1/19/2010With business and individuals increasingly storing emails and other information in databases on-line, questions of expectations of privacy are inevitable. Columnist James Urquhart at CNET News breaks down the Fourth Amendment implications of internet "cloud" storage at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19413_3-10436425-240.html 1/3/2010A newspaper from Kokomo, Indiana has reported that a wanted man from the area was tracked down using the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW) and successfully apprehended. The man was "wanted on charges of dealing in a schedule III controlled substance and dealing in a schedule IV controlled substance, and two charges of dealing in marijuana. A warrant was issued for his arrest in 2007." He managed to evade police by fleeing to Canada, but the police found out about his affinity for the WoW, and sent a subpoena to the California headquarters of Blizzard Entertainment, the company which develops and runs WoW. Given the jurisdictional issues (Indiana court and California company), the police did not expect Blizzard to respond. However, the company did respond with the suspect's "IP address, his account information and history, his billing address, and even his online screen name and preferred server." Using this information, police were able to determine his address in Canada, and arrange for his arrest and extradition. 12/30/2009
- There will be more web-based attacks, especially as the use of social networking sites and email will allow attacks directed against specific individuals, companies, governments, or causes. The use of these avenues for attack tends to make it more likely that the victim will believe that a malicious link or file actually came from a trusted friend.
- Malware will also take advantage of HTML5, which creates a more interactive web experience for users.
- Adobe products such as Reader and Flash will be more popular avenues for attack than Microsoft products such as Office.
- Trojan horses designed to hijack banking transactions will become more sophisticated. Already, they use complex means to hide on computers, collect information, alter transactions, and notify the criminal of the victim's activities.
- Law enforcement will take a greater role in stopping cybercrime, and there will be greater international cooperation.
- Botnet controllers will switch to peer-to-peer setups in response to the success that law enforcement agencies have had in shutting down centralized botnet servers.
12/22/2009Former New York Governor and Attorney General Elliot Spitzer has written a recent New York Times Op-Ed piece along with University of San Diego law professor Frank Portnoy and University of Missouri-Kansas City economics professor William Black. The trio calls for an "open-source" AIG investigation. In other words, they want "the trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in the key internal accounting documents and financial models generated by A.I.G. during the past decade" to be released to the public (those which aren't priviliged, of course). The trio's rationale is that there is a strong public interest in understanding exactly what went wrong at A.I.G., so that those mistakes could (hopefully) be avoided in the future. They point out that this country's citizens own 80% of A.I.G. and thus have the right to demand access to the documents. They also insinuate that the Fed and the Treasury Department could make the documents public, but have decided not to because it would show their mistakes in the days leading up to the economic crisis. They also point out that, with regards to the Enron collapse, "e-mail messages and internal documents became the central exhibits in our collective understanding of what happened." 12/15/2009
The Associated Press has reported that over 22 million missing emails from the Bush White House have been found. Computer technicians are continuing to search for more. The Bush White House may have violated federal law by inadequately preserving the emails. It was apparently aware of the problem in 2003, when it asked for Microsoft's help, although the issue did not become publically known until 2006. In a statement regarding the emails, a former Bush spokesperson accused liberal groups of trying "to create a spooky conspiracy out of standard IT issues." 12/14/2009Arizona's Supreme Court has found that metadata, key identifying information embedded in computer files, should be included in public records request. The case, Lake v. City of Phoenix, involved a public records request from a Phoenix police department. The court ruled the request should include metadata revealing when the records were prepared, and whether they were amended or backdated. An article from the Guardian examining the decision can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8784114 You can check out CLCT's CLE course "What's the Meta With Your Documents" here: http://cle.legaltechcenter.net/ The Washington Post has reported that the five North Virginia men who traveled to Pakistan allegedly seeking entry into Al Qaeda were recruited via YouTube. The article reports that the organization, believed to be headed by Osama bin Laden and responsible for the 9/11 attacks, has been increasingly using the Internet as a recruitment tool. The article speculates that this is because Al Qaeda's traditional recruitment venues (mosques and community centers) have been placed under increased scrutiny by US intelligence agencies. The five men apparently commented positively on YouTube videos showing attacks on US troops, and then exchanged coded emails with Al Qaeda recruiters, who directed the men to travel to Pakistan. However, they were ultimately rejected by Al Qaeda because they were believed to be US spies. Intelligence agencies have a difficult time monitoring YouTube because of its extreme popularity (it is currently the fourth most popular site in the world according to Alexa's web rankings). 12/1/2009A courtroom in Scotland used computer technology to give jurors on a murder trial a virtual walk through an apartment in which a teenage girl was engulfed in flames. The 360-degree panoramic photos were taken using a device called "Return to Scene" and stitched together via computer to create a Google Earth-style view of the inside and outside of the apartment. The tour, backed up by still photos, allowed the jury to see details of smoke and fire damage. More information is available at the STV website. A Canadian legal magazine suggests that for many attorneys dipping a toe into various forms of legal technology, it may well be a matter of sink or swim. The Lawyers Weekly makes a number of points we've discussed around the office CLCT lately, about the dangers of falling behind technologically, albeit a little more bluntly (favorite quote: "Is your computer just like a really large typewriter with a delete key?"). But the article also makes the point that simple, small steps towards a more technological law office can be more helpful than leaping in to the latest and greatest tech fad. Check it out at: http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=article&volume=29&number=27&article=5 11/3/2009Arizona's state Supreme Court has overturned lower court decisions to rule that metadata in public records must be disclosed under the state's public records law. "It would be illogical, and contrary to the policy of openness underlying the public records law, to conclude that public entities can withhold information embedded in an electronic document, such as the date of creation, while they would be required to produce the same information if it were written manually on a paper public records," said Justice Scott Bales in his opinion. As one of the first rulings from a state appellate court regarding disclosure of these data about data, the landmark decision has attracted interest from multiple media and government organizations. While a court in Washington made a similar ruling earlier this year, it was doing so in support of a Washington law that specifically provides for disclosure of metadata. See the AP article for more information. |
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