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Microsoft Introduces ElectionGuard Bounty Program

November 7, 2019

Following this year’s elections, here’s a great recent post from Microsoft describing its ElectionGuard Bounty Program, which was launched on October 19th. Back in May, Microsoft announced the release of ElectionGuard, a free open-source SDK to make voting more secure, transparent, and accessible. ElectionGuard enables end-to-end verification of elections, open results to third-party organizations for secure validation, and allows individual voters to confirm their votes were correctly counted. The ElectionGuard Bounty program invites security researchers…

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Predictive Analytics Tool Ranks Law Firms to Help Clients Pick the Best Firm

By Sharon Nelson

November 6, 2019

Hat tip to Bob Ambrogi for a great post on a fascinating new product. At its annual user conference on November 5th in Miami, Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions unveiled a product that will help corporate legal departments pick the best law firm for a litigation matter by using predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to rank outside law firms along a range of metrics. The product, LegalVIEW Predictive Insights, is a module within Passport 19.2, the…

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Russia’s Sovereign Internet Law Took Effect November 1

By Sharon Nelson

November 5, 2019

And quite a law it is. As Naked Security reported, the Russian government calls it the “sovereign internet” law and from November 1st it compels the country’s ISPs to forward all data arriving and departing from their networks through special gateway servers. Promoted since 2018, from the government’s point of view the sovereign internet is a way of protecting the country from the bad stuff the internet – or other countries – might direct…

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Defense Innovation Board Recommends AI Ethical Guidelines

By Sharon Nelson

November 4, 2019

I was very interested to read a November 1st article from the US Department of Defense reporting that the Defense Innovation Board has recommended ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence. For those who may not know, the Defense Innovation Board is an independent federal advisory committee. Its members are leaders in AI and related fields from around the United States, working in industry, academia and think tanks. The purpose of their work is to conduct extensive…

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Former FBI General Counsel Jim Baker Champions Encryption Over Backdoors

By Sharon Nelson

October 31, 2019

And so another chapter in this endless tug of war is written. A post from Bruce Schneier references what he calls “an extraordinary essay” by former FBI general counsel Jim Baker who strongly advocates encryption over government-mandated backdoors. Some snippets from the essay: “In the face of congressional inaction, and in light of the magnitude of the threat, it is time for governmental authorities — including law enforcement — to embrace encryption because it…

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Creepy. McDonald’s Knows What You Want to Order Thanks to AI

By Sharon Nelson

October 30, 2019

Fast food sales have slowed as we turn to healthier food. McDonald’s has felt the pinch too. What to do? According to a New York Times (sub.req.) story, over the last seven months, McDonald’s has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire technology companies that specialize in artificial intelligence and machine learning. It has also established a new tech hub in the heart of Silicon Valley — the McD Tech Labs — where…

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Lawyers Get a Poor Cybersecurity Grade: ABA Report

By Sharon Nelson

October 29, 2019

Last week, the ABA released a cybersecurity summary based on its 2019 Legal Technology Survey Report. The results were predictable – and worrisome. 26% percent of respondents reported that their firm have experienced some sort of security breach (which, of course, is not necessarily a data breach). 19%, many no doubt from large firms, don’t know if their firm has experienced a data breach. As we customarily state, many lawyers have no clue about their…

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Los Angeles Superior Court Hacked To Send Two Million Phishing Emails

By Sharon Nelson

October 28, 2019

Bleeping Computer reported on October 22 that a Texas man was sentenced to 145 months in federal prison for hacking the Los Angeles Superior Court (LASC) computer system and using its servers to deliver around 2 million phishing emails. 33-year-old Oriyomi Sadiq Aloba “was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud, one count of attempted wire fraud, one count of unauthorized impairment of a protected computer,…

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Spam Phone Calls From (NOT) A Virginia Court

By Sharon Nelson

October 24, 2019

As Virginia Lawyers Weekly (sub. req.) reported recently, an alert from the Office of Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia warns the public about a telephone scam that spoofs the name and telephone number of a Virginia court on caller ID. The alert says in part: Callers claim to be representatives of a Virginia court, inquiring about the location of individuals, or demanding monies or personal information such as social security numbers or…

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Women Overwhelmingly Targeted in Deepfake Videos (Which Have Doubled!)

By Sharon Nelson

October 23, 2019

Naked Security reported on October 9 that 96% of the deepfakes being created in the first half of the year were pornography, mostly being nonconsensual, mostly featuring celebrities – without compensation or permission. The statistic comes from a report, titled The State of Deepfakes, which was issued last month by Deeptrace, an Amsterdam-based company that uses deep learning and computer vision for detecting and monitoring deepfakes. The company says its mission is “to protect…

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Blog Authors

Microsoft Introduces ElectionGuard Bounty Program

Predictive Analytics Tool Ranks Law Firms to Help Clients Pick the Best Firm

Russia’s Sovereign Internet Law Took Effect November 1

Defense Innovation Board Recommends AI Ethical Guidelines

Former FBI General Counsel Jim Baker Champions Encryption Over Backdoors

Creepy. McDonald’s Knows What You Want to Order Thanks to AI

Lawyers Get a Poor Cybersecurity Grade: ABA Report

Los Angeles Superior Court Hacked To Send Two Million Phishing Emails

Spam Phone Calls From (NOT) A Virginia Court

Women Overwhelmingly Targeted in Deepfake Videos (Which Have Doubled!)

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