iranian
customer accounts.
As
of Tuesday, details of 15 million bank debit cards in Iran had been
published on social media in the aftermath of the protests, unnerving
customers and forcing the government to acknowledge a problem. The
exposure represented the most serious banking security breach in
Iran, according to Iranian media and a law firm representing some of
the victims.
Data
for the asking. Not the best security technique.
Web-hosting
firm 1&1 hit by almost €10 million GDPR fine over poor security
at call centre
1&1
has been fined €9.55 million (US $10.6 million) by Germany’s
Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information
(BFDI), after the telecoms company was found to have not taken
sufficient measures in its call centre to prevent unauthorised
parties from accessing customer data.
The
BfDI says
that
it became aware that anyone
could obtain extensive personal information on 1&1’s customers
simply by calling the customer care department and giving a name and
date of birth.
The
BfDI ruled that 1&1 was, therefore, in violation of article 32 of
the GDPR legislation, by failing to take appropriate technical and
organisational measures to protect the handling of personal data.
Probably
not the solutions we will choose.
How
to avoid a dystopian future of facial recognition in law enforcement
Civil
liberties activists warn that
the powerful technology, which identifies people by matching a
picture or video of a person’s face to databases of photos, can be
used to passively spy on people without any reasonable suspicion or
their consent.
Many of these leaders don’t just want to regulate facial
recognition tech — they
want to ban or pause its use completely.
Republican
and Democratic lawmakers, who so rarely agree on anything, have
recently joined forces to attempt to limit law enforcement agencies’
ability to surveil Americans with this technology, citing concerns
that the unchecked use of facial recognition could lead to the
creation of an Orwellian surveillance state.
Several
cities, such as San
Francisco, Oakland,
and
Somerville,
Massachusetts have
banned police use of the technology in the past year. A new federal
bill was introduced earlier
this month that
would severely restrict its use by federal law enforcement, requiring
a court order to track people for longer than three days. And some
senators have discussed a far-reaching bill that would completely
halt government use of the technology.
But
the reality is that this technology already exists — it’s used to
unlock
people’s iPhones, scan
flight passengers faces instead of their tickets,
screen people
attending Taylor Swift concerts,
and monitor crowds like at Brazil’s famous Carnival festival
in Rio de Janeiro.
… Here
are some of the leading ways that the US government is using facial
recognition today, and where experts say there’s a need for more
transparency, and for it to be more strongly regulated.
Some good and some bad.
What
technology will courts be using in 5 years’ time?
National
Center for State Courts – Court Technology Bulletin, December 5,
2019 –
“We
are pleased to share the following post from our friend, the Hon.
Judge Andrea Tsalamandris from Melbourne, Australia on “how
technology can be used by judges and court administration to create
efficiencies in our courts, and enhance access to justice. As a
judge who was appointed to the County Court of Victoria (CCV) a few
years before my 50th birthday, I was very pragmatic in embracing
technology in my new role. I thought it was safe to presume that
when I retired in twenty years’ time, I would not be working with
paper court books or handwriting my signature on court orders. My
initial interest in technology was simply to see how it could make my
life as a judge easier. However, after attending an E-Courts
Conference in the United States in 2018, my eyes were opened to the
manner in which technology could be used within courts, to benefit
court users, as well as judges and court staff. Shortly after
attending that conference, I was asked to chair a newly created IT
committee at the CCV, to guide the court in our digital
transformation. My teenage children thought this was hysterical, as
they did not consider me to be in any way “tech-savvy”; and that
was indeed true. But I was willing to learn and was keen to see, in
practical terms, how technology could assist all areas of our court,
from registry, to the courtroom and in chambers. Whenever I talk to
people about our plans for the future, I invariably pose the question
– what will we be doing in 5 years’ time? Most of us accept that
change is coming, and that it is probably coming more quickly than
any of us expect. Having spoken with other judges and court IT
managers in Australia, USA, UK and UAE, here is a list of where I
think we are heading…”
[Good:
2. Paperless jury trials
Over
the last 18 months, the Victorian Supreme Court has conducted a
number of criminal trials electronically. In such cases, each juror
has been given a iPad on which exhibits are uploaded throughout the
course of the trial. Each juror is able to make their own notes and
mark up the documents, just as the judge is doing on their own
device.
[Bad:
3. PowerPoints for jury charges
In
the CCV, some judges are beginning to use PowerPoints, both for
opening remarks and for the charge.
Unfortunately, we may need these…
The
Constitution Annotated—Impeachment Clauses
In
Custodia Legis –
“The Library of Congress has updated the Constitution
Annotated essays
pertaining to impeachment
and
incorporated them in the annotations to Article
I, Article
II, and
Article
III of
the Constitution. In addition, the updated impeachment essays are
consolidated in Resources
about Impeachment.
Additional information on impeachment is available on the website’s
Beyond
the Constitution Annotated: Table of Additional Resources under
Resources.
The
Library of Congress launched the Constitution Annotated on
Constitution Day, September 17, 2019. The website provides online
access to the “Constitution of the United States of America:
Analysis and Interpretation,” which has served as Congress’s
official record of the Constitution for over a century and explains
in layman’s terms the Constitution’s origins, how the nation’s
most important law was crafted and ratified, and how every provision
in the Constitution has been interpreted. With advanced search tools
and a modern, user-friendly interface, the new website makes the
3,000 pages of the Constitution Annotated fully searchable and
accessible for the first time to online audiences—including
Congress, legal scholars, law students, and anyone interested in U.S.
constitutional law…”
Anything to get rid of my students.
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