Show Me the Coverage: Ransomware Actors Demand Cyberinsurance Policies
The landscape of cybersecurity threats is continuously evolving, and ransomware attacks have emerged as a significant concern for organizations of all sizes. In a ransomware attack, cybercriminals encrypt the victim’s files, rendering them inaccessible and demand a ransom in exchange for the decryption key. This extortion method has proven lucrative ...
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DEA Using AirTags to Track Packages (and Drug Manufacturers)
It was recently reported in Forbes that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was using Apple’s AirTags to help track drug manufacturers. According to the March 23 article by Thomas Brewster, “[B]order agents intercepted two packages from Shanghai, China. Inside one was a pill press, a machine used to compress ...
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Is Trafficking in Hacking Information a Crime?
Quincy Compton of Concord, North Carolina, had a wife and a pregnant girlfriend and wrote to a doctor in Washington, D.C. for information about terminating a pregnancy. The doctor, Thomas Kemp, wrote back that “[I]t would cost about two hundred [dollars] and the woman would have to stay in DC ...
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Ethics in AI: The Missing Code
As part of its push toward artificial intelligence, Microsoft laid off more than 10,000 employees and spent billions on acquiring AI tech. Among those laid off were the seven-member team in their Office of Responsible AI. While the software company indicated that they remain “committed to developing AI products and ...
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Privacy Challenges Illustrated by Recent Cases
In the 1973 baseball melodrama Bang the Drum Slowly, the players, intent on scamming some rubes, play a card game called “TEGWAR.” It stands, as you later learn, for ‘The Exciting Game Without Any Rules.’ Three recent unrelated events in the news this week illustrate how U.S. data privacy rules ...
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The Internet’s Future at Stake (Really!) as Supreme Court Takes Up Provider Immunity
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Those 26 words helped create the modern internet, for better or worse. They provide almost limitless immunity for platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter and ...
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Supreme Court: Does BIlling Fraud Violate Federal ID Theft Statutes?
Simple question: Is a user ID and password similar to an identification card like a driver’s license or a key? If I use your user ID and password to log into your account, am I committing the crime of trespass, breaking and entering or false personation? What does it mean ...
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Tile Trackers Accountability Mode
One of the problems with tracking devices is that they can be used for good or for evil. When used for good, they can help you locate a stolen purse, a stolen car or bicycle, or even help you figure out where you misplaced your wallet. When used for evil, ...
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Abuse of Copyright Law Online to Remove Dissent and Criticism
The Washington Post recently reported on a “reputation management” company called Eliminalia which purported to clean up the online reputation of its clients and customers and make negative information “disappear.” Now, there are lots of legal and ethical ways to respond to false information, disinformation and even negative information online, ...
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Hunter Biden’s Laptop Revisited: What it Means for Cloud Storage
On February 1, 2023, lawyers for first son Hunter Biden took a new approach to the fact that the contents of a laptop he took for repairs and then failed to pick up were leaked to the press. Hunter’s attorneys alleged that the computer repairman and others were violating U.S ...
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