So… was the claimed Ashley Madison breach a hoax? Gina Smith argues that it was. Or she’s pulling her own hoax to see how susceptible journalists are. So far, she hasn’t really presented any evidence to support claims which she outlines in this post. Smith writes, in part: Through doxens of interviews with Avid and…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Article: The Good Hacker: A Look at the Role of Hacktivism in Democracy
Ben Monarch, a University of Kentucky College of Law student, has an article that he has uploaded to SSRN that calls for amendments to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to recognize hacktivism as a defense. Monarch argues that the U.S. “application of the CFAA and (attempted) simultaneous adherence to Article 19 of the International Covenant on…
Stats: 1,223 arrested for cyber crimes in Uttar Pradesh in 2014
Kapil Dixit of the Times of India reports some statistics for last year for Uttar Pradesh, a state in India that according to Wikipedia, had a population of 204.2 million in 2011: As many as 94 computer professionals and hackers were arrested in UP on charges of cyber fraud in 2014. In all, 1,223 people…
Smart wearables for kids in China found to have security flaws
Chuang Shu-chung reports: … One Chinese “white hat” hacker group, wooyun.org, found 13 models of Chinese-made smartwatches with defects in their information security management systems. The group said hackers could easily break into the smartwatch’s system and steal the wearer’s personal information and tracking history. In other words, the watch could have precisely the opposite…
5 things the FTC should do to improve data security in the wake of Wyndham
Dan Solove and Woody Hartzog have 5 suggestions for how FTC could use its authority to improve data security: Here’s how we think the FTC should use its authority to drive important change: 1. Do more proactive enforcement 2. Take on more data security cases 3. Push companies toward improved authentication – moving beyond mere passwords 4….
How Encryption Can Help Protect Your Personal Information
Commissioner Terrell McSweeny of the FTC writes: High profile car hacks, large-scale breaches of intimate information, news of compromised household appliances — hardly a day passes without some revelation of the ways in which our increasing interconnectedness is introducing new vulnerabilities into our lives. Technology is advancing at a rapid clip, and so are breaches….