The (Revived) Encryption War Continues

**The Latest:**

[As Encryption Spreads, U.S. Grapple with Clash between Privacy, Security](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-encryption-spreads-us-worries-about-access-to-data-for-investigations/2015/04/10/7c1c7518-d401-11e4-a62f-ee745911a4ff_story.html?wprss=rss_national-security) – Ellen Nakashima and Barton Gellman writing in The Washington Post reveal that federal officials are considering a variety of means of ensuring access to encrypted communications, including split key approaches, as well as, in certain circumstances, mirror accounts. Under the split key approach (difficult from an engineering and cryptography standpoint), a technology company creates a decryption key that is split into pieces, with different pieces held by different parties, and all of the pieces are needed for decryption. But even aside from the question of trust in the holders of the key parts, risk of disclosure of the decrypted information and the like, as security expert/researcher, Dino A. Dai Zovi (@dinodaizovi) tweeted: “The big question of the #cryptodebate isn’t whether vendors can make a decryption key for USG, but what happens when other [governments] want it too?”

[How Do We Build Encryption Backdoors?](http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/04/how-do-we-build-encryption-backdors.html) – Professor Matthew Green (Johns Hopkins) analyzes the problems with building encryption backdoors, including split key approaches, at his [A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering](http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/) blog

[You Can’t Backdoor a Platform](http://webpolicy.org/2015/04/28/you-cant-backdoor-a-platform/) – Jonathan Mayer at his Web Policy blog

**Background – 2014-15, the Crypto Wars Return**

[James Comey, F.B.I. Director, Hints at Action as Cellphone Data Is Locked](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/us/politics/fbi-director-in-policy-speech-calls-dark-devices-hindrance-to-crime-solving.html) – The New York Times, and [FBI director Attacks Tech Companies for Embracing New Modes of Encryption; James Comey says Data Encryption Could Deprive Police and Intelligence Agencies of Potentially Live-saving Information](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/16/fbi-director-attacks-tech-companies-encryption) – The Guardian

[Apple Will No Longer Unlock Most iPhones, iPads for Police, even with Search Warrants](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2014/09/17/2612af58-3ed2-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html) – The Washington Post

[iPhone Encryption and the Return of the Crypto Wars](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/10/iphone_encrypti_1.html) – Bruce Schneier

[What NSA Director Mike Rogers Doesn’t Get About Encryption](http://www.cato.org/blog/what-nsa-director-mike-rogers-doesnt-get-about-encryption) – Julian Sanchez at CATO

[What President Obama is getting wrong about encryption](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/19/what-president-obama-is-getting-wrong-about-encryption/) – The Washington Post

[The FBI Keeps Demanding Impossible Solutions to Its Encryption Problem](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-fbi-keeps-demanding-impossible-solutions-to-its-encryption-problem) – MotherBoard/Vice

**Background – the 1990’s (and earlier) Crypto Wars**

[Keeping Secrets: Four Decades Ago, University Researchers Figured out the Key to Computer Privacy, Sparking a Battle with the National Security Agency that Continues Today.](https://medium.com/stanford-select/keeping-secrets-84a7697bf89f) – Henry Corrigan-Gibbs (Stanford Magazine)

[Encryption and Globalization](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1960602) – a 2011 academic paper (Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, Vol. 23, 2012) by Peter Swire and Kenesa Ahmad, which includes a brief summary of the original 90’s “Crypto Wars”

[Crypto Wars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars) – Wikipedia

[Hacker Lexicon: What is End-to-End Encryption](http://www.wired.com/2014/11/hacker-lexicon-end-to-end-encryption/) – Wired

**Related**

[Want to Protect your Phone from the Cops? You Might Want to Use a Passcode, Not a Fingerprint; Virginia Court Rules Using Fingerprint Technology to Protect Your Phone Doesn’t Carry Same Legal Rights as Passcodes](http://www.fastcompany.com/3037912/want-to-protect-your-phone-from-the-cops-you-might-want-to-use-a-passcode-not-a-fingerprint) – FastCompany

04/23/2015: 

Recommended:

> #### Law, Tech and Policy

> [We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership](http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/) – Wired

> [Poor Internet for Poor People: Why Facebook’s Internet.org Amounts to Economic Racism](http://qz.com/385821/poor-internet-for-poor-people-why-facebooks-internet-org-amounts-to-economic-racism/) – Mahesh Murthy in Quartz India

> [Facebook ‘tracks all visitors, breaching EU law’; People without Facebook Accounts, Logged Out Users, and EU Users Who have Explicitly Opted Out of Tracking are All Being Tracked, Report Says](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-tracks-all-visitors-breaching-eu-law-report) – The Guardian

> [Privacy Law: From a National Dish to a Global Stew](http://www.techpolicy.com/Solove-Richards_PrivacyLaw-FromNationalDishToGlobalStew.aspx) – Daniel J. Solove and Neil Richards at TAP

> [Why You have the Right to Obscurity](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-Voices/2015/0415/Why-you-have-the-right-to-obscurity) – CSMonitor

> [Is that Really a Spider? Or, are You Being Monitored?](http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/205381/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pjmedia%2Finstapundit+%28Instapundit%29) – Instapundit

> [For Hardware Makers, Sharing Their Secrets Is Now Part of the Business Plan](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/open-sourcing-cars-and-computers/) – New York Times

> #### General Interest

> [Harvard Professor Reveals why America’s Infrastructure is so Awful, Who is to Blame, and How We can Finally Fix It](http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-rosabeth-moss-kanter-infrastructure-2015-4) – Business Insider

> [More Older Adults Are Becoming Inventors](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/your-money/more-older-adults-are-becoming-inventors.html?partner=rss&emc=rss) – New York Times; and [Picking Up Art Later in Life Could Help the Brain](http://hyperallergic.com/199488/picking-up-art-later-in-life-could-help-the-brain/) – Hyperallergic. Remember: [You Are Not Late](http://kk.org/thetechnium/2014/08/you-are-not-late/)

> [Cow Milk Without the Cow Is Coming to Change Food Forever](http://www.wired.com/2015/04/diy-biotech-vegan-cheese/) – Wired

> [Has Visual Design Fallen Flat? Countless Pixels were Spilled during The Great UI Flattening of 2013–2014](https://medium.com/@intercom/has-visual-design-fallen-flat-a155cb6a5cda) – Emmet Connelly

> [Fall of the Designer Part I: Fashionable Nonsense](http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-part-i-fashionable-nonsense) – Eli Schiff ([Part II – Pixel Pushers](http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/4/14/fall-of-the-designer-part-ii-pixel-pushers))

04/22/2015: 

Robotics Law and Policy

The reading syllabus ([pdf](http://www.law.washington.edu/CourseCatalog/Syllabi/2015-Spring_CaloRy_E547_Robotics_Law_and_Policy.pdf); two pages) for Professor Ryan Calo’s (University of Washington) course on law and robotics – an excellent resource for those interested in robotics/drones/AI. Among other things, it includes Professor Calo’s own paper, [Robotics and the Lessons of Cyberlaw](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2402972), 103 California Law Review (forthcoming 2015), and Professor Jack Balkin’s (Yale) [The Path of Robotics Law](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2586570), 5 California Law Review Circuit (forthcoming 2015).

Related:
> The [agenda](http://www.werobot2015.org/) (and conference [roundup](http://www.pelicancrossing.net/netwars/2015/04/multiplicity.html)) for the “We Robot 2015” conference on robotics, law and policy recently held at the University of Washington, including links to various academic papers such as Woodrow Hartzog’s [Unfair and Deceptive Robots](http://www.werobot2015.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Hartzog-Unfair-Deceptive-Robots.pdf)

> [What is a Robot, Anyway?](https://hbr.org/2015/04/what-is-a-robot-anyway) – Harvard Business Review

> [If a Robot Kills Someone, Who is to Blame?](http://www.theglobeandmail.com//news/world/if-a-robot-kills-someone-who-is-to-blame/article23996250/?cmpid=rss1&click=sf_globe) – The Globe and Mail

> [The Myth Of AI: A Conversation With Jaron Lanier](http://edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-the-myth-of-ai) – Edge; and a response: [Why I Don’t Worry About a Super AI](http://kk.org/thetechnium/2015/04/why-i-dont-worry-about-a-super-ai/) – Kevin Kelly at Technium

> [Robots for Humans: Addressing the Engineering Challenges](http://insights.globalspec.com/article/788/robots-for-humans-addressing-the-engineering-challenges) – IHS GlobalSpec

04/16/2015: 

EU v. Google (link roundup)

**The EU’s Three April 15, 2015 Releases**:
> • [Antitrust: Commission Sends Statement of Objections to Google on Comparison Shopping Service; Opens Separate Formal Investigation on Android](http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4780_en.htm);
> • [Antitrust: Commission Opens Formal Investigation Against Google in Relation to Android Mobile Operating System](http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-4782_en.htm); and
> • [Antitrust: Commission Sends Statement of Objections to Google on Comparison Shopping Service (fact sheet)](http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-4781_en.htm).

**Google’s Public Response (from the Google Official Blog)**: [Android has Helped Create More Choice and Innovation on Mobile than Ever Before](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/android-has-helped-create-more-choice.html?m=0)

**Google’s Internal Response (memo)**: [Here Is Google’s Internal Response to the Imminent EU Charges (Memo)](http://recode.net/2015/04/14/here-is-googles-internal-response-to-the-imminent-e-u-charges-memo/) – Re/Code

**Commentators and News Reports**:

[Europe Challenges Google, Seeing Violations of Its Antitrust Law](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/business/international/european-union-google-antitrust-case.html?emc=edit_tu_20150415&nl=technology&nlid=34482325) – New York Times

[A Transcontinental Culture War Could Cost Google Billions](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/how-technology-became-a-battleground-for-continental-norms/390588/?utm_source=SFTwitter) – The Atlantic

[Behind Google’s Europe Woes, American Accents](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/26/us-google-eu-insight-idUSKCN0JA1X120141126) – Reuters; and [A Group of Google’s Competitors Wants the US to Slap Google, Too](http://www.businessinsider.com/competitors-want-the-us-to-slap-google-too-2015-4) – Business Insider

[Google Is Targeted Late by EU in a Market That Shifted Years Ago](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-16/google-is-targeted-late-by-eu-in-a-market-that-shifted-years-ago) – Bloomberg Business

[What’s Next for Google and the EU? It Could Be a Quick Settlement.](http://recode.net/2015/04/15/whats-next-for-google-and-the-eu-it-could-be-a-quick-settlement/) – Re/Code

**Background**:

[Europe’s Digital Chief Vows to Intervene on Technology Abuses](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/europes-digital-regulator-vows-to-intervene-on-technology-abuses/?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0) – New York Times (March 2015)

[Tough Talk From European Commissioner About U.S. Tech Companies](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/tough-talk-from-european-commissioner-about-u-s-tech-companies/?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1) – New York Times (February 2015)

04/15/2015: 

China’s Great Cannon

Toronto’s Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs posits in an [online report](https://citizenlab.org/2015/04/chinas-great-cannon/) that, separate and apart from China’s “Great Firewall”, China possesses a “Great Cannon” offensive cyberattack tool which hijacks traffic to (or from) IP addresses, and which can replace unencrypted content as a man-in-the-middle. According to the report:

> “The operational deployment of the Great Cannon represents a significant escalation in state-level information control: the normalization of widespread use of an attack tool to enforce censorship by weaponizing users. Specifically, the Cannon manipulates the traffic of bystander’ systems outside China, silently programming their browsers to create a massive DDoS attack. While employed for a highly visible attack in this case, the Great Cannon clearly has the capability for use in a manner similar to the NSA’s QUANTUM system, affording China the opportunity to deliver exploits targeting any foreign computer that communicates with any China-based website not fully utilizing HTTPS.”

04/10/2015: 

Recommended:

> #### Law, Tech and Policy

> [Why Security Pros Don’t Like Obama’s Proposal for Antihacking Law](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2015/0406/Why-security-pros-don-t-like-Obama-s-proposal-for-antihacking-law-video) – Christian Science Monitor’s Passcode

> [Edward Snowden’s Impact](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/04/09/edward-snowdens-impact/) – an assessment by law professor Orin Kerr in The Washington Post

> [U.S. Secretly Tracked Billions of Calls for Decades](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/07/dea-bulk-telephone-surveillance-operation/70808616/) – USA Today

> [How the Computer Got Its Revenge on the Soviet Union; Condemned as a Capitalist Tool, the Computer Would Help Expose the USSR’s Weakness](http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/how-the-computer-got-its-revenge-on-the-soviet-union) – Nautilus

> [Internet Privacy, Funded by Spooks: A Brief History of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)](http://pando.com/2015/03/01/internet-privacy-funded-by-spooks-a-brief-history-of-the-bbg/) – Pando Daily

> [The Anti-Information Age; How Governments are Reinventing Censorship in the 21st Century](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/government-censorship-21st-century-internet/385528/) – The Atlantic

> [Will Deep Links Ever Truly Be Deep? – The Buzz over Linking Mobile Apps Obscures Links’ True Potential to Create Profound Networks of Knowledge and Share Power More Widely](https://medium.com/backchannel/the-failed-promise-of-deep-links-aa307b3abaa5) – Scott Rosenberg at Medium’s Backchannel

> [The GNU Manifesto Turns Thirty](http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-gnu-manifesto-turns-thirty) – The New Yorker; the [text of the GNU Manifesto](https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html) written by Richard Stallman at the beginning of the GNU Project in March 1985 (including subsequent clarifying footnotes)

> [No, Entrepreneurs, Most of You Don’t Need Angel Investors or Venture Capitalists](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2015/03/16/no-entrepreneurs-most-of-you-dont-need-angel-investors-or-venture-capitalists/) – Washington Post

> [16 ideas from Marc Andreessen for a More Dynamic US Economy](http://www.aei.org/publication/16-ideas-marc-andreessen-dynamic-us-economy/) – Marc Andreessen’s twitter stream [@pmarca](https://twitter.com/pmarca) (excerpted at the American Enterprise Institute’s public policy blog)

> [4chan’s Overlord Christopher Poole Reveals Why He Walked Away](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/4chans-overlord-christopher-poole-reveals-why-he-walked-away-20150313) – Rolling Stone

> #### General Interest

> [Fifty Great Genre-Bending Books Everyone Should Read](http://flavorwire.com/512998/50-great-genre-bending-books-everyone-should-read/view-all) – Flavorwire

> [The 100 Best Books of the Decade So Far](https://review.oysterbooks.com/p/CsJZWweDo3pnr3cFHXfu9k/100-best-books-of-the-decade-so-far) – The Oyster Review

> [The 100 Best Films of the Decade So Far](http://www.avclub.com/article/100-best-films-decade-so-far-1-20-217530) – A.V. Club

04/8/2015: 

What Went Wrong With the FISA Court

A [report by the Brennan Center for Justice](http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/what-went-wrong-fisa-court#.VQorcVAp4s8.twitter) on the legitimacy of today’s FISA Court, which concludes that the court longer functions in keeping with constitutional requirements ([direct link to pdf](http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/What_Went_%20Wrong_With_The_FISA_Court.pdf) – 83 pages)

03/18/2015: 

FCC’s Net Neutrality Proposal (link roundup; updated to reflect release of the FCC Order)

**Release of the Net Neutrality Order (March 12, 2015):**

FCC Webpages Regarding the Release of the Open Internet Order: [main page](http://www.fcc.gov/openinternet) and [webpage](http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-order) with links to the Commissioners’ statements and the FCC Order itself ([direct link to pdf](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0312/FCC-15-24A1.pdf) of the FCC Order – 400 pages)

But will the FCC Order survive court challenges? – [On Net Neutrality, Six Ways The FCC’s Public Utility Order Will Lose In Court](http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2015/04/08/on-net-neutrality-six-ways-the-fccs-public-utility-order-will-lose-in-court/) – Larry Downes in Forbes

**Passage of the FCC Proposal (February 26, 2015):**

[FCC Press Release](http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-strong-sustainable-rules-protect-open-internet) Regarding Passage of the Net Neutrality Rules.

[The FCC Approves Strong Net Neutrality Rules](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/26/the-fcc-set-to-approve-strong-net-neutrality-rules/) – Washington Post

[Why Everyone was Wrong about Net Neutrality](http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-everyone-was-wrong-about-net-neutrality) – Tim Wu in The New Yorker

[It’s Not Really Net Neutrality](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2015/02/27/its-not-really-net-neutrality/24114171/) – Michael Wolff in USA Today

[The FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules: Five Things You Need to Know](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2890097/the-fccs-net-neutrality-ruling-5-things-you-need-to-know.html) – PCWorld

**FCC’s Original Proposal (February 4, 2015):**

[FCC Fact Sheet](http://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-wheeler-proposes-new-rules-protecting-open-internet) (four pages) – Chairman Wheeler Proposes New Rules for Protecting the Open Internet

[This is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality](http://www.wired.com/2015/02/fcc-chairman-wheeler-net-neutrality/) – FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s OpEd in Wired

[The Head of the FCC Just Proposed the Strongest Net Neutrality Rules Ever](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/04/the-fcc-just-proposed-the-strongest-net-neutrality-rules-ever/) – The Washington Post

[Don’t Call Them ‘Utility’ Rules: The FCC’s Net Neutrality Regime, Explained](http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/dont-call-them-utility-rules-the-fccs-net-neutrality-regime-explained/) – ArsTechnica explainer

[AT&T Previews Lawsuit it Plans to File Against FCC Over Net Neutrality](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/att-previews-lawsuit-it-plans-to-file-against-fcc-over-net-neutrality/) – ArsTechnica

[GOP, Tech Industry Mostly Out of Step Over Net Neutrality Issue](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gop-tech-20150213-story.html#page=1) – Los Angeles Times

**Background:**

[Net Neutrality: President Obama’s Plan for a Free and Open Internet](http://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality) – President Obama Statement (November 2014)

[Net Neutrality: A Guide to (and History of) a Contested Idea](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/the-best-writing-on-net-neutrality/361237/) – The Atlantic (April 2014)

[The Problem with Net Neutrality](http://www.hoover.org/research/problem-net-neutrality) – Law Professor Richard Epstein (January 2014)

03/12/2015: 

Recommended:

> #### Law, Tech and Policy

> [How the NSA’s Firmware Hacking Works and Why It’s So Unsettling](http://www.wired.com/2015/02/nsa-firmware-hacking/) – Kim Zetter in Wired

> [We Know How You Feel – Computers are Learning to Read Emotion and the Business World Can’t Wait](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/know-feel) – Raffi Khatchadourian in The New Yorker

> [The Believers: the Hidden Story behind the Code that Runs Our Lives](https://chronicle.com/article/article-content/190147/) – The Chronicle of Higher Education

> [Google’s Vint Cerf Warns of ‘Digital Dark Age’](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31450389) – BBC

> [How the Internet May be Shifting Innovation Away From Big Cities](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/18/how-the-internet-may-be-shifting-innovation-away-from-big-cities/) – The Washington Post

> [Crowd-sourced List of European Investors, Angels and Accelerators](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10S7_jBpRoWuNMnOYpkjFJArt76dPhFw0tIR7E_ndgnk/edit?pli=1#gid=0) – via Hacker News, and [The Periodic Table of Venture Capital Blogs](https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-capital-blogs-periodic-table/) – CBInsights

> #### General Interest

> [Internet of DNA – A Global Network of Millions of Genomes could be Medicine’s Next Great Advance](http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/535016/internet-of-dna/) – MIT Technology Review

> [Burn After Reading – in 1971, William Powell published ‘The Anarchist Cookbook’, a guide to making bombs and drugs at home, and he spent the next four decades fighting to take it out of print](http://harpers.org/blog/2015/02/burn-after-reading/) – Harper’s

> [Interview with Ai Weiwei on Working with Hollywood, Remotely](http://news.artnet.com/people/exclusive-interview-with-ai-weiwei-on-working-with-hollywood-remotely-265807) – ArtNet News

03/1/2015: 

President Obama on Surveillance, Cybersecurity and Related Matters


Re/code’s Kara Swisher interviews the President at Stanford University on February 13th (25 minute video).


00:20    Cybersecurity breaches

04:17    U.S. offensive capabilities

06:22    U.S. cybercommand

08:02    Government relationship with Silicon Valley

10:51    Encryption and Backdoors

15:24    Privacy and Data Ownership

18:13    Immigration, STEM, diversity, loss of U.S. tech leadership

23:22    President’s personal tech habits

But:

[President Obama’s Cyber Pitch Misses Mark in Silicon Valley](http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/233400-obama-cyber-pitch-misses-mark-in-silicon-valley) – The Hill

[What President Obama is Getting Wrong about Encryption](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/19/what-president-obama-is-getting-wrong-about-encryption/) – The Washington Post

02/23/2015: 

Quote of the Day:

> “While most blogs weren’t deathless examples of great writing, there was the opportunity for individualism, and you don’t get that from . . . . a feed of things snipped and reblogged and pinned and shoveled into The Feed. The web turns into bushels of confetti shoveled into a jet engine, and while something does emerge out the other end, it’s usually made impressive by its velocity and volume, not the shape it makes.”

— James Lileks at [The Bleat](http://lileks.com/bleats/archive/15/0215/022015.html) on why he does not include social sharing buttons on his website or cross-post to Facebook

02/22/2015: 

Recommended:

> #### Law, Tech and Policy

> [How The FAA’s Proposed Drone Rules Will Affect What You Care About](
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryancalo/2015/02/15/how-the-faas-proposed-drone-rules-will-affect-what-you-care-about/) – Professor Ryan Calo in Forbes

> [U.S. Wireless Carriers Now Required to Unlock Phones (subject to certain conditions)](http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2015/0213/US-wireless-carriers-now-required-to-unlock-phones) – CSMonitor; [Here’s How to Unlock Your Phone Under the New Rules](https://gigaom.com/2015/02/11/phone-tablet-unlocking-rules-ctia-verizon-tmobile-sprint-att/) – GigaOm; and [Cell Phone Unlocking FAQs](http://www.fcc.gov/device-unlocking-faq) – FCC

> [The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/) – The Intercept

> [Stephen Kim Spoke to a Reporter. Now He’s in Jail. This Is His Story](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/18/destroyed-by-the-espionage-act/) –  The Intercept

> [If the NSA has been Hacking Everything, How has Nobody Seen Them Coming?](http://blog.thinkst.com/p/if-nsa-has-been-hacking-everything-how.html) – Thinkst   

> #### General Interest

> [How the New York Times Works: This is How the Gray Lady Gets Made in 2015](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a14030/how-the-new-york-times-works/) – Popular Mechanics   

> [Meet the Tweet-Deleters: People Who are Making their Twitter Histories Self-Destruct](http://fusion.net/story/50322/meet-the-tweet-deleters-people-who-are-making-their-twitter-histories-self-destruct/) – Fusion

> [How Japan’s Line App Became A Culture-Changing, Revenue-Generating Phenomenon](http://www.fastcompany.com/3041578/most-innovative-companies-2015/how-japans-line-app-became-a-culture-changing-revenue-generat) – Fast Company

02/20/2015: 

Equation Group (link roundup)

Background: [Russian Researchers Expose Breakthrough U.S. Spying Program](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/16/us-usa-cyberspying-idUSKBN0LK1QV20150216) – Reuters

Additional Detail: [How ‘Omnipotent’ Hackers Tied to NSA Hid for 14 Years and Were Found at Last](http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/) – ArsTechnica

The Kaspersky Report that started it all: “Equation Group: Questions and Answers” ([pdf](https://securelist.com/files/2015/02/Equation_group_questions_and_answers.pdf) – 44 pages)

Additional Links: [The Equation Group’s Sophisticated Hacking and Exploitation Tools](http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/02/the-equation-groups-sophisticated-hacking-and-exploitation-tools/) – Bruce Schneier at LawFare:

> “This is targeted surveillance. There’s nothing here that implies the NSA is doing this sort of thing to every computer, router, or hard drive. It’s doing it only to networks it wants to monitor . . . On one hand, it’s the sort of thing we want the NSA to do. It’s targeted. It’s exploiting existing vulnerabilities. In the overall scheme of things, this is much less disruptive to Internet security than deliberately inserting vulnerabilities that leave everyone insecure. On the other hand, the NSA’s definition of ‘targeted’ can be pretty broad . . . On the other other hand — can I even have three hands? — I remember a line from my latest book: ‘Today’s top-secret programs become tomorrow’s PhD theses and the next day’s hacker tools.’ . . . We need to figure out how to maintain security in the face of these sorts of attacks, because we’re all going to be subjected to the criminal versions of them in three to five years. That’s the real problem.”

The entire (not-too-lengthy) post by Schneier at LawFare is worth a read.

[Surprise: America Already Has a Manhattan Project for Developing Cyber Attacks](http://www.wired.com/2015/02/americas-cyber-espionage-project-isnt-defense-waging-war/) – Kevin Poulsen in Wired

02/19/2015: 

How Secure are SecureDrop and Similar Services – in Design and in Use?

> Point: [How to Leak to The Intercept](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/28/how-to-leak-to-the-intercept/) – Micah Lee at The Intercept

> Counterpoint: [The Intercept’s Invitation to Criminality — and to Intelligence Agencies](http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/01/the-intercepts-invitation-to-criminality-and-to-intelligence-agencies/) – Benjamin Wittes at LawFare

> Additional Debate: [The Intercept, SecureDrop, and Foreign Intelligence Services: A Response](http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/02/the-intercept-securedrop-and-foreign-intelligence-services-a-response/) – Benjamin Wittes at LawFare

> Background: “DeadDrop/StrongBox
Security Assessment (August 11, 2013)” ([pdf](http://www.czeskis.com/research/pubs/UW-CSE-13-08-02.PDF))

02/19/2015: 

New 4th Amendment Scholarship

Professor Orin Kerr’s law review article – [“The Fourth Amendment and the Global Internet”](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/02/07/the-fourth-amendment-and-the-global-internet-the-final-version/), 67 Stanford Law Review 285 (2015) ([pdf](http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/sites/default/files/67_Stan_L_Rev_285_Kerr.pdf))

02/18/2015: 

Recommended:

> #### Law, Tech and Policy

> [FTC Report on Internet of Things Urges Companies to Adopt Best Practices to Address Consumer Privacy and Security Risks](http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2015/01/ftc-report-internet-things-urges-companies-adopt-best-practices) ([pdf](http://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/federal-trade-commission-staff-report-november-2013-workshop-entitled-internet-things-privacy/150127iotrpt.pdf) of the Report) – FTC

> [Will the Internet of Things Finally Kill Privacy; Why the FTC’s New Report Doesn’t Go Far Enough](http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/11/8016585/will-the-internet-of-things-finally-kill-privacy) – The Verge

> [Will the FCC’s New Net Neutrality Rules Hold Up in Court?](http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/11/8019261/fcc-net-neutrality-title-ii-possible-trial-comcast-verizon) – Jacob Kastrenakes in The Verge

> The College Art Association (CAA) has released its [Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts](http://www.collegeart.org/fair-use/) ([pdf](http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/fair-use/best-practices-fair-use-visual-arts.pdf))

> [Facebook’s March to Global Domination is Trampling over Net Neutrality](http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/13/8024993/facebook-internet-org-net-neutrality) – Vlad Savov at The Verge; and [Millions of Facebook Users Have No Idea They’re Using the Internet](http://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/) – Leo Mirani in Quartz

> [All-Seeing, All-Knowing; Since Imperial Times Chinese Governments Have Yearned for a Perfect Surveillance State – Will Big Data Now Deliver It?](http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/will-china-use-big-data-as-a-tool-of-the-state/?utm_source=Aeon+newsletter&utm_campaign=72803ab0f2-Daily_newsletter_Monday_February_16_20152_16_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-72803ab0f2-68671829) – James Palmer in Aeon

> [Suite of Sophisticated Nation-State Attack Tools Found with Connection to Student](http://www.wired.com/2015/02/kapersky-discovers-equation-group/) – Kim Zetter in Wired

> #### General Interest

> [The Shape of Things to Come; How an Industrial Designer (Jony Ive) Became Apple’s Greatest Product](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come) – Ian Parker in The New Yorker

> [The Stanford Undergraduate and the Mentor](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-stanford-undergraduate-and-the-mentor.html) – Emily Bazelon in The New York Times Magazine

02/17/2015: