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Daily Archives: October 9, 2019

The Law & Politics of Cyberattack Attribution

Eichensehr, Kristen, The Law & Politics of Cyberattack Attribution (September 15, 2019). UCLA Law Review, Vol. 67, (2020, Forthcoming); UCLA School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 19-36. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3453804

“Attribution of cyberattacks requires identifying those responsible for bad acts, prominently including states, and accurate attribution is a crucial predicate in contexts as diverse as criminal indictments, insurance coverage disputes, and cyberwar. But the difficult technical side of attribution is just the precursor to highly contested legal and policy questions about when and how to accuse governments of responsibility for cyberattacks. Although politics may largely determine whether attributions are made public, this Article argues that when cyberattacks are publicly attributed to states, such attributions should be governed by legal standards. Instead of blocking the development of evidentiary standards for attribution, as the United States, United Kingdom, and France are currently doing, states should establish an international law requirement that public attributions must include sufficient evidence to enable cross-checking or corroboration of the accusations. This functionally defined standard harnesses both governmental and non-governmental attribution capabilities to shed light on states’ actions in cyberspace, and understanding state practice is a necessary precondition to establishing norms and customary international law to govern state behavior. Moreover, setting a clear evidentiary standard for attribution in the cybersecurity context has the potential to clarify currently unsettled general international law on evidentiary rules…”

Americans and Digital Knowledge

“A majority of U.S. adults can answer fewer than half the questions correctly on a digital knowledge quiz, and many struggle with certain cybersecurity and privacy questions. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that Americans’ understanding of technology-related issues varies greatly depending on the topic, term or concept. While a majority of U.S. adults… Continue Reading

Today’s Politics May Be Bad for Your Health

WSJ.com [paywall] – Citizens in a new study blame U.S. politics for stress, depression, lost sleep and other physical and mental problems….Americans are stressed and politics is a major cause, according to psychologists, psychiatrists and recent surveys. A study published in September in the journal PLOS One found that politics is a source of stress… Continue Reading

To Live or Die by Google Search Brings an Escalating Cost

Bloomberg – “Where’s the best place to hide a body? The second page of a Google search… The gallows humor shows that people rarely look beyond the first few results of a search, but Lee Griffin isn’t laughing. In the 13 years since he co-founded British price comparison website GoCompare, the 41-year-old has tried to… Continue Reading

Worker pay is stagnant – economists blame robots

CBS News: “American workers are more productive than ever, but their paychecks haven’t kept pace. Researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco have a culprit: robots. Economists Sylvain Leduc and Zheng Liu theorize that automation is sapping employees’ bargaining power, making it harder for them to demand higher wages. Companies across a range of industries… Continue Reading

Shedding Some Light on the Dark Web for Legal Researchers

Legal Executive Institute – “…What makes the Dark Web “dark,” are not the nefarious things that sometimes occur there; rather, it is the anonymity it offers. Most search engines keep a very close eye on who you are and what you are searching for. Plenty of ad trackers also want to eavesdrop on your Web… Continue Reading

Curriculum Connection: Facebook, satire and fact-checking

News Literacy Project – “The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Facebook plans to exempt satire and opinion content from its fact-checking program. This would mean that posts that contain demonstrably false claims, but which the platform deems to be either satire or opinion, would not be referred to its network of third-party fact-checkers.… Continue Reading

How Cost Management Needs to ‘Save to Transform’

Knowledge@Wharton: [Omar Aguilar, strategic cost transformation global market offering leader at Deloitte Consulting], you’ve recently done your second biennial global cost survey. How long have you been doing these surveys, globally and in the U.S.? Omar Aguilar: We’ve been doing it since 2008 in the U.S. and globally over the last couple of years. We… Continue Reading

New Survey on Technology Use by Law Firms: How Does Your Firm Compare?

Nicole Black – MyCase: “Is your firm due for a software upgrade? If you’re not sure, why not conduct a technology audit? Technology, including legal software, plays a big part in ensuring that your firm runs smoothly on a day-to-day basis. The right tools can make all the difference, and outdated technology can lead to… Continue Reading