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This episode’s interview with Dr. Peter Pry of the EMP Commission raises an awkward question: Is it possible that North Korea has already developed nuclear weapons that could cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of Americans by permanently frying the entire electrical infrastructure with a single high-altitude blast?  And if he doesn’t, could…

It’s a law-heavy tech news week, so this episode is all news. If you come for the interviews, though, do not fear.  We’ll be releasing episode 333 tomorrow, and it’s all interview, as I talk with David Ignatius about the tech issues in his latest spy novel, The Paladin.

To kick things off,…

In this episode, Jamil Jaffer, Bruce Schneier, and I mull over the Treasury announcement that really raises the stakes even higher for ransomware victim.  The message from Treasury seems to be that if the ransomware gang is the subject of OFAC sanctions, as many are, the victim needs to call Treasury…

In our 327th episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast, Stewart is joined by Nick Weaver (@ncweaver), David Kris (@DavidKris), and Dave Aitel (@daveaitel). We are back from hiatus, with a one-hour news roundup to cover the big stories of the last month.  Pride of place goes to the WeChat/Tiktok mess, which just gets messier…

This is the week when the movement to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act got serious. The Justice Department released a substantive report suggesting multiple reforms. I was positive about many of them (my views here). Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has proposed a somewhat similar set of changes in his…

Our interview with Ben Buchanan begins with his report on how artificial intelligence may influence national and cybersecurity. Ben’s quick takes: better for defense than offense, and probably even better for propaganda. The best part, in my view, is Ben’s explanation of how to poison the AI that’s trying to hack you…

There’s a fine line between legislation addressing deepfakes and legislation that is itself a deep fake. Nate Jones reports on the only federal legislation addressing the problem so far. I claim that it is well short of a serious regulatory effort – and pretty close to a fake law.

In contrast, India seems serious about imposing liability on companies whose unbreakable end-to-end crypto causes harm, at least to judge from the howls of the usual defenders of such crypto. David Kris explains how the law will work. I ask why Silicon Valley gets to impose the externalities of encryption-facilitated crime on society without consequence when we’d never allow tech companies to say that society should pick up the tab for their pollution because their products are so cool. In related news, the FBI may be turning the Pensacola military terrorism attack into a slow-motion replay of the San Bernardino fight with Apple, this time with more top cover.

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Continue Reading Episode 295: The line between deepfake legislation and deeply fake legislation

You knew we’d go there. I talk about Congresswoman Katie Hill’s “throuple” pics and whether the rush to portray her as a victim of revenge porn raises questions about revenge porn laws themselves. Paul Rosenzweig, emboldened by twin tweets – from President Trump calling Never-Trumpers like him “human scum” and from Mark Hamill welcoming him to the Rebel Scum Alliance – takes issue with me.

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Continue Reading Episode 284: A throuple can keep a secret – if a couple of them are dead

Our interview is with Sultan Meghji, CEO of Neocova. We cover the large Chinese investment in quantum technology and what it means for the United States. It’s possible that Chinese physicists are even better than American physicists at extracting funding from their government. Indeed, it looks as though some quantum tech, such as the use of entangled particles to identify eavesdropping, may turn out to have dubious military value. But not all. Sultan thinks the threat of special purpose quantum computing to break encryption poses a real, near-term threat to US financial institutions’ security.

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Continue Reading Episode 282: Has China opened a quantum hype lead over the US?

Today’s episode opens with a truly disturbing bit of neocolonial judicial lawmaking from the Court of Justice of the European Union. The CJEU ruled that an Austrian court can order Facebook to take down statements about an Austrian politician. Called an “oaf” and a “fascist,” the politician more or less proved the truth of the accusations by suing to keep that and similar statements off Facebook worldwide. Trying to find allies for my proposal to adopt blocking legislation to protect the First Amendment from foreign government interference, I argue that President Trump should support such a law. After all, if he were ever to insult a European politician on Twitter, this ruling could lead to litigation that takes his Twitter account off the air. True, he could criticize the judges responsible for the judgment as “French” or “German” without upsetting CNN, but that would be cold comfort. At last, a legislative and international agenda for the Age of Trump!

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Continue Reading Episode 281: Can the European Union order Twitter to silence President Trump?