Archive for Legal Aspects
Author: Dave Lewis
March 20, 2008 at 7:44 am · Filed under Crime, Legal Aspects
I still loath that “cyber” word. Anyway, this is an interesting article that comes on the heels of one a couple weeks ago wherein the Australian police made it known that they want the ability to track computer crime suspects wherever they might be.
An group of international cyber cops is ramping up plans to fight online crime across borders.
The unit, known as the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group, met this month in London and is made up of high-level online law enforcement representatives from the FBI, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. One of the main goals of the group, which was founded in 2006, is to fight cyber crime in a common way by sharing intelligence, swapping tools and best practices, and strengthening and synchronizing their respective laws.
And it has its work cut out for it.
The Government Accountability Office last year said there is concern about threats that nation-states and terrorists pose to our national security through attacks on US computer-reliant critical infrastructures and theft of our sensitive information.
Read on.
Article Link
Author: Dave Lewis
March 19, 2008 at 10:35 am · Filed under Legal Aspects, Privacy
The German government seems to have managed to run into a road block…the courts. With a raft of, well, interesting legislation coming out of the German government of late it really comes as little surprise that the German court has jammed a stick in their spokes.
From Reuters:
A reaction to bomb attacks in Madrid and London in the last few years, the law obliges telecom firms to keep a record of who contacted whom, and the time and location of calls.
The Federal Constitutional Court ruled data may be stored, but details may only be transferred to investigators in the event of inquiries into serious crime.
The decision was the latest in a series of rulings against tighter security measures introduced by Chancellor Angela Merkel and previous governments and it drew praise from civil liberty campaigners who want greater data protection and privacy rights.
“The grand coalition (of Merkel’s Christian Democrats and Social Democrats) should finally draw the lesson of these verdicts and stop crossing the limits of constitutionality on citizen rights,” said Claudia Roth from the Greens party.
The data in question was originally supposed to be retained by ISPs for six months. No word on who would’ve had to foot the bill on the cost of the additional storage if the bill had passed.
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Author: Dave Lewis
March 6, 2008 at 10:33 am · Filed under Forensics, Legal Aspects
Um, wow. While I can fully understand and appreciate their frustration, I see this as a legal minefield. They may want this power but, I cannot fathom how they would intend to examine systems that reside in another country unless there was a reciprocal agreement in place.
From ABC (AU):
The New South Wales Cabinet has approved new powers for police designed to help them track terrorist threats, fraudsters and paedophiles through computer networks.
The proposed laws would allow police to search computers networked to those listed on a search warrant.
Police could also seize computer hard drives and memory sticks for up to seven days.
Police Minister David Campbell says police are currently only able to search computer hardware found on a premises named in a search warrant.
He says with the changes, they will be able to go a step further and search other networked computers, regardless of where they are located.
“What we know is that there are organised crime gangs who use the internet and other forms of technology to hide their crimes,” he said.
I can see their pain point. But, I think this will open a can o’ worms.
Article Link
Author: Dave Lewis
March 6, 2008 at 7:49 am · Filed under Legal Aspects
Ah, the joys of sober second thought. Julius Baer, the bank that tried to bring down Wikileaks, has backed away from the saber rattling. They have dropped their lawsuit.
From the Guardian UK:
The decision by Julius Baer to drop the lawsuit comes following a volte face on Friday by US judge Jeffrey White who reversed a previous injunction ordering the closure of Wikileaks.
Last month, judge White ordered the removal from Wikileaks of the documents relating to Julius Baer and the closure of the website.
This came after the bank sued Wikileaks and San Mateo company Dynadot, trying to stop the alleged “unlawful dissemination of stolen bank records and personal account information of its customers”.
Dynadot, which provided Wikileaks’ domain name in the US, agreed to disable the website in exchange for the bank removing it from the lawsuit.
However, the bank’s lawsuit backfired when dozens of lawyers from free speech and civil rights groups rallied to support Wikileaks.
Article Link
Tags: Wikileaks, Julius Baer, Dynadot, Whistleblowing
Author: Dave Lewis
February 27, 2008 at 8:23 am · Filed under Legal Aspects
The EFF and the ACLU have intervened in the strange case of the Swiss bank Julius Baer vs. whistle blower site, Wikileaks. In a bid to quash information leaked on the popular site the bank has managed to propel this story to the front page of damn near every publication on the net.
From EFF:
In early February, Swiss bank Julius Baer filed suit in federal district court against Wikileaks for hosting 14 allegedly leaked documents regarding personal banking transactions of Julius Baer customers. Also sued was Wikileaks’ domain name registrar, Dynadot LLC. On February 15, following a stipulation between Julius Baer and Dynadot, the court issued a permanent injunction, disabling the wikileaks.org domain name and preventing that domain name from being transferred to any other registrar.
“Dynadot’s private agreement to disable access to its customer’s domain name — and the court’s endorsement of that agreement — raise serious First Amendment concerns,” EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. “This unwarranted injunction should remind everyone who hosts critical information on the Web that such information may only remain accessible as long as your service provider or registrar is willing to stand up for you against obviously overreaching legal attacks.”
For more on the EFF/ACLU perspective read on.
Article Link
Tags: Wikileaks, Julius Baer, Wikileaks Case
Author: Dave Lewis
February 26, 2008 at 8:37 am · Filed under Freedoms, Legal Aspects
Comcast and other ISPs in the US may have pushed their luck too far. Apparently the FCC may step in to give them a millipede pimp slap. This in regards to the ISP practice of controlling customers web access.
From the Washington Post:
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission yesterday sharply questioned Internet service providers who control consumers’ Web access over their networks, and suggested the agency could intervene against the practice.
Kevin J. Martin made his remarks at an unusual off-site hearing to address complaints that cable provider Comcast restricts the flow of content — such as video and music clips — through file-sharing service BitTorrent. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet and a proponent of so-called net neutrality rules barring online traffic controls, offered opening remarks. “While carriers will assert the need to manage networks in their current state of evolution, we need to remember that Internet freedoms are most properly thought of as consumer-centric,” he said.
Interesting read.
Article Link
Tags: ISP Filtering, Comcast Filtering, Customer Web Access
Author: Dave Lewis
February 19, 2008 at 8:26 am · Filed under Legal Aspects
[UPDATE] Cryptome has the docs posted (4 MB .zip file).
When exposed by a whistle blower what is a bank to do? Well, take down the whistleblower of course.
From Wired:
Wikileaks, the whistleblower site that recently leaked documents related to prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, was taken offline last week by its U.S. host after posting documents that implicate a Cayman Islands bank in money laundering and tax evasion activities.
In a pretty extraordinary ex-parte move, the Julius Baer Bank and Trust got Dynadot, the U.S. hosting company for Wikileaks, to agree not only to take down the Wikileaks site but also to ” lock the wikileaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar.” A judge in the U.S. District Court for Northern California signed off on the stipulation between the two parties last week without giving Wikileaks a chance to address the issue in court.
The Julius Baer Bank, a Swiss bank with a division in the Cayman Islands, took issue with documents that were published on Wikileaks by an unidentified whistleblower, whom the bank claims is the former vice president of its Cayman Islands operation, Rudolf Elmer. The documents purport to provide evidence that the Cayman Islands bank helps customers hide assets and wash funds.
An ugly fight brewing here.
Article Link
Tags: Julius Baer Bank, Wikileaks Taken Down, Whistleblower
Author: Dave Lewis
February 15, 2008 at 8:27 am · Filed under DR/BCP, Email, Legal Aspects, Politics
The fun and games that is the missing White House email story is ramping up. A federal judge has now issued an order for the WH to prepare a discovery.
Where’s my popcorn? This is getting good.
From Computer World:
District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly this week issued an order enabling the Washington-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics watchdog group to perform limited questioning of White House officials. The group last May had filed suit against the White House Office of Administration seeking access to White House e-mail under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
The nonprofit group had been seeking White House e-mail documents related to various controversial issues, including the release of the identity of a former CIA operative, the reasons for launching the war in Iraq and actions by the U.S. Department of Justice. The White House has contended that the e-mail requested by the group has been lost.
Kollar-Kotelly ordered the discovery to determine whether the Office of Administration is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The office contends it is not subject to FOI requests.
Not subject to…? OK, if they cover their eyes and say “lalalala, I can’t see you” that will not make this problem go away.
Article Link
Tags: White House Email, Missing White House Emails, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
Author: Dave Lewis
February 15, 2008 at 8:18 am · Filed under Data Security, Legal Aspects
I wonder if they know about that time, in the place with the thing and the other thing?
From the Montreal Gazette:
A man dropped his daughter off at her school, then stopped at the door of a rooming house, lit a cigarette and smoked it. Unknown to him, someone saw him and called the police to suggest that he was involved in some kind of drug activity.
Police investigated, and found that the man had only smoked a (tobacco) cigarette. But seven years later, this man still has a file in an RCMP databank. It’s one of tens of thousands of secret files that Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said this week are being kept inappropriately by Canada’s federal police force.
The man’s file is kept in an “exempt databank,” meaning it is highly secret, and supposed to contain the most sensitive information. Legally, the RCMP can refuse to confirm or deny the existence of information in an exempt databank when someone asks to see it. Few people ask, of course, because few people in such files have any idea that the RCMP has been keeping track of them.
Yup, they know.
Article Link
Tags: RCMP Secret Files, RCMP Privacy, Exempt Databank
Author: Dave Lewis
February 8, 2008 at 8:58 am · Filed under Disclosure, Legal Aspects
Chris Soghoian, you know, the boarding pass guy, has an interesting piece on his blog about the efforts of large corporations to squash a proposed piece of legislation. This particular piece of legislation is apparently pro-consumer. Glad to see that the big guys are looking out for the average Joe. That’s sarcasm just in case you might have missed it.
From C|Net:
In a direct slap in the face to consumers, tech industry giants including Microsoft, AT&T, and Verizon are frantically engaged in an effort to kill pro-consumer provisions in a data breach notification bill currently being considered by the Indiana State Senate.
The bill would require that the state attorney general act as a single point of contact for data breaches. Any company that suffered a breach impacting one or more Indiana consumers would be required to notify the AG’s office. The bill would also make Indiana the only state in the country to to require the attorney general to post a copy of each report to its Web site–so that consumers, members of the press, and academics would have a single place to go to in order to find out about data breaches.
An excellent article. I would highly suggest reading the full post.
Article Link
Tags: Pro-Consumer, Data-Breach Legislation, Indiana State Senate
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