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… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: FBI
Episode 294: Examining the DOJ Inspector General’s FBI-FISA Report
Posted in Security Programs & PoliciesFor this special edition of the Cyberlaw Podcast, we’ve convened a panel of experts on intelligence and surveillance legal matters. We take a look at the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s use of FISA applications – and the many errors in those applications. We also touch on FBI Director Wray’s… Continue Reading
Episode 292: Debating FISA 215 after Pensacola
Posted in China, European Union, International, Privacy Regulation, Russia, Security Programs & PoliciesThe apparent terror attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola spurs a debate among our panelists about whether the FISA Section 215 metadata program deserves to be killed, as Congress has increasingly signaled it intends to do. If the Pensacola attack involved multiple parties acting across US borders, still a live possibility as we talked,… Continue Reading
Episode 289: Brad Smith on Microsoft’s Journey from Hubris to Humility
Posted in International, Privacy RegulationBrad Smith is President of Microsoft and author (with Carol Ann Browne) of Tools and Weapons: The Promise and Peril of the Digital Age. The book is a collection of vignettes of the tech policy battles in the last decade or so. Smith had a ringside seat for most of them, and he recounts… Continue Reading
Episode 285: ByteDance bitten by CFIUS
Posted in CFIUS, China, InternationalWe open the episode with David Kris’s thoughts on the two-years-late CFIUS investigation of TikTok, its Chinese owner, ByteDance, and ByteDance’s US acquisition of the lip-syncing company Musical.ly. Our best guess is that this unprecedented reach-back investigation will end in a more or less precedented mitigation agreement.
Episode 283: Is intelligence “reform” a self-licking ice cream cone and compliance trap?
Posted in Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, International, Privacy Regulation, Security Programs & PoliciesOur interview is with Alex Joel, former Chief of the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Alex is now at the American University law school’s Tech, Law, and Security Program. We share stories about the difficulties of government startups and how the ODNI carved… Continue Reading
Episode 275: Trump Derangement and the Trading with the Enemy Act
Posted in China, InternationalAnd we’re back with an episode that tries to pick out some of the events of August that will mean the most for technology law and policy this year. Dave Aitel opens, telling us that Cyber Command gave the world a hint of what “defending forward” looks like with an operation that is claimed… Continue Reading
Episode 257: How we know the North Korean Embassy break-in wasn’t the work of the CIA
Posted in Data Breach, International, Privacy RegulationIn today’s News Roundup, Klon Kitchen adds to the North Korean Embassy invasion by an unknown group. Turns out some of the participants fled to the US and lawyered up, but the real tipoff about attribution is that they’ve given some of the data they stole to the FBI. That rules out CIA involvement… Continue Reading
The Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Posted in Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, Security Programs & PoliciesEpisode 190: Interview with United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse In our 190th episode Stewart Baker has a chance to interview United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has a long history of engagement with technology and security issues. In this episode, we spend a remarkably detailed half-hour with him, covering the cybersecurity waterfront, from the FBI’s… Continue Reading
Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Patrick Henry, Dan Kaminsky, Kiran Raj, and Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan
Posted in China, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, International, Privacy Regulation, Security Programs & PoliciesNo holds are barred as a freewheeling panel of cryptographers and security pros duke it out with me and the Justice Department over going dark, exceptional access, and the Apple-FBI conflict. Among the combatants: Patrick Henry, a notable cryptographer with experience at GCHQ, NSA, and the private sector; Dan Kaminsky, the Chief Scientist at White Ops;… Continue Reading
Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Glenn Gerstell
Posted in Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, Data Breach, International, Privacy Regulation, Security Programs & PoliciesWhat is the most surprising discovery a law firm partner makes when he jumps to the National Security Agency? I direct that and other questions at Glenn Gerstell, who has just finished six months in the job as General Counsel at the National Security Agency. In the news roundup, we begin, of course, with the… Continue Reading
Encryption: If This is the Best His Opponents Can Do, Maybe Jim Comey Has a Point
Posted in Security Programs & PoliciesWhen industry opposes a new regulation, it can offer many arguments for its position. Here are three. Which one is real? “We share EPA’s commitment to ending pollution,” said a group of utility executives. “But before the government makes us stop burning coal, it needs to put forward detailed plans for a power plant that… Continue Reading
Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Juan Zarate
Posted in Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, Data Breach, International, Privacy Regulation, Security Programs & PoliciesOur guest commentator for episode 49 of the Steptoe Cyberlaw podcast is Juan Zarate, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the senior national security analyst for CBS News, a visiting lecturer at the Harvard Law School, and chairman and co-founder of the Financial Integrity Network. Before joining CSIS, Juan… Continue Reading
Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Richard Danzig
Posted in Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, Data Breach, International, Privacy Regulation, Security Programs & PoliciesWow, that was quick. I haven’t even turned on the air conditioning at home yet, and already we’ve done the last podcast of the summer. The Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast will go on hiatus for August and return after Labor Day! This week in NSA: The Senate Judiciary Committee, the most anti-NSA of the Senate committees… Continue Reading
Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Orin Kerr
Posted in China, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, Data Breach, International, Privacy Regulation, Security Programs & PoliciesOur guest this week is noted computer law guru Orin Kerr, and the podcast is a deep dive into technology and law. This Week in NSA: Snowden claims without substantiation that NSA employees are passing naked pix around. And Greenwald’s venture reports that GCHQ has developed the ability to send spam and to rig web… Continue Reading
Corporate Network Defense: When Seconds Count, the FBI is Years Behind
Posted in Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, Data Breach, Security Programs & PoliciesThe Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima wrote another cutting-edge article on innovative approaches to network defense. I’ve blogged before about honeytokens, deceptive files that leave hackers with false data while flagging the intrusion to defenders. The article suggests that their use is growing, as other defensive techniques prove ineffective: Brown Printing Co…began planting fake data in… Continue Reading