Month: March 2017

Internet Governance

Get Out of My Data! Congress voted this week to overturn online privacy rules that would have required broadband providers to obtain users’ permission before collecting and selling their online activity data, giving advertisers more leeway to direct specific ads at consumers and possibly driving users towards VPNs and Tor to safeguard their privacy.

An Uber-Cool Idea: Singapore’s Minister of Transport is trying to bring aerial transport into the country’s infrastructure by 2030, with an idea for scorpion-like taxi drones that would pick up passengers based on an e-hail system.

Privacy

The Trackiest Place on Earth: Visitors to Disney World have the option of wearing a MagicBand, a radio-powered bracelet which allows them to pay for food and souvenirs, open their hotel room doors at Disney resorts, and obtain access to rides more quickly, all while tracking their locations and activities throughout the resort.

The Sweet Taste of Revenge: A new GoFundMe campaign is raising funds for a privacy activist to buy the web browsing histories of all legislators who voted to overturn the internet privacy rules this past Tuesday so that he may publish them online, though it is unclear whether he will be able to do so.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

D.N.A. = Do Not Access: In a Dallas program that combats prostitution, police locate and give sex workers the option of either going to jail or speaking with a counselor, which also entails taking a sample of their DNA to be stored in a database in the event that their bodies need to be identified; however, concerns include whether the data can be used to incriminate them in criminal situations or affect their future insurance or employment.

Can You Hear Me Now? Not Good. The “can you hear me” scam is a new technique where chatbots apply natural-speech technology to trick people into believing that they are speaking to a real human, ask them if they can hear the caller, and then record that affirmation to sign them up for unsolicited products and services.

Intellectual Property

Stay Hungry. Stay Original. Although a Beijing IP court ruled last year that Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models had violated design patents of a Chinese company—and therefore attempted to enjoin Apple from selling its iPhone 6 line in Beijing—this initial decision was recently overturned, demonstrating that Chinese courts will not always rule in favor of local businesses.

The Peach State Is Not So Peachy: Georgia has won a copyright infringement suit against a nonprofit that published the “Official Code of Georgia Annotated” online for free public use, with the court rejecting the defendant’s fair use argument and finding infringement because the publisher, LexisNexis, had assigned copyrights in the annotations to the state.

Free Expression and Censorship

“Arc” You Kidding Me? Arctic researchers, who already have limited resources, are suffering the consequences of the Trump administration’s insistence on taking down webpages, datasets, and policies about the Arctic, while scientists around the world are racing to preserve this research by creating back-up copies before the data is permanently deleted.

Stalin’ the New Legislation: The Hungarian government wants to pass a law that would ban businesses from using controversial symbols such as swastikas, arrow crosses, and hammers and sickles in their logos, and would punish violators with a jail sentence and 2 billion forint fine—approximately $7M; this “morally obligatory” bill primarily targets Heineken’s trademark, which is allegedly too similar to the Communist red star.

Practice Note

Professional Students’ Unprofessional Speech: Today the Supreme Court will decide whether to grant certiorari for a case that hinges on whether professional programs, such as law schools, medical schools, and business schools, can expel students for expressing “unprofessional” views that violate the student code of conduct, despite being expressed outside of any curricular setting.

On the Lighter Side

You’re Sending Ripples up My Spine: Ripple is a device resembling a sea anemone that you wear on your shoulder and that employs sensors and cameras to determine when someone is looking at you, thereby sending a rippling sensation up your back—just in case you’re too busy looking at your phone to realize who is trying to flirt with you.

---

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Editorial Fellows, CLIP
Nadia Kashem
Meghna Prasad

Internet Governance

Time Out, Law Enforcement! US lawmakers are drafting a bill that would restrict the FBI and nationwide police departments’ usage of a group of databases that use facial recognition technology to identify suspects, as the technology gives 15% false positives and there is currently only limited oversight of its usage.

No Traveling: In an effort to provide greater surveillance opportunities for security officials, both the US and UK have enacted new flight restrictions that will ban all travelers coming from certain Middle Eastern countries or traveling on certain Middle Eastern airlines from bringing their laptops and tablets in carry-on luggage, while cellphones are still allowed despite posing the same security risks.

Privacy

An Infinite Shot Clock: Because a former Philadelphia police officer refused to comply with a federal court order demanding that he decrypt two hard drives seized by authorities from his home in 2015 that allegedly contain child pornography, he is being held indefinitely until he unlocks those drives, despite invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Defense Pays for Basket of Data: A company selling “smart” vibrators has agreed to a $3.75 million settlement after customers sued the company for violating Illinois privacy laws by collecting personal data on the devices’ usage, settings, battery life, and even temperature.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

The Madness of the March Toward Verification: Germany is currently testing voice recognition software to be used in screening refugees seeking asylum by recording a sample of the refugees’ speech and detecting where they come from; due to the fluidity and nuances of language, however, critics argue that the system may allow terrorists to sneak into the country by faking an accent, or otherwise refuse to authenticate those who are actual natives.

Police Seize Victory in Search for Attacker: In a bizarre cyber attack, a man was arrested for intentionally sending 40 tweets containing strobe light effects to a Newsweek journalist who suffered a seizure from viewing the epileptogenic image; in similar past cases, 700 Japanese children were rushed to the hospital after watching a certain Pokémon episode with similar effects, and hackers bombarded an epilepsy-support message board with such animations.

Intellectual Property

No Slam Dunks Here: Although a license agreement requires purchasers of John Deere tractor equipment to only use authorized dealerships and repair shops to fix their equipment, American farmers are increasingly turning to the black market of tractor hacking firmware because of the limitations that this license agreement presents.

Bracketing the Laches Defense: In a new Supreme Court decision regarding adult diapers, the Court has eliminated the application of the laches defense in patent infringement cases, holding that the reasonability of a plaintiff’s delay in bringing suit is irrelevant as long as the statute of limitations has not yet run.

Free Expression and Censorship

Out of Bounds: Pakistan’s government says that it wants all social media networks, especially Facebook, to take down material that is insulting to Islam or the Prophet Mohammad, as posting this content is a violation of the country’s blasphemy laws which are punishable by the death penalty.

YouTube Crossed the Foul Line: YouTube issued an apology after its optional restricted-mode filter blocked videos about LGBT issues, in what the site brushed off as a technical error, but which some affected content creators allege was intentional because some blocked videos did not discuss such issues and were appropriate for all ages.

Practice Note

Court Boxes Out 3D Printer: An appeals court has refused to rehear a case in which a 3D printing company that distributed instructions for creating weapons sued the State Department for prohibiting them from doing so; the court cited prior restraint as a valid argument for restricting the company, in light of national security concerns.

On the Lighter Side

I Need to Take a Shot: If you suffer from irregular bowel movements, you may want to avoid Beijing’s largest public restroom situated near the Temple of Heaven, where defecators must first pass a facial recognition scan in order to receive their standard 60 cm square of toilet paper which can be reissued to the same person only after nine minutes; this questionable new technology has been implemented to prevent senior citizens from stealing rolls for private residential use.

---

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Editorial Fellows, CLIP
Nadia Kashem
Meghna Prasad

Internet Governance

Kerala Blessed With Luck O’ the Internet: According to the finance minister of the Indian state of Kerala, the government will provide internet connections to two million low-income families free of charge, give service to others at a low rate, and also move most government services online by 2018.

Waiting for the Green Light: The city of Ann Arbor, Michigan is using smart technology in its traffic control system to analyze the entire network of connected traffic lights, which helps predict jams before they happen, prioritize drivers who need to get somewhere faster, and significantly cut down on congestion overall.

Privacy

It’s Your Lucky Day, Michaud: After the indictment of an alleged child pornographer in United States v. Jay Michaud, the DoJ has now filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, as the FBI is unwilling to reveal certain elements of their Network Investigative Techniques used to hack the Tor network and gather information about the alleged pornographer’s website.

Mischievous Little Leprechauns: In a surprising role-reversal, law enforcement officials are now being tracked by Uber in several major cities and countries through multiple tools including “Greyball,” which alerts drivers to avoid a certain area whenever an officer attempts to hail a ride and then sends a fake version of the app showing ghost cars to the officer’s phone.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Mischief Online: In a recent securities and investment fraud scheme, a spear-phishing campaign targeted at least eleven different organizations’ employees who e-file documents with the SEC, sending personalized emails to these employees and asking them to download a Word document which supposedly contained important changes to a Form 10-K filing.

A Saintly App: Iranian women can now obtain information about birth control, health issues, divorce, domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, and STDs, from an app called Hamdam, which disguises itself as a period tracker but gives these women this often unattainable information while protecting users’ personal information and identities by remaining disconnected from a server and disallowing the screenshot capability.

Sneaky Snakes: Not even wild animals are safe from hacking anymore; while researchers use tracking devices on some species to gain data, poachers, hunters, photographers, and others are intercepting these unsecure GPS signals for their own benefit.

Intellectual Property

Let’s Just Have a Drink and Settle This: In a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, against chef Wolfgang Puck, Musk alleges that the trademark for his Colorado restaurant, “The Kitchen Café out of Colorado,” has been infringed by Wolfgang Puck’s Chicago restaurant, “The Kitchen by Wolfgang Puck,” in a lawsuit that bizarrely hinges on the trademarkability of the generic and common words “the kitchen.”

Unholi-day: Under representation by the global law firm Baker McKenzie, the Vatican will now strictly monitor the use of the image of Pope Francis and the coat of arms of the Holy See, to prevent infringement of the Pope’s publicity rights and the Vatican’s other intellectual property.

Free Expression and Censorship

Ire Caused by Selfie: A Bavarian court has ruled against a man who sued Facebook for refusing to prohibit distribution of a photograph of him with German Chancellor Angela Merkel after the image was linked to false stories claiming that he was responsible for terrorist attacks in Brussels and Berlin and setting a homeless man on fire.

No Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow: BBC journalists investigating child porn rings on Facebook were granted an interview with one of the social media company’s representatives on the condition that the journalists forward the child porn images they found to Facebook, but when they did so, Facebook not only cancelled the interview but also reported the journalists to the authorities.

Practice Note

Kiss Me, I’m Public! The California Supreme Court has ruled that state officials must abide by the California Public Records Act and are therefore not permitted to hide official communications in personal email accounts or personal devices, in a landmark decision where the Court was forced to balance public access with personal privacy.

On the Lighter Side

What Happens in Vegas: You might not be able to share your life’s woes with these bartenders, but in a few months, the “first robotic bar in the world” will bring droids to the Las Vegas Strip to mix concoctions for their human customers.

---

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Editorial Fellows, CLIP
Nadia Kashem
Meghna Prasad

Internet Governance

New New York Regulation: On March 1, New York implemented new cybersecurity regulations to better protect financial institutions as well as consumers from cyberattacks; the regulations are composed of 23 different sections that comply with SEC and FINRA guidelines and include policies such as encryption of all non-public data, training of employees in security, improved multifactor authentication systems, breach disclosures, and yearly affirmance by a senior officer that the company is in compliance with the requirements of the regulation.

Free Data for Sale! The Federal Communications Commission has suspended a set of rules passed last October which, upon going into effect this December, would have prevented internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast from collecting and selling customers’ personal information without permission.

Privacy

The Caller ID That Betrayed Me: The FCC is currently considering a petition to compel phone companies to reveal blocked caller ID information from bomb threat calls that were placed to Jewish institutions nationwide this week; last year, the FCC granted these blocks to be lifted in Middletown, New York which was similarly inundated with bomb threat calls, noting that the public interest was greater than “any countervailing privacy request from the calling party.”

Alexa Hears All: Arkansas police are demanding that Amazon release information obtained by a murder suspect’s Amazon Echo after the digital assistant automatically began recording upon the use of a “wake” word uttered by someone during the murder; Amazon argues that the audio recording is protected by the First Amendment and therefore requires a warrant for access.

The Tracked and the Furious: Members of the ethnic Uyghur population in China are now required to install GPS tracking devices in their cars so that the government can track all of their movements; refusing to install this surveillance system means drivers will be prohibited from refueling their vehicles.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Cloudfare Suffers Cloudflaw: Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure company that delivers performance and security services to six million website customers including Fitbit, Uber, and OKCupid, was recently revealed to have been victim to a bug that caused website-specific data such as cookies, user login credentials, API keys, and other authentication tokens to be leaked into the code of other websites.

TMI from IVF: Couples receiving in vitro fertilization treatments at a London hospital have had their intimate conversations exposed online due to an Indian subcontractor company storing transcripts and audio files on an unsecure server since as early as 2009.

Intellectual Property

But Isn’t It Patently Obvious? IBM has decided to relinquish its rights to a patent for out-of-office email technology that it was surprisingly granted earlier this year, after an uproar from an EFF lawyer who alleged that the USPTO grossly failed to consider both prior art and the nonobviousness requirement of a patent grant.

Will You Marry Copy Me? Known for aggressively defending its intellectual property against counterfeiting, Tiffany & Co. now finds itself at the other end of a lawsuit with a New York-based photojournalist suing the jewelry company for copyright infringement after it removed copyright information from one of his photos of Elsa Peretti and used it on the Tiffany website to sell her jewelry line.

Free Expression and Censorship

Thank God For My Free Speech: A North Carolina law that prohibits registered sex offenders from using social media sites is being challenged in the Supreme Court by a registered sex offender who was arrested after writing an unrelated Facebook post thanking God for avoiding a traffic ticket; at least five justices view the law as a restriction of free speech, noting in part the First Amendment right to speak and to receive information.

YouGuilty: After having his acquittal overturned, a British teenager is once again facing charges for violating Section 127 of the UK’s Communications Act 2003 for leaving comments under YouTube news videos in which he threatened to kill leaders, such as former prime minister David Cameron.

Practice Note

Back to the Grind: In a recent case involving dating app Grindr’s potential liability to a plaintiff whose ex-boyfriend posted fake profiles with the plaintiff’s personal contact information, prompting hundreds of unwanted users to seek him out, the court denied a request for extension of the plaintiff’s TRO, citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

On the Lighter Side

It’s A-Me, Mari…! With a valid international driving license and a plane ticket to Tokyo, you can put on a onesie and drive around the streets of Shinjuku dressed as a Super Mario character—that is, unless the go-kart rental company MariCar loses the IP infringement suit recently filed by Nintendo.

---

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Editorial Fellows, CLIP
Nadia Kashem
Meghna Prasad