OPM Hack

Subscribe to OPM Hack


Our News Roundup is hip deep in China stories. The inconclusive EU – China summit gives Matthew Heiman and me a chance to explain why France understands – and hates – China’s geopolitical trade strategy more than most.

Maury Shenk notes that the Pentagon’s reported plan to put a bunch of Chinese suppliers on a blacklist is a bit of a tribute to China’s own list of sectors not open to Western companies. In other China news, Matthew discloses that there’s reason to believe that China has finally begun to use all the US personnel data it stole from OPM. I’m so worried it may yet turn my hair pink, at least for SF-86 purposes.

And in a sign that it really is better to be lucky than to be good, Matthew and I muse on how the Trump Administration’s China policy is coinciding with broader economic trends to force US companies to reconsider their reliance on Chinese manufacturing.…

Continue Reading Episode 259: Why France understands Chinese policy better than the rest of us

If there really is another crypto war in Washington, then this week’s podcast features several war correspondents and at least one victim of PTSD.  Our guest is Melanie Teplinsky, former cybersecurity lawyer at Steptoe, adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, advisory board member for Crowdstrike, and a regular columnist on privacy…

Bruce Schneier joins Stewart Baker and Alan Cohn for an episode recorded live in front of an audience of security and privacy professionals.  Appearing at the conference Privacy.Security.Risk. 2015., sponsored by the IAPP and the Cloud Security Alliance, Bruce Schneier talks through recent developments in law and technology.

The three of us stare into the pit opened by an overwrought (and overdue and overweening) European Court of Justice advisor.  If the European Court of Justice follows his lead (and what seems to be its inclinations), we could face a true crisis in transatlantic relations.
Continue Reading Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast – Interview with Bruce Schneier

Privacy advocates are embracing a recent report recommending that the government require bulk data retention by carriers and perhaps web service providers, exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over data stored abroad, and expand reliance on classified judicial warrants.  In what alternative universe is this true, you ask?  No need to look far.  That’s the state of the…