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We open this episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast by considering the (still evolving) results of the 2022 midterm election. Adam Klein and I trade thoughts on what Congress will do. Adam sees two years in which the Senate does nominations, the House does investigations, and neither does much legislation. Which could leave renewal of the critically…

Retraction: An earlier episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast may have left the impression that I think Google hates mothers. I regret the error. It appears that, in reality, Google only hates Republican mothers who are running for office. But to all appearances, Google really, really hates them. A remarkable, and apparently damning study disclosed…

All the cyberlitigation that didn’t get filed, or decided, over Thanksgiving finally hit the fan last week, and we’re still cleaning up. But first, I have to ask Dave Aitel for sanity check a on Log4Shell.

Does it really deserve a 10 out of 10 for impact? And what does it mean for all…

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…

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.…

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

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.…

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

Episode 198 — Interview with Shane Harris

It turns out that the most interesting policy story about Kaspersky software isn’t why the administration banned its products from government use. It’s why the last administration didn’t.  Shane Harris is our guest for the podcast, delving into the law and politics of the Kaspersky ban.  Along the…