Episode 118 digs deep into DARPA’s cybersecurity research program with our guest, Angelos Keromytis, associate professor at Columbia and Program Manager for the Information Innovation Office at DARPA. Angelos paints a rich picture of a future in which we automate attribution across networks and international boundaries and then fuse bits of attribution data as though they were globules of the Terminator reassembling into human form.
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Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Dmitri Alperovitch
Ransomware is the new black. In fact, it’s the new China. So says our guest for episode 116, Dmitri Alperovitch, the CTO and co-founder of CrowdStrike. Dmitri explains why ransomware is so attractive financially – and therefore likely to get much worse very fast. He and I also explore the implications and attribution of the big bank hacks in Vietnam and Bangladesh.
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Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with General Hayden
Our guest for episode 114 is General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and CIA; he also confirms that he personally wrote every word of his fine book, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror. In a sweeping interview, we cover everything from Jim Comey’s performance at the AG’s hospital bedside (and in the Clinton email investigation) to whether the missed San Diego 9/11 calls were discovered before or after the 215 program was put in place. Along the way, we settle the future of Cyber Command, advise the next President on intelligence, and lay out the price the intelligence community is paying for becoming so darned good at hunting terrorists.
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Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Perianne Boring
In episode 109, we interview Perianne Boring of the Chamber of Digital Commerce on the regulatory challenges of bitcoin and the blockchain. In the news roundup, we bring back Apple v. FBI for what we hope will be one last round, as the San Bernardino magistrate voids her All Writs Act motion for mootness and attention shifts to other investigators hoping to crack iPhone security, both in the US and in Europe.
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Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Robin Weisman and Peter Van Valkenburgh
Doing our best to avoid turning this into the Applelaw podcast, episode 105 begins with Maury Shenk unpacking the new US-EU Privacy Shield details. His take: more hassles for companies accused of noncompliance, more detailed privacy disclosures and compliance obligations for most members, and a modicum of pain for the intelligence community, but it’s still basically the same framework as the Safe Harbor.
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FinTech Bits: Are Bitcoin and Other Digital Currencies Securities?
Anyone who has tried to explain bitcoin around their kitchen table knows that it is not easy to put your finger on what exactly the technology is. Because of their innovative nature, digital currencies don’t have obvious analogs or fit easily into existing categories. Bitcoin is part currency, part digital payment system, and part immutable ledger.
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FinTech Bits: Bitcoin and Terrorist Financing
Following the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, polls show that Americans identify terrorism—more than any other issue—as the most important problem facing the US. In this environment, some media outlets have predicted a pending “crackdown” on digital currencies, particularly by European governments, because of the risk that the technology could be used to fund
FinTech Bits: Outlook for 2016
CoinDesk, a leading source for bitcoin and FinTech news, published an op-ed by Jason Weinstein and Alan Cohn on “4 Trends That Will Shape Bitcoin Regulation in 2016.” The piece identifies emerging developments in the fast-changing world of digital currency regulation.
Now that multiple federal agencies have outlined their regulatory mandates, expect
Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Charlie Savage
Our guest for episode 90 is Charlie Savage, New York Times reporter, talking about Power Wars, his monumental new book on the law and politics of terrorism in the Obama (and Bush) administrations. I pronounce it superb, deeply informative, and fairly unbiased, “for a
FinTech Bits: What Does Donald Trump Think About Bitcoin?
This week featured interesting remarks from two of the most influential thought leaders in Bitcoin and the blockchain – Blythe Masters and Brian Forde.
During SourceMedia’s Convene conference, Masters, the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, observed that while we are in the early days of development for Bitcoin and the blockchain, similar to where we