Over the past couple of years, America has been engaged in a public conversation about policing. After the scores of deaths at the hands of police officers, many people called on police departments to install body cameras on officers. Technology is changing policing in a number of other ways, including in how officers enforce minor infractions–like speeding.

With the advent of more sophisticated cameras, traffic enforcement officials have been relying on red light cameras to catch drivers who speed, run red lights, or break other traffic laws. There is some debate over whether or not a camera can be used to accuse someone of running a red light, and a general confusion about the effectiveness of such cameras. Despite the inconveniences these measures may cause drivers, their purpose is to keep drivers, pedestrians, bikers, and road workers safe.

Read on to learn more about the red light cameras, and the legislative battles they have led to.

History of the Red Light Camera

In 1993 New York City signed the first bill to install red light cameras, along with other so-called “automated enforcement” measures. The new technology only grew from there. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 421 communities in 23 states and the District of Columbia use red light cameras as of July 2017.

Red light cameras were introduced with the intention of making intersections safer. The thinking is that if someone sees a sign that says they will be photographed, they would be deterred from speeding.

How a Red Light Camera Operates

In certain places, there are cameras installed that trigger when a driver breaks certain rules, whether it is speeding or running a red light. Then a few weeks later they receive a letter in the mail that includes their picture and how much they owe. Drivers have three options when they receive one of these letters. First, they can say that they were guilty. Second, they can say that there is no contest. Regardless, the driver would mail in a check for the amount owed. The third option is to plead not guilty.

A Second Tool: Speeding Cameras

Another tool police departments are relying on to deter dangerous driving behavior: speeding cameras. There is evidence that speeding cameras in work zones can decrease accidents. The Illinois Center for Transportation released a report on the positive results of speed photo-radar enforcement (SPE) vans. The state of Illinois was seeing between 6,000 and 7,000 crashes a year in work zones. In crashes where there was an injury or fatality, 85 percent of the time it was the motorist, not the road worker, who suffered the injury or fatality. These staggering statistics prompted the state to begin using SPE vans in 2004.

The vans have a radar to monitor drivers’ speeds, which is shown on a monitor on top of the van. “If the driver does not reduce his or her speed, a camera captures the face of the driver and the front license plate. The SPE also records the speed of the violator, date, location, and time of the violation,” the report said.

Police officers stationed in the vans determine whether the vehicle was posing a serious threat. They then compare the photo that was taken of the speeding driver to the driver’s license database. If the cop sees that the pictures match, he or she may send out a ticket to the driver.

UIUC Professor Ray Benekohal, who conducted experiments on vehicles’ behavior in the presence of SPE vans, found promising results. In an interview with the Illinois Center for Transportation, Benekohal said:

SPE was very effective in reducing the average speed of cars and trucks, thus calming traffic and improving safety in work zones. The research found the reductions to be significant. When the SPE was present, on average, cars traveled 5.1-8.0 mph slower in the median lane and 4.3-7.7 mph slower in the shoulder lane.

Traffic vehicles, or SPE vans, are an effective option for increasing safety, for drivers, pedestrians, and anyone else on the roads.

Red Light Cameras and Public Safety

Red light cameras are also showing positive effects for public safety. Data compiled by American Traffic Solutions (ATS) has found a negative trend in deaths resulting from automobile accidents after red light cameras were installed.

The group’s data found that in areas where red camera lights had not been installed, there was an average of two deaths a day in 2015. Between 2011 and 2015, an average of 719 people died every year from an accident caused by someone running a red light. These crashes resulted in 126,000 injuries in 2014, and $390 million in damages was lost each month between 2011 and 2015.

When compared with cities that installed red light cameras, the results were very encouraging. Researchers saw a 21 percent decrease in crashes that resulted from a car running a red light. Conversely, in cities that eliminated their red light camera programs, the data found a 30 percent increase in fatal red light crashes.

Contested Tickets

While many states vary in terms of how their red light camera laws are worded, there are some common issues that arise. For one, if the ticket was mailed more than 30 days after the infraction took place, the ticket is invalid. In addition, if the camera or the camera’s warning sign were installed less than 60 days prior to the incident, the ticket is invalid. Sometimes the warning sign is not sufficiently clear or visible, and drivers are unaware the traffic stop has a camera installed. 

Different states have different standards for allowing drivers to contest a ticket that was issued as the result of a red light camera. For example, Delaware’s law allows for very few drivers to get out of paying their ticket or getting their charges dropped. The law states:

For a violation to occur, the front of a vehicle must be behind the stop line marked on the pavement at the time the traffic light signal turns red and must then continue into the intersection while the traffic light signal is red.

In an article in Delaware Online, Judge Susan Cline said, “The city does not have to prove intent, or even that you were the driver of the vehicle.” In Prices Corner, an unincorporated town near Wilmington where Cline works, in 63 out of 850 cases in 2013 involving red light cameras, the ticket was dismissed. The reasons that cases were dismissed included people running a red to avoid funeral processions or emergency vehicles, and being directed by road crews around traffic.

Baltimore officials recently said the city could expand its current red light traffic camera program. The city recently installed speed enforcement cameras near school zones and are planning to install red light cameras throughout the city. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said the cameras will generate more revenue for the city.

State-Level Legal Battles

Some states have debated the usefulness and legality of red light cameras altogether. In May 2017, the Florida Supreme Court announced that it would hear a case on whether or not the state should ban red light cameras altogether. The Tampa Bay Times reported:

The move comes after two appellate courts ruled that cameras in Oldsmar and the city of Aventura in Miami-Dade County can be used to ticket drivers. Those rulings, however, conflicted with one from the 4th District Court of Appeal, which shut down the city of Hollywood’s program in 2014.

Florida’s legislature is also trying to tackle the problem. In March 2017 the Florida House passed a bill to outlaw red light cameras. The bill is currently under consideration in the Florida Senate. The case for eliminating the cameras altogether lies in the cameras themselves. Usually when a cop sees someone speeding they pull them over and write them a ticket. Now it’s not the cop seeing people speed, it’s the cameras. When violators go to court, there is no one to confront in court because the “defendant” is the camera. 

Traffic attorneys have filed approximately 65 lawsuits against Florida communities that use cameras because of what many drivers feel are unfair practices. Essentially, many of the traffic attorneys have alleged that because many of the red light cameras are owned by third-party operatives, it is illegal to use them to issue someone a ticket. Law enforcement cannot be delegated to a third party under Florida Law. The court defined this in the 2014 case, City of Hollywood v. Arem:

In sum, Florida law does not grant the City any authority to delegate to a private third-party vendor the ability to issue uniform traffic citations. Only the City’s law enforcement officers and [traffic infraction enforcement officers] have the authority to issue such citations. The City also lacks the lawful authority to outsource to a third-party vendor the ability to make the initial review of the computer images of purported violations and then use its unfettered discretion to decide which images are sent to the TIEO, and which ones are not.

If Florida were to ban red light cameras, it would not be the first state to do so. In 2014, South Dakota passed House Bill 1100 which outlawed red light cameras in the state. The bill stated that it “prohibits the use of certain photo monitoring devices to detect red light violations. This bill prohibits the use of red light cameras.” Furthermore, House Bill 1122 protects South Dakotans from being charged by a red light camera in any state. House Bill 1122 reads:

No collection agency or company may contact a South Dakota resident by telephone, mail, electronic means, or any other manner, nor utilize the court system of South Dakota, in an effort to collect a fine derived from a speed camera or red light camera civil violation, or file a report with any credit bureau regarding the unpaid civil fine. No court of the State has jurisdiction to enforce a speeding camera or red light camera civil judgment against a resident.

South Dakota’s problems with red light cameras started in 2006, when a driver was ticketed $86 for allegedly running a red light. The driver, I.L. Weidermann, challenged the ticket, leading to four years of legal battles. The judge eventually agreed with Wiedermann, saying that Sioux Falls (the city in which he was ticketed) was imposing its own laws that were “less stringent” than the state laws regarding traffic by using the red light cameras. The judge also found that Weidermann was not given an opportunity to be heard, which was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. This was the beginning of the end for red light cameras in South Dakota.

Conclusion

Despite the legal battles and contested tickets, red light cameras do not appear as if they will be going away anytime soon. The tickets themselves are difficult to fight and, perhaps most importantly, red light cameras appear to have positive effects on driver safety. They discourage drivers from running red lights, and thus causing accidents that result in death or injury.

Anne Grae Martin

Anne Grae Martin is a member of the class of 2017 University of Delaware. She is majoring in English Professional Writing and minoring in French and Spanish. When she’s not writing for Law Street, Anne Grae loves doing yoga, cooking, and correcting her friends’ grammar mistakes. Contact Anne Grae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Red Light Cameras: Saving Lives or Infringing on Rights? appeared first on Law Street.

In early July, users of AlphaBay, one of the largest darknet marketplaces, panicked when their go-to supplier of illegal drugs, weapons, and other illicit items unexpectedly vanished from the internet. As is often the case when darknet marketplaces go down, many were wary that the moderators may have purposefully closed the site and made off with shoppers’ money. Though AlphaBay’s moderators quickly took to Reddit to assure users that they were working to restore the site, the internet panic left many wondering more about the mysterious “dark web” and its contents. What is this hidden side of the internet really about? And can any good be found in the dark? Read on to find out.

Deep Web vs. Dark Web

When you go online to browse social media, read the news, or look up directions, you’re using what’s called the “surface web.” While most of us stick to the surface web for our daily use, the truth is that it’s just a sliver of what’s available on the internet.

The deep web, which experts estimate makes up about 90 percent of the internet’s content, is comprised of all the web pages that aren’t accessible through public search engines. Library search engines, government databases, and your personal email account are all examples of pages on the deep web.

Many internet users confuse the deep web with the dark web, but the dark web is actually a tiny subsection of the deep web. It is comprised of all the hidden content existing on darknets, or encrypted networks that require use of specific software or tools to access. Darknets are specially designed to provide anonymity to users, making user presence on the dark web undetectable.

The dark web is best known to the public as a safe haven for salacious and criminal enterprises–the drug and weapons trades, child pornography, and the sale of stolen personal information, like bank accounts. But there are individuals on the dark web with nobler intentions, like whistleblowing. Wikileaks, for example, is a notorious dark web site that allows whistleblowers to anonymously upload classified information to the site. Civilians may also use darknet software to access social media in countries where sites like Facebook and Twitter are banned, or to spread news in times of censorship and political unrest.

How to Use the Dark Web

The most common way to access the dark web is using a free software called Tor, originally short for “The Onion Router,” which allows users to anonymize their web pages and their presence on the internet.

Tor was originally created by U.S. Naval Research Laboratory employees in the mid 1990s, and receives 60 percent of its funding from the U.S. government. It hides users’ IP addresses (the unique code that attaches your internet activity to your computer) by sending traffic from their computer and server to other, random points, “like anonymous bagmen trading briefcases in a parking garage,” according to Wired.

Users of Tor can access the surface web as normal, but can also browse websites that run Tor themselves–that’s where the hidden side of the internet exists. Tor websites don’t have a normal URL like Facebook.com, but instead consist of a jumble of seemingly random letters followed by “.onion,” like wlupld3ptjvsgwqw.onion for Wikileaks. This means that to access a Tor website, you most often need to know the exact web address.

Tor is working on developing its anonymity capabilities even further, Wired reported in January. Tor Project co-founder Nick Mathewson told the tech magazine that software released later this year will allow users to keep their sites completely secret, even from other Tor users.

“Someone can create a hidden service just for you that only you would know about, and the presence of that particular hidden service would be non-discoverable,” Mathewson told Wired. “As a building block, that would provide a much stronger basis for relatively secure and private systems than we’ve had before.”

Who Uses the Dark Web?

Criminals

The anonymous sale and exchange of illegal substances is responsible for most of the dark web’s notoriety. One of the most famous darknet marketplaces is the Silk Road, which was shut down in 2013, only to re-appear in various iterations. Most sites use bitcoin, rather than PayPal or credit cards, for transactions, since the e-currency allows customers to maintain their anonymity.

In June, Interpol launched a digital forensics course for wildlife crime investigators, to crack down on use of the dark web for the illegal trade of ivory and exotic animals.

Hackers have also been known to sell personal information, like login details for bank accounts or email accounts. In March 2015, thousands of active Uber account usernames and passwords were being sold for as little as $1-$5 on darknet marketplaces AlphaBay and ThinkingForward.

Dozens of hitmen are also available for hire on the dark web, but many sites, like BesaMafia, have been proven to be scams, or set up by law enforcement to catch people plotting murder.

“Normal” People

If you are unfamiliar with the dark web, you may be surprised to learn that many of its users are “Average Joes” (i.e. not internet-based arms dealers), who are interested in maintaining their internet privacy for less malicious reasons.

Politicians conducting secret deals, internet stalking victims wishing to keep their location private, and law enforcement officials investigating crimes are a large portion of the dark web’s user population. In a 2016 post on TurboFuture, blogger Dean Walsh noted the absurdity of these various populations interacting with terrorists, cybercriminals, and hackers.

“The fact that so many of the dark web’s users are enemies also leads to a strange dynamic,” Walsh writes. “I was tickled to see website security experts and criminal hackers sharing the same forums to discuss their common interests in computer security whilst hardly recognizing that they are nemeses.”

Activists and Journalists

The anonymity provided by dark web sites can also be a force for justice. Activists have been able to shed light on dire situations while avoiding detection in countries where oppressive regimes prevent civilians from using social media, or otherwise censor content posted on the internet.

Nima Fatemi, an Iranian activist and contributor to the Tor Project, taught friends and family how to use the service during a series of riots and protests in Tehran in 2009. Fatemi told Rolling Stone that Tor allowed him and others to post information about what was actually happening, while state television was “just showing photos of flowers and stuff.” “I found Tor and thought, ‘This is the tool.’ It was peace of mind,” Fatemi told Rolling Stone. “I felt it a duty because so many people outside of Iran had no idea that we were protesting.”

Organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation encourage protesters and journalists to use Tor networks to protect their identity. The non-profit news organization ProPublica recently launched a Tor version of its website, which means readers can safely read the publication’s articles undetected. A ProPublica spokesman told Wired that the development will make the website safe for users in locations like China, where heavy government censorship can affect internet content. Facebook also has a Tor version, which it says many of its users access on the regular.

“Wikileaks” Courtesy of Sean MacEntee : License (CC BY 2.0)

Terrorists?

While there is some evidence of ISIS militants and supporters using the dark web and other Tor-protected services to recruit and fund their efforts, researchers at King’s College London found relatively “little militant, extremist presence” on the dark web. Thomas Rid, one of the researchers who co-authored the paper Cryptopolitik and the Darknet, told Quartz that dark web sites are not very useful for quickly and effectively spreading propaganda.

“Hidden services are sometimes slow, and not as stable as you might hope,” Rid said. “So ease of use is not as great as it could be. There are better alternatives.”

Conclusion

When dark web activities make headlines, it’s usually for something nefarious. This criminal side will continue to be newsworthy as the NSA and FBI crack down on illegal darknet marketplaces like the Silk Road, and stolen consumer data on dark web sites. But beyond the child pornography, drug sales, and hitmen for hire, there are activists, journalists, and everyday internet users making use of the dark web. As sites like ProPublica and Facebook turn to Tor for security purposes, the lighter side of the dark web could have its moment in the sun.

Avery Anapol

Avery Anapol is a blogger and freelancer for Law Street Media. She holds a BA in journalism and mass communication from the George Washington University. When she’s not writing, Avery enjoys traveling, reading fiction, cooking, and waking up early. Contact Avery at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Since its recognizable logo first appeared on our phone screens in 2011, Uber has quickly risen to become ubiquitous in modern-day transportation, overtaking taxis in many cities. The ride-hailing company has cemented its status as a pillar of the sharing economy, while also battling countless lawsuits, protests, and government regulations over the years. The controversies reached a head in June 2017, when co-founder Travis Kalanick stepped down from his position as CEO. Read on for a glimpse into the events that led to Kalanick’s resignation.

Rise to Ride-Sharing Royalty

Uber’s growth as one of the world’s top ride-sharing companies was swift. It easily secured several rounds of funding, and became one of the most valuable startups worldwide. Uber has yet to go public, but is valued at $70 billion.

Uber’s impact on the market is cultural, as well as financial–the term “uberisation” has come to refer to other companies and industries that take after the company’s business model of eliminating the middleman and connecting customers directly to service providers. And, as The Economist writes, the word “uber” has become its own verb, like Facebook or Google.

Though competitors like Lyft have slowly built up steam, Uber still dominates the market. At the end of May, Uber’s U.S. market share was 77 percent, down from 84 percent earlier in the year. This decrease, experts say, is likely the effect of the seemingly endless controversies that have tainted Uber over its lifetime.

Early Disputes

Uber’s efforts to transform the transportation market have been met with resistance from the beginning. In a 2013 class-action lawsuit, a group of drivers sued Uber for its labor practices. The suit claims the drivers have been “misclassified as independent contractors and are entitled to be reimbursed for their expenses that Uber should have to pay, like for gas and vehicle maintenance.” The company agreed to settle the suit for $100 million in 2016, but a federal judge denied the settlement and the case is still ongoing.

In the U.S. and worldwide, Uber has faced major scrutiny for operating in markets without adhering to local policies and procedures that regulate cabs. In 2014, several protests against the company broke out across Europe. These protests came to a head in 2015, when taxi drivers locked down the city of Paris, blocking roads, burning tires, and attacking drivers. The drivers considered Uber to be a form of “economic terrorism.”

“London Anti-Uber Taxi Protest” Courtesy David Holt : License (CC BY 2.0)

Uber is currently banned in Italy, Hungary, Denmark, and several other nations, in addition to some U.S. cities. In August 2016, Uber sold its presence in China to competitor Didi Chuxing, freeing it up to expand in other global markets. Today, the company operates in over 80 countries.

Over the years, Uber has come under fire for funneling millions into opposition research, both in plots to push out Lyft, its primary U.S. competitor, and to fight negative press coverage by “digging up dirt” on journalists. While these scandals have tarnished Uber’s image, 2017 has been an especially turbulent year for the company.

2017: A Year of Controversy

Uber’s controversies seemed to pile up at the beginning of 2017. When President Donald Trump’s travel ban was announced in January, protesters gathered at airports nationwide. While the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance ceased operations at JFK to participate in the protest, Uber continued picking up customers, fueling backlash from many who said the company was profiting from Islamophobia and deportation. The company later apologized, but not before the hashtag “#DeleteUber” began trending and rival company Lyft announced its support for the protesters, promising to donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Toxic Culture

In February, Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post documenting several incidents of sexual harassment during her time with the company. The post went viral and prompted Kalanick to hire former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the claims. In June, Holder presented the board with a report of the findings and series of recommendations to improve Uber’s workplace. One of the recommendations was to strip Kalanick of some of his power. Also in June, Uber fired 20 employees after an investigation unrelated to Holder’s revealed more evidence of bullying, harassment, and a “toxic” company culture.

Skirting the Rules

A few days after Fowler’s viral post was published, Uber was hit with a lawsuit from Waymo, a self-driving car offshoot of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Waymo alleged that Uber stole trade and patent secrets, focusing on actions by Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer. Levandowski was fired from Uber in May, and a new filing in June revealed that Kalanick knew Levandowksi had possession of data from Google long before the Waymo suit was filed.

In March, The New York Times reported on Uber’s use of a technology called Greyball, which it employed primarily outside of the U.S., allowing drivers to evade local authorities in markets where the ride-hailing service had been banned. The Department of Justice launched an investigation in response.

“Travis Kalanick” Courtesy of TechCrunch : Licence (CC BY 2.0)

Kalanick’s Tarnished Image

Kalanick, as an individual, faced even more scrutiny in late February after he was caught on video in a profanity-laden argument with an Uber driver over the company’s falling fares, which the driver said made him “bankrupt.” After the video surfaced online, Kalanick publicly apologized.

“To say that I am ashamed is an extreme understatement,” Kalanick wrote in a company-wide email. “I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up. This is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.”

Several years ago, Kalanick also came under fire for referring to his company as “Boob-er” in an highly-scrutinized GQ interview, saying that his desirability among women has increased since starting Uber.

Kalanick Resigns

A week before officially resigning, Kalanick announced an indefinite leave of absence from Uber leadership. This was in response to Holder’s recommendation that the company re-evaluate some of Kalanick’s responsibilities or distribute them among other members of leadership. In a memo to employees, Kalanick also said the leave of absence would give him time to grieve for his mother, who was killed in a boating accident weeks earlier.

Breaking: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick memo to employees on his leave of absence. Full text. @NPR pic.twitter.com/tCE4bZ2C0u

— Aarti Shahani (@aarti411) June 13, 2017

The temporary departure did not satisfy Uber’s investors, however. On June 20, two venture capitalists presented Kalanick with a list of demands, including his resignation. The letter was from five of Uber’s major investors, including Benchmark and the mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments. By the end of the day, his departure was made public.

Kalanick’s resignation isn’t the first indication of instability among the company’s top brass. Including the position of CEO, three of Uber’s eight leadership positions are currently vacant. Several other high-level positions and other leaders are also currently under scrutiny, and four out of seven board members, including the board’s only two women, are relatively new to the company.

What’s Next for Uber?

In spite of the recent controversies, Uber is continuing to expand and reshape its image. Uber added an in-app tipping function in June, much to the delight of drivers and customers, and the company’s self-driving projects are continuing to improve, even in the wake of the Waymo lawsuit. The company also streamlined its app to allow users to hail rides for others more easily, letting users call an Uber for a drunk friend or aging relative.

Unfortunately, the scandals haven’t stopped altogether. Less than 10 days after Kalanick’s resignation, civil rights activists filed suit against Uber in federal court for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act and the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act by not accommodating passengers with non-collapsible wheelchairs.

Conclusion

Even with the departure of Kalanick, the rest of this year could be make or break for Uber. Kalanick still retains a seat on Uber’s board, as well as voting rights in company decisions. Some think he could be leaving the door open to return to the helm in the future. Murmurs of Uber going public are also ongoing. Uber’s market share decrease and 2016 earnings loss could still hold up an IPO, but economists and experts think Kalanick’s resignation is a good sign for the company’s public trading potential. All eyes will remain on Uber to see if the ride-sharing giant can continue to grow, while transforming its leadership and company culture.

Avery Anapol

Avery Anapol is a blogger and freelancer for Law Street Media. She holds a BA in journalism and mass communication from the George Washington University. When she’s not writing, Avery enjoys traveling, reading fiction, cooking, and waking up early. Contact Avery at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Uber in Turmoil: How Several Scandals Led to the Departure of its CEO appeared first on Law Street.

Last year, JD.com, China’s version of Amazon, got its business off the ground–literally. The company launched a fleet of delivery drones that have been bringing packages to buyers within minutes. In one province, the company just received government approval to use drone delivery for packages weighing more than a ton, according to Vox. This form of delivery has been especially effective for JD.com in delivering packages to rural areas. The drones are fully automated and follow set paths. Rather than delivering straight to the customer’s door, they drop orders at a specific site in rural villages, where locally-based contractors then deliver the packages.

Faster delivery that reaches more people–it seems like a logical step for American companies. So why aren’t delivery drones flooding our skies? Read on to find out.

What’s Stopping the Drones?

The idea of drone delivery isn’t a new concept to American business leaders. Back in 2013, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos discussed the possibility of drone delivery in a “60 Minutes” interview. Much of his segment is already dated–Bezos talked about the very beginnings of developing original television programming for Amazon Studios–however, he said drone delivery was only a few years away. American customers are still waiting on the first air delivery and Prime Air’s website does not yet list an official launch date for the service to be available to buyers.

“We will deploy when and where we have the regulatory support needed to safely realize our vision,” the website reads. “We’re excited about this technology and one day using it to deliver packages to customers around the world in 30 minutes or less.”

The biggest barrier is government regulation. The Federal Aviation Administration has historically been hazy on drone policy. The department has come under fire for not establishing clear privacy or safety laws for drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles.

In 2015, the FAA required drone users to register in a federal database. Last month, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. overturned that regulation, ruling that it did not have legal standing over those flying drones for recreational, not commercial, purposes.

With regard to commercial drone usage, the FAA’s guidelines, set last June, do not permit aerial package delivery. According to the regulations, drones used for commercial purposes must remain in the line of sight of the pilot. Tech companies and others interested in commercial drone usage are lobbying the FAA to change those regulations. Amazon itself has several lobbyists working on this goal.

Going Global

To get around these federal roadblocks, Amazon has moved across the pond to test its delivery. Last summer, the company gained approval from the U.K. to test drones in the country’s airspace. Just a few months later, in a private trial, the company made its first drone delivery–an Amazon FireStick and a package of popcorn–to a customer in Cambridge.

In New Zealand, Domino’s is experimenting with drone delivery pizzas. And an American startup based in California is using the vehicles to transport medical supplies to Rwanda. Earlier this month, Amazon announced the creation of a drone testing center in Paris, which will work with the centers in the U.S., U.K., Austria, and Israel.

The delay in drone use in the U.S. is frustrating–to consumers, companies, and drone-use advocates. Timothy Carone, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and expert on automation (he co-authored the book “Future Automation–Changes to Lives and Businesses”), told Wired in December that it is “unfortunate, almost tragic” that Amazon is piloting drone delivery in the U.K., rather than in the U.S.

“The FAA, like most government agencies, works on times scales that are increasingly slower than the evolution of new businesses and technologies,” Carone said. “Soon it will make decisions on technologies that are already outdated.”

Since then, Prime Air has only made one delivery on U.S. soil–at an invite-only tech conference in March–and the delivery was pre-approved by the FAA. The convenience store 7-Eleven has had mild success in delivering packages via drone, but all of its trials have been within the pilot’s line of site, to customers within a mile of the Reno, Nevada store.

Other Concerns

Beyond the regulatory barriers, there are a multitude of other concerns and problems that Amazon and other companies will have to address before drone delivery becomes commonplace in the U.S.

Air safety and environmental concerns are top priority. To ensure that drones can coexist peacefully with other aircrafts, avoid crashing into tall buildings and construction cranes, and aren’t hazardous to birds, trees, or bodies of water, companies that wish to use drones will have to work closely with air traffic control, even developing new systems. Amazon has said that data from its trials in the U.K. are helping to develop and improve air traffic control systems that deal with drones in both the U.S., through NASA, and in the U.K. And there is, of course, the very real fear that drone deliveries will wipe out thousands of driving and packaging jobs.

On top of these challenges, leadership at Prime Air has seen some turnover. The co-founder of the project, Daniel Buchmueller, quietly left Amazon at the end of last year, at what seems to be a pivotal time in the company’s pursuit of aerial delivery.

What’s Next For Drone Policy?

President Donald Trump’s actions on drones have largely dealt with warfare. In a controversial decision in March, Trump handed authority to launch drone strikes to the CIA. Under President Barack Obama, only the military had the power to launch strikes, making the operations more transparent since the Pentagon has to report on all airstrikes.

The new presidential administration has had little to say on commercial and recreational drone usage. But last week, the White House backed proposed legislation that would allow the government to track and destroy drones flying over U.S. soil that it deems a security threat. This is a security and privacy issue–the administration is concerned about the ability of terrorists to use drones to carry weapons or conduct surveillance.

The draft document warns that government activities, like wildland firefighting, search and rescue operations, and border control, could be threatened by the commercial availability of unmanned aircraft systems. According to the document, drones are difficult to detect and monitor, but the technology available to do so may not be currently legal for such purposes.

“Some of the most promising technical countermeasures for detecting and mitigating [unmanned aircraft systems] may be construed to be illegal under certain laws that were passed when UAS were unforeseen,” the document reads. “These laws include statutes governing electronic communications, access to protected computers, and interference with civil aircraft.”

It is unclear how legislation like this, should it pass, would affect the ability of companies like Amazon to use drones for delivery.

“An Emerging Technology”

Elaine Chao, the new transportation secretary, spoke briefly on drones for commercial use during her confirmation hearings. She has not proposed any changes to policy as of yet, but emphasized the importance of safety regulations in any drone laws.

“Safety will continue to be the primary objective,” Chao said. “Regulatory decisions should be rooted in analysis derived from sound science and data.”

“Farewell Reception Honoring Hudson Distinguished Fellow and Secretary of Transportation-designate Elaine L. Chao” Courtesy of Hudson Institute: License (CC BY 2.0)

Chao also acknowledged that the government’s “failure to pace with emerging technologies” is causing U.S. transport to fall behind other countries.

“It’s an emerging technology, there are those who see the benefits of commercializing them for various uses, it’s transforming the way we work, the way we do commerce,” she said. “There are also those who are very concerned about privacy issues, security issues, and again for going forward with an emerging technology as important as this with such vast implications for our future, I think we need to talk about it, we need to have again a national consensus for where we’re going.”

Conclusion

With JD.com’s success with drone delivery, and Amazon’s fourth international development center opening soon, everyone from consumers to CEOs are anxiously awaiting improvements to federal policy that will make drone delivery a reality for Americans. Some say the key lies in redefining drones so that they are not considered aircrafts and subject to the same regulations as jetliners.

Even without delivery, the presence of drones themselves is only going to become more prominent as the months go on. The FAA estimated earlier this year that the number of drones used for recreational purposes will increase from 1.1 million in 2016 to more than 3.5 million over the next five years. For commercial drones, the fleet could grow from 42,000 in 2016 to as many as 1.6 million by the end of 2021, depending on how quickly regulations catch up.

With numbers like that, it’s understandable that American consumers are getting antsy waiting for drone-dropped packages to appear on their doorsteps.

Avery Anapol

Avery Anapol is a blogger and freelancer for Law Street Media. She holds a BA in journalism and mass communication from the George Washington University. When she’s not writing, Avery enjoys traveling, reading fiction, cooking, and waking up early. Contact Avery at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Where Are the Drones?: How Red Tape is Slowing Down Drone Delivery appeared first on Law Street.

As the Trump Administration continues its efforts to undo much of the regulation put in place during President Barack Obama’s term in office, the FCC’s efforts to peel back net neutrality rules will be particularly controversial, as the issue has sparked fierce debate for several years. While much of the regulatory rollback happened quickly using the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows for expedited removal of recent regulations under a new president, the net neutrality rules will take quite a bit more time. In fact, this is just the latest development in a regulatory dispute that has been going on for nearly 10 years. Read on to see why this is such a contentious issue, what the proposed regulations would do, and what we can expect in the weeks and years ahead.

Quick Refresher: What is Net Neutrality?

While many people have heard the term network neutrality, understanding of it tends to vary widely. That may be because net neutrality is more of a general concept than a set of clear rules. The principle behind it is the idea that all online content should be treated equally and that no internet provider should be able to discriminate or block content regardless of the source or type. Most people support net neutrality, or at least the general concept behind it, but disagree on what needs to be done to ensure that networks are designed in a way that lives up to that principle. That disagreement is what brings us to the current debate over internet regulations. Some advocates argue that regulations blocking internet providers from discriminating against or privileging certain content or sources are necessary to protect a free and open internet. Opponents argue that absent these regulations we still wouldn’t have a problem with content discrimination and we should have as few regulations as possible to allow for internet investment and innovation.

The two major categories of groups involved in these debates are Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and content companies. Internet service providers are the companies that sell access to the internet, like Timer Warner Cable, Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T. Content companies are the businesses that create and distribute the things you find online–notable examples of these include Netflix, Google, and Facebook, but every website or online service is essentially a content company. The three core priorities for net neutrality regulation have been to prohibit blocking, slowing, and the paid prioritization of a source or type of content as it makes its way through the network to consumers.

While many agree that blocking and slowing shouldn’t be allowed, the issue of paid prioritization is one that tends to have more gray areas. This debate manifests itself in the context of internet fast lanes, where companies can pay up to ensure that consumers can download their services as quickly as possible, giving them a potential edge over the competition. For more on the fast lane debate, check out this explainer.

What Were the Old Rules?

Before we can get into the FCC’s proposal to peel back net neutrality rules, let’s take a quick look at how we got here. While Columbia Law professor Tim Wu coined the phrase in a journal article published in 2003, the regulatory debate didn’t really come into play until 2008, when it was revealed that Comcast was blocking or slowing BitTorrent traffic on its network. After that dispute, the FCC tried to intervene to prohibit companies from slowing or blocking traffic, but a federal appeals court ruled against the commission, concluding that it had limited authority over internet traffic. Two years later, the FCC issued an Open Internet Order establishing rules that sought to ensure neutrality with a focus on blocking, discrimination, and transparency. However, Verizon sued the commission, and in 2014, a federal appeals court struck down the bulk of those rules and concluded that under the internet’s current classification, the FCC didn’t have the authority to prevent ISPs from slowing or blocking web traffic.

At the center of the issue was the FCC’s initial decision to classify the internet as an information service and not a telecommunication service. The Communications Act of 1934–which created the FCC and was most recently overhauled in 1996–gives the commission varying authority when regulating these different services. The courts ruled that under the initial classification of the internet, the FCC did not have the authority to prohibit the blocking or slowing of web traffic. Following those decisions, the FCC decided in 2015 to reclassify the internet as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act, which gave it much greater authority to regulate. It then imposed regulations that were similar in principle to the original rules, but were upheld initially by the courts due to the new classification. This change, classifying the internet as a public utility, allowed the FCC to regulate providers as common carriers to block any form of traffic discrimination.

The FCC’s New Plan

Although the Obama-era FCC, led by former Chairman Tom Wheeler, went through the process of reclassifying the internet to allow for stricter regulation, that effort will likely be reversed under President Trump. The 2015 rules were adopted after a 3-2 vote by the FCC and one of the commissioners voting against the measure, Ajit Pai, now holds the reins as the commission’s chairman and has since vowed to undo those regulations.

Re-Reclassification

The FCC recently took the first step in its efforts to remove the utility-style regulations placed on the internet. While the whole process will likely take some time and face several lawsuits along the way, much like the original reclassification process, most expect Commissioner Pai to be successful. The process for creating new regulations is governed by the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires a notice and comment period for all proposed changes. This means that the FCC is required to notify the public that a rule change is coming, then seek public comments and take those into consideration as it develops the final rule. The FCC issued its notice of proposed rulemaking on May 18 to begin that process. While we do not know exactly what the new rule will involve–after the comment period, the final rule will be drafted, debated, and then adopted–the public notice outlined the commission’s goals going forward.

First, the rule would reclassify the internet to remove Title II regulations from internet service providers, moving back to what proponents call a light-touch framework under Title I. It would also reclassify mobile broadband, provided companies like AT&T and Verizon, as a private mobile service, which currently faces the same common carrier regulations after the 2015 rule change. Finally, the notice also asks for comments on what are known as the FCC’s bright-line rules, which are the central components of past net neutrality regulations. Specifically, these rules prevent providers from blocking, slowing, and creating paid prioritization deals with content companies. Finally, the proposal would remove a conduct standard created under the Title II regulations that applied to all ISPs.

While blocking and slowing have been important issues in the past, the possibility for paid prioritization, or internet fast lanes, under the new rules could have the biggest effect on the direction of the internet. This form of prioritization would allow large content companies like Netflix and YouTube to negotiate deals with ISPs to ensure that their content is delivered to consumers faster than other services. While competitors may be able to strike up their own deals in an effort to level the playing field, new companies may not have sufficient money in the early stages of development to secure these deals, making established companies more difficult to challenge.

In the video below, Chairman Pai outlines his goals for the new regulation:

FCC Chairman Pai argues that these rules will spur investment, leading ISPs to expand and improve upon their networks. He says that the utility-style regulation under the current rules places too much of a regulatory burden on internet companies making additional investment less attractive. In Pai’s view, investing in innovation and infrastructure is one of the most important issues facing the internet today, so he prefers fewer regulations in an effort to spur that investment.

Opponents argue that net neutrality is core to the innovative nature of the internet, and note that several companies have said that such rules would have little impact on investment decisions. Moreover, they note that given the ubiquity of the internet in our personal and professional lives, we should start to look at it like another utility company. Instead of loosening regulations to allow companies to innovate, we should view these networks like we do the electrical grid–as essential to our daily lives–and regulate them as such. The video below outlines the rationale for viewing ISPs as utilities:

Conclusion

Internet rules have been one of the most controversial regulatory issues in the last several years and the FCC’s recent efforts to change them once again mean that they will continue to be a hot-button issue in years to come. While the concept of net neutrality is quite broad, most of the current discussion focuses on whether we need rules to prevent blocking, slowing, and paid prioritization of online content–the so-called bright-line rules.

Amidst these larger debates are more technocratic ones relating to the extent of the Federal Communication Commission’s authority to regulate the internet. When previous attempts to enact bright-line rules to prevent discrimination against any kind of traffic have failed when challenged in the courts, the FCC under President Obama decided to reclassify the internet in order to make those rules with the necessary authority. While the Title II, utility-style regulations were initially upheld by the court, it’s unclear whether that question will be answered now that the new chairman is already working to undo past efforts. Given the level of interest across the political spectrum and from private citizens and large corporations alike, more court cases are likely to follow. But many still expect these changes, once they have worked their way through they regulatory process, to be upheld in the courts. Given the number of changes to internet regulation in the past several years, many observers have called on Congress to settle the issue once and for all. While the future of net neutrality remains uncertain, we can expect the ensuing regulatory debates to continue to ignite the vigorous public debate.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Behind the FCC’s New Plan to Peel Back the Net Neutrality Rules appeared first on Law Street.

Social media has the ability to bring together people from all walks of life to interact. But the ensuing interactions aren’t always positive–the ubiquity of social media has opened up plenty of people to harassment. While online harassment can include a variety of forms–including cyberbullying, cyberstalking and revenge porn–there are other forms of online harassment that you may start to hear more about moving forward: doxxing and swatting. Read on to learn more about these forms of online harassment, some of the more prominent victims of them, and the potential legal ramifications in the United States.

What are Doxxing and Swatting?

Doxxing 

Doxxing, which comes from the word “document,” is the release of an online user’s private information, including but not limited to photo, address, birthdate, and Social Security number. This release is usually done for a particular purpose–for example, to reveal the anonymity of a person online. Someone who operates under their own name–say, a journalist–could also be doxxed, if their personal information is disseminated to the internet. And it’s not just individuals who can be doxxed, as the term can be applied to group membership. But no matter who is doxxed, it’s safe to say that someone who doxxes someone else intends to cause some sort of harm.

Swatting 

Swatting is another form of online harassment, which can be sometimes (but not always) connected to doxxing. Swatting involves falsely reporting an emergency, in the hopes that a “swat” team or other law enforcement officers show up to the location that is being targeted. According to the National 911 program:

The calling party will often report they are involved or nearby as a witness to a home invasion, active shooter, or hostage situation, attempting to muster the largest response possible. Often, the law enforcement response is substantial, with police confronting the unsuspecting victims at gunpoint, only to learn that there is no real emergency.

Those who attempt to cause a swatting incident use several techniques, including: caller ID spoofing, TTY relay technologies, and social engineering.

Swatting is usually done with the intent of causing fear in the subject, or occasionally as a cruel prank.

What are some real-life examples of doxxing and swatting?

There have been many high-profile examples of both doxxing and swatting. From politicians to celebrities to journalists, it’s become an increasingly common practice. It’s also important to note that doxxing and swatting aren’t practices limited to one particular ideology, political party, or group. During the 2016 election, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters accused each other of the practices, whether those claims were substantiated or not.

Here are a couple of examples of each:

Doxxing: Anonymous 

Anonymous, the well-known group of “hacktivists,” has frequently doxxed various individuals it has decided to attack. Perhaps most notably, Anonymous made headlines in 2015 when it released a long list of Ku Klux Klan members. The list included alleged members and sympathizers’ real names, as well as their social media accounts.

Doxxing: GamerGate

In 2014 the GamerGate controversy broke, leading to online harassment for some women in the video game industry. One relatively common practice was doxxing–for example Brianna Wu, a female game developer who is now running for Congress and was targeted during the controversy, was doxxed. Other women involved in the gaming industry were doxxed as well, including Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Some tangentially related figures, like actress Felicia Day, were also doxxed. Day’s personal information was released after she wrote an essay about her opinion on GamerGate.

Swatting: Ted Lieu 

Congressman Ted Lieu, who currently represents the 33rd District of California, was swatted when he was a state senator. When he was swatted, Lieu had recently introduced a bill that would actually increase penalties for anyone who engaged in swatting behavior. In April 2013, the police received a call from someone pretending to be Lieu, who claimed he had shot his wife. Lieu was actually out but his wife, Betty, was in the house. Police went to the house and made Betty and their nanny exit the house with their hands up.

Swatting: Celebrities

A number of celebrities have been swatted, perhaps most famously Lil Wayne. In March 2015, an anonymous caller called the police and claimed that four people had been shot at his house in Miami Beach. Miley Cyrus was swatted in 2012, after reports of an armed kidnapper and shooting at her California home. Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber were both swatted by a 12-year-old Southern California boy in 2012. Dozens of other celebrities have been victim to swatting, including Simon Cowell, multiple members of the Jenner/Kardashian clan, Rihanna, Tom Cruise, Chris Brown, Clint Eastwood, and Taylor Swift.

Laws Against Doxxing and Swatting

Whether or not doxxing is technically illegal is somewhat up for debate. Most countries don’t have laws that specifically prohibit doxxing, although there are some that have codified it. In the UK in 2016, doxxing was explicitly added to a list of behaviors that can be prosecuted. But in most places, doxxing can be prosecuted only if it’s deemed to fall under another kind of criminal behavior, such as harassment. In cases where a person’s private information, like a Social Security number, is doxxed, it could constitute identity theft. That being said, it’s very difficult to prosecute people for doxxing because it is so often done under the cloud of anonymity. Sometimes it happens across state or country lines. At the end of the day, it’s a tough issue to prosecute.

The legal lines when it comes to swatting are slightly more clearly defined. For one, making false reports to police officers are illegal in many places. And plenty of people have been prosecuted for their role. Individual states, including California, have specifically implemented anti-swatting laws–it was while working on those laws that Lieu was actually swatted himself.

In 2015, Representative Katherine Clark (D-MA) introduced legislation that would have made swatting expressly illegal in Congress–the Interstate Swatting Hoax Act. In this bipartisan effort, Democrat Clark was joined by Republican Representative Pat Meehan of Pennsylvania. Clark’s office published a release that explained the dangers of swatting and pointed out that it’s actually quite costly:

The FBI estimates 400 swatting attacks occur every year. Some attacks, however, have been reported to cost local law enforcement agencies as much as $100,000.  The most serious cost of these attacks is the danger they pose to emergency responders, innocent victims, and their families. Swatting attacks have resulted in injury to law enforcement officers, heart attacks, and serious injury to victims.

The bill didn’t end up making it to a vote but perhaps unsurprisingly, Clark herself was swatted in 2016. An anonymous call made to the local police claimed that there was an active shooter at her home.

However, like with doxxing, it’s very difficult to determine who the perpetrator of a swatting crime is. In general, doxxing and swatting are versions of harassment that require some sort of technological sophistication to be able to pull off. That makes it difficult to identify, arrest, and prosecute suspects.

Conclusion

Doxxing and swatting are just two examples of the kind of harassment made possible by the internet. But while both wouldn’t be possible without the internet, they can lead to real world consequences. For example, an emotional video went viral in 2015 where video game live-streamer named Joshua Peters described how when he was the victim of a swatting, police aimed a gun at his 10-year-old brother who happened to open the door. Given that SWAT raids can lead to officers mistakenly shooting someone, or shooting someone for a relatively minor infraction, it’s not impossible to imagine that swatting could turn deadly for a victim. While it’s hard to prosecute doxxing and swatting, they are clear markers that online harassment doesn’t just affect us online.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Doxxing and Swatting: New Frontiers in Online Harassment appeared first on Law Street.

Driverless cars are all the rage in the auto industry lately, as efforts have been underway for years to move away from the outmoded, human-driven gas guzzlers of the 1990s and early 2000s. The rosy image of the future of cars took a hit recently, however, when a man was killed while riding in his Tesla while on autopilot mode. This fatality immediately raised concerns over safety and the need for regulation that had been relatively quiet in the quest to go driverless. Read on to find out more about self-driving cars, how they are being regulated, and how close we are to a society where your car does the driving for you.

The History Behind Driverless Cars

While history has seen many driverless vehicles, from boats to rockets, driverless cars are typically something that is only seen in science fiction writing. Although the idea began drawing increasing interest around World War II, the concept was still in its infancy. Some actually believed the future wasn’t in driverless cars, but in safe highways that could guide cars like trains on a track. The movement for driverless cars really began to gain momentum with artificial intelligence enthusiasts during the 1960s who dreamed of developing driverless cars by the new millennium. Several prototypes were developed starting in the late 1970s, but the main challenge of developing a vehicle that could not only drive but react to conditions in real time remained elusive.

The industry got a boost when the U.S. military became involved in 2004, initiating a competition to develop driverless cars for use on the battlefield. Since then, driverless vehicles have popped up all over, including on farms, mines, and warehouses. The late 2000s and early 2010s also saw self-driving cars become a more plausible option for the average commuter, particularly when Google began its foray into the industry. Along with Google the other big name in the driverless car industry is currently Tesla Motors, while other many car companies have autonomous car projects of their own. The accompanying video looks at the history of driverless cars and their potential future:

Impact of Driverless Cars

Many carmakers are already fretting about the future of their industry. With the rise of affordable car-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, getting around without owning a car has become much easier for people who live in cities. This has led major car companies to invest in these services. Car companies are also investing in driverless cars, which could present another possible major disruption to the status quo of their industry.

Forecasts suggest that if and when driverless cars become widespread, likely sometime in the next couple decades, families will actually own fewer vehicles. This is due to the fact that a car that can operate by itself will be able to fulfill more functions with greater efficiency than traditional cars. Many may even forego ownership and use car sharing services instead.

It’s also important to consider driverless cars’ impact on the fusion of two industries. Namely, many of the largest and most well-known names in the auto and tech industry are teaming up to create the cars of tomorrow. The idea behind these collaborations is each industry is lending what it does best. In the case of the auto industry that is large scale production of vehicles that are safety and emissions compliant. For tech companies, that is developing the software, not only to allow for driverless cars but also for functions associated with computers or smartphones today.

Safety Concerns

The push toward driverless cars has continued even as the potential for danger remains high. While the accident in May that resulted in the death of the driver was the first fatality related to a self-driving car, it was certainly not the first accident. In fact, driverless cars are between two and five times as likely to get into accidents as cars with drivers, although that range depends on whether unreported accidents in regular cars are included. These numbers are slightly skewed by the small number of driverless cars compared to the large number of traditional cars. Nonetheless, while driverless cars are more likely to be in accidents, until the recent fatality, all the accidents that did occur only resulted in minor injuries because the driverless vehicles were always going slow at the time of the accident.

The following video details the first fatality in a driverless car:

Although the accident rate for driverless cars is higher, nearly all accidents between driverless cars and human drivers are the human’s fault. In fact, it was not until this year when the actions of a driverless car led to a traffic accident. This begs the question, why are driverless cars getting in more accidents when they are less likely to cause them in the first place? Ironically, the problem is that driverless cars are programmed first and foremost to always obey the laws of the road. However, in a busy intersection or highway, humans often disregard the rules and drive as necessary. The conservative approach that is taken by driverless cars actually increases their accident rate.

The inability to overcome the human element has caused the two leading companies in the driverless car industry, Google and Tesla, to pursue different approaches to the same goal. Based on observations made by Google engineers during an initial test phase–where drivers quickly trusted self-driving cars and stopped paying attention–Google decided to take a slower approach with the goal of creating a car that is 100 percent driverless. Conversely, Tesla embraces a notably different method. Tesla’s cars actually have many autonomous features already; however, the company instructs its drivers to keep their hands on the wheel while riding. Telsa argues that this approach will allow the company to collect enough data in order to improve its technology in a shorter timespan.

Perhaps the most significant safety issue, though, could affect cars with drivers and driverless models alike. This issue is the threat of hacking. With the amount of technology in modern cars and the many ways that they can connect to the internet, hackers are now able to take over a person’s vehicle.

The video below looks at the threat of car hacking:

Debate and Regulation

The high rate of accidents and the recent fatality has naturally intensified the debate over whether driverless cars are safe enough to traverse American roads. While autonomous features are commonly found in cars already, fully driverless cars are a work in progress. Getting driverless cars to the point where they are significantly safer than normal cars, however, could take hundreds of years of test driving. It becomes a question of how safe is safe enough and whether a crash in a driverless car is worse than a crash in a normal car.

While regulators are trying to step in and set up a framework for driverless cars, they too are uncertain about how to best regulate the industry. California, home to Google and most major tech companies, is currently the epicenter of the driverless car industry. In California, it is still illegal for driverless cars to operate on public roads without a licensed driver able to take the wheel at any moment. The main problem with these regulations, at least for the carmakers, is the requirement for cars have pedals and a steering wheel–features that driverless car makers like Google want to get rid of. California was actually the second state to authorize self-driving cars for testing and public use. The first state was Nevada, which has much looser regulations. Michigan has also authorized the use of driverless cars.

However, to avoid the varying state standards that have already popped up, many carmakers are anxious for national rules. Such rules may come sooner rather than later, as the Department of Transportation aimed to have a nationwide standard for regulations outlined within six months of its January announcement. In July, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced some progress on rulemaking and outlined steps going forward. However, many questions about regulation remain unanswered.

Conclusion

Driverless cars are a relatively new and exciting technology. Like any new advancement before them, there is an inherent risk involved, especially at the early stages. However, that risk has to be controlled in order to ensure driver safety.

While driverless cars excite the imagination, they still have a long way to go before they are adequately safe and regulated. This will not be an easy transition as it means people will have to embrace giving up control at 70 plus miles per hour. This also comes at a time when everything, including cars, is vulnerable to online attacks. Nevertheless, driverless vehicles appear to be an important next step in transportation technology. Even if they suffer several growing pains along the way, a car where everyone rides shotgun is likely the car of the future.

Resources

New York Times: Self-Driving Tesla Was Involved in Fatal Crash, U.S. Says

Computer History Museum: Where to? A History of Autonomous Vehicles

Los Angeles Times: Tesla and Google are Both Driving Toward Autonomous Vehicles. Which is Taking the Better Route?

The Economist: The driverless, Car-Sharing Road Ahead

USA Today: Study: Self-driving cars have higher accident rate

Wired: Google’s Self-Driving Car Caused Its First Crash

Bloomberg Technology: Humans Are Slamming Into Driverless Cars and Exposing a Key Flaw

Los Angeles Times: Is the World Ready for Driverless Cars? Are Driverless Cars ready for the World?

Governing: When Regulating Self-Driving Cars, Who’s at the Wheel?

Wired: The FBI Warns That Car Hacking Is a Real Risk

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How Close are we to Driverless Cars? appeared first on Law Street.

In the beginning (way back in the time of rabbit ear televisions) the Federal Communications Commission licensed wireless spectrum to everyone, professionals and amateurs alike. Licensing spectrum prevents overlap and interference between television and radio channels, but there was plenty to go around when broadcast technology was in its infancy, so there was little concern about running out. Networks like ABC and CBS were given spectrum, but so were government agencies like the Department of Defense, which still controls a large portion of radio spectrum. Smaller broadcasters, who operate on a local rather than a national level and primarily in rural areas, were also given spectrum access.

Then technology advanced and the amount of available spectrum is no longer enough to meet the demand. This is primarily driven by the proliferation of smartphones and the growing demand for wireless data. Like land in the Wild West, which was once so prevalent that it could literally be given away, wireless spectrum is now prime real estate. Wireless companies, cell phone carriers, and broadcasters are all eager to get their hands on more of it.

To combat this problem–which with the increasing demand for smartphones and streaming services is going to get worse before it gets better–the FCC proposed an incentive auction, which began at the end of March. The auction is sufficiently complex to warrant going through it step by step, but essentially, broadcasters have too much spectrum and wireless service providers don’t have enough. The FCC is going to act as a middleman to help facilitate the transfer of broadband spectrum from broadcasters to wireless providers to help feed their increasing demand. It is the first time that the FCC has tried an auction of this kind and it has the potential to yield billions of dollars in revenue for the federal government.

Everyone agrees that cell phone companies need spectrum and it is possible to free up some of it (potentially a lot of it) by consolidating broadcast television stations and eliminating some of them altogether. But should we be favoring cell phone companies at the expense of broadcast television or are their hidden, non-monetary costs involved in incentivizing the sale of spectrum?

Going Dutch: How Does The Spectrum Auction Work?

The spectrum auction is a very complicated process that has already been in the works for several years now and will continue to play out in various stages over the next several months. This video does a good job of explaining the basics of the process:

So step one is the “Dutch auction,” or reverse auction, between the various television broadcasters and the FCC. The FCC has offered to buy spectrum (the bidding started at the end of March) and broadcasters will then offer to sell if they are interested. The broadcasters are therefore the ones setting the initial price and bidding each other down until they reach a floor, then the FCC buys the spectrum. This part of the process is voluntary so broadcasters can choose not to participate if they wish to keep all or part of their allotted spectrum.

In the second step of the process, the FCC takes all of the spectrum that it purchased from the broadcasters and sells it to wireless service providers and cell phone companies. This step is a traditional or forward auction, so the wireless companies will be bidding against each other, driving up the price. Wireless companies desperately need the spectrum so the FCC anticipates recuperating the cost of running the auction and the cost of the third step in the process. If there is any extra, that money will go toward funding other government projects.

The third step of the process is, however, mandatory. Referred to as “repacking,” this involves the FCC taking the remaining spectrum and reassigning it to the broadcasters in order to consolidate them to a tighter range of frequencies. A broadcaster, large or small, will be unable to avoid this process and since the auction just started, we really have no idea how many of them will be affected. Essentially, the FCC will have carte blanche to consolidate broadcast channels to make the most efficient use of the remaining spectrum.

Possible Consequences

The video below does a good job addressing some of the collateral concerns around the FCC’s spectrum auction. One of the key implications of this spectrum auction is how its success or failure will determine how we try to allocate spectrum going forward.

The incentive auction is a creative–if very complicated–solution to the problem of spectrum shortage for cellphone companies. By facilitating this exchange the FCC is allowing us to watch Netflix on our iPhones and maybe even make a profit for the government while doing so. It certainly is an attractive option and is much better than the alternative of spectrum shortages that would have unpleasant effects. Not just for entertainment but, as more users adopt these devices, on businesses and commercial activity as well. A first world problem would actually become a very real problem with heavy usage on an already stressed system, particularly in cities and congested areas.

But there are some caveats to consider. The initial steps in the auction process are voluntary–broadcasters and wireless companies are both choosing to participate (or not) in the auctions. But the third step, the repacking process, will happen to broadcasters whether they like it or not. Even those who chose not to participate in the auction will be affected and may be forced to move their broadcasting to different channels.

Repacking

This video goes into detail about this repacking process.

Aside from the logistical concerns that this is going to create for the broadcasters, repacking could have a huge impact on many small local stations and even private citizens. For example, let’s say that you are a private citizen who would like to start his or her own television broadcast to promote your political or social views. Right now the spectrum may be available to you and you can do that on your own, or with a small group of like-minded citizens. Alternative media sources, ranging from the real and credible Democracy Now! to the fictional and surprisingly relevant PTV on “Family Guy,” use this method to enter the marketplace of ideas. This is also particularly important for citizens who may not have easy access to cable or the internet and rely on broadcast television for their news.

Repacking the broadcasters will likely result in smaller broadcasters being winnowed out. The costs of switching to another channel may be too high and even if there is a possibility of reimbursement, those hurdles may be too complicated for some broadcasters to navigate. Large broadcasters will be able to have teams working on their repacking transition and may also have additional access to the FCC to advocate to make the process go as smoothly as possible. Smaller broadcasters do not have those luxuries.

These changes may also push broadcasters who survive the repacking process to cut back on broadcasting in certain areas if the cost of building infrastructure there doesn’t make economic sense. For example, if a broadcaster is changed from channel 35 to channel 19 and it has to build new towers, it may choose to only do so in areas where it gets the most viewership. Large numbers of people could be left in the dark by that broadcaster and, if the situation is the same for multiple companies, they could be left out altogether. This will disproportionately impact rural Americans. It will also impact people without smartphones or broadband internet, which tend to be poor and elderly Americans, making it more difficult for them to access media, particularly news.

So what exactly are we incentivizing? If broadcast television is going extinct anyway, perhaps not much. The FCC may just be speeding up the natural process of eliminating broadcast television, starting with smaller stations that sell all of their spectrum or get driven out of the market by the high cost of transitioning. The number of broadcast viewers actually increased last year to 13.1 million, possibly because viewers wanted to get rid of their cable subscriptions or gain access to local television stations. However, that was a relatively small change in the context of the overall viewership numbers and the growth was nowhere near the explosion in smartphone growth. And if all communities gain access to the internet, broadcast television may no longer be necessary as online media takes its place.

If technology has evolved to the point where broadcast television is going to die out then it may not be such a bad thing for the federal government to make a profit while facilitating that process. It is the same sort of argument advanced by those who want to eliminate coal mining. Yes, a percentage of the population, one that is already at a disadvantage, will be harmed. But their industry is already dying and they are such a small percentage of the population that we are willing to let that harm happen in furtherance of faster progress. Buggy-whip salesmen were harmed by the invention of the car but we needed cars. In the end, their harm, however severe, may be a small price for society to pay.

Conclusion

The FCC Spectrum Auction is not an issue that is going to be resolved anytime soon. The original plans for it started in 2012 and changes to the system could take several years after the auction closes. It’s a complicated concept and like most plans it is unlikely to survive implementation unscathed. Yet even if it succeeds and yields a profit, it may ultimately fail by working too well–by opening up too much spectrum to cell phone carriers at the expense of smaller broadcasters and the populations that rely on them. While it’s hard to guess exactly what exactly the auction and subsequent repacking will mean for broadcast networks, the FCC’s plan marks a bold step that will shape future efforts to redistribute wireless spectrum.

Resources

Primary

FCC.gov: Wireless

FCC.gov: Incentive Auctions

Additional

TheVerge: How the FCC’s Massive Airwaves Auction Will Change America—and Your Phone Service

Chicago Tribune: Spectrum Auction Underway to Shift Airwaves from TV as Mobile Demand Soars

Recode: Making Sense of the Incredibly Confusing Spectrum Auction

Forbes: FCC’s Tangled Web

Fortune: Blackstone FCC Airwaves Auction

Fortune: FCC Incentive Auction

Wall Street Journal: FCC Releases List of Bidders For Wireless Airwaves Auction

TechTimes: FCC Auction Starts Strong, Reaches Spectrum Goal

Bloomberg: Wireless Fever Cools Before FCC Auction With No Dark Horse Seen 

Variety.com: TV Spectrum Auction FCC

IBTimes: Binge What? FCC Spectrum Auction

PBS: FCC Auction FAQs

Corporation For Public Broadcasting: Spectrum

Mary Kate Leahy

Mary Kate Leahy (@marykate_leahy) has a J.D. from William and Mary and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Manhattanville College. She is also a proud graduate of Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart. She enjoys spending her time with her kuvasz, Finn, and tackling a never-ending list of projects. Contact Mary Kate at staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post FCC’s Spectrum Auction: What it is and Why it Matters appeared first on Law Street.

Stephen Hawking has spent decades challenging the world to broaden its concept of the cosmos and last week he signed onto a research project connected to that goal. The billionaire Yuri Milner, backed by Hawking, has launched Breakthrough Starshot, a $100 million effort to develop computer chip-sized “star ships” that would travel further into space than any craft previously designed by man.

The project would aim to launch a thousand of these tiny star ships, each equipped with a “solar sail” that would push the ships along using light energy. In order to complete such an ambitious task, scientists will have to pour significant time and energy into miniaturizing instruments and developing solar sails strong enough to survive for a long-term journey through space. During  a recent press conference, Hawking stated that his hope for Starshot was a successful launch to Alpha Centauri–a star system approximately 25 trillion miles away–within a generation. Whether such an undertaking is even technologically possible remains to be seen. Read on for a look inside Breakthrough Starshot and the future of space exploration.

Who is Yuri Milner?

Hawking grabbed headlines when he committed to the project this week but the financial titan behind Starshot is an important figure in his own right. Yuri Milner, through his venture fund DST Global, has backed some of the most disruptive companies of the millennium: Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, and AirBnB to name just a few. Milner’s financial commitment to expanding scientific exploration has developed over time, peaking in the last two years.

He began working as a specialist in private sector banking at the World Bank in the 1990s but eventually shifted into investment brokerage. In the 2000s, he began investing in internet companies, serving as CEO and Chairman of a variety of holdings. In 2009, he purchased a 1.9 percent stake in Facebook for $200 million. In 2012, he stepped into the world of philanthropy by founding the Breakthrough Prize along with a host of other Silicon Valley talents. The Breakthrough Prize, which results in a $3 million grant to the recipient, is divided into three categories (Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics). In 2015, Milner launched Breakthrough Initiatives, a program tasked with exploring the universe for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. It is through this program that Milner and Hawking joined forces. Milner is one of many tech savants who have turned their energy and personal wealth towards funding the future of the human race, but his connection with the most notable scientific names of cosmology make him stand out as more than an amateur enthusiast.

Solar Sails

Although the Starshot team has hailed their use of solar sails as the first new approach to propulsion for a century, the concept of using light to propel spacecraft is not entirely novel. NASA’s Kepler space telescope uses the pressure from photons to maneuver and light sails have been deployed in the past in the Japanese spacecraft IKAROS. Starshot would differ from these spacecraft because it would utilize lasers to push the star ships along, accelerating them to 20 percent of the speed of light. With such an acceleration, the star ships could arrive at the nearest star within a matter of decades (as opposed to thousands of years from now).

However, as NPR reported, there are obstacles to building and controlling a laser powerful enough to give the solar sails the necessary push. There are lasers currently capable of delivering enough laser power to a point to initiate nuclear fusion but the blast only lasts for a microsecond. Starshot team members estimate that to launch its nanocraft, it would need a laser capable of sustaining that laser power for ten minutes.

There is a need for international approval and cooperation on creating the laser and satellites would have to be shifted out of the way of the laser in order for it to fire. Multiple permits will need to be approved from a variety of countries, and changing political climates could make or break Starshot’s success. An administration that has minimal or no interest in space exploration will not move satellites and approve the laser–which could be considered a weapon in the wrong hands–so Starshot will need to seek powerful political allies before beginning to construct the laser. Milner has proposed constructing the laser in a location such as the Atacama Desert, but conservationist interest groups may protest such a large scale construction and the national government of the country where the laser is built would ultimately have to balance environmental concerns with commitment to Starshot.

Funding the Project

The $100 million price tag on Starshot may seem high but when we account for potential problems with production, the need for materials and staff, and the lobbying costs of getting the laser approved, that sum may only be a fraction of the actual cost of getting Starshot off the ground. Milner’s financial commitment is essentially a launching pad that will need to be padded and refurbished in the coming years. His investment will be funneled into research grants, whose conditions are as yet undetermined.

Uniting that research into a single nanocraft will require significant logistical and financial cooperation between various teams. Milner has estimated that the project could cost anywhere from $5 to $10 billion by the time it is completed, and that estimate could even be conservative. The timeline for Starshot is counted in decades, not months: approximately twenty years to start the mission, another twenty for the nanocraft to reach Alpha Centauri and four years for the information to then return to Earth. This means that financial planning for such an extensive time presents a unique challenge for the Starshot team. In periods of economic stability, governments may be more likely to fund space exploration projects but at the moment, space exploration has largely been funneled into the private sector–which means Starshot will need to target a very selective set of potential investors. There are plenty of millionaires and billionaires in the world, but how many are willing to invest their funds in a space exploration project that will most likely not be finished within their lifetime?

However, having Hawking as a supporter boosts Starshot’s credibility and visibility in the press, and Hawking is not the only major cosmological name attached to the project:

The project will be directed by Pete Worden, a former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. He has a prominent cast of advisers, including the Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb as chairman; the British astronomer royal Martin Rees; the Nobel Prize-winning astronomer Saul Perlmutter, of the University of California, Berkeley; Ann Druyan, an executive producer of the television mini-series ‘Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey’ and the widow of Carl Sagan; and the mathematician and author Freeman Dyson, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that their commitment will draw in a sufficient number of investors. Milner’s financial commitment to Starshot may come to naught if the project gets halfway through its initial phase of development only to run out of funds and become defunct before it has ever launched a nanocraft.

Conclusion

Starshot, like many space exploration projects of the past several years, was motivated by the fear that the Earth may no longer be habitable for humans in the near future. Stephen Hawking has discussed multiple potential threats to human existence on Earth, ranging from global warming to asteroids to supernovas. The idea of becoming a multi-planetary species may seem like the stuff of science fiction but an increasing number of the leading minds of science and technology are committing to distributing the human race across the stars.

While proposals like Elon Musk’s plan to put humans on Mars by 2025 are still being written off as overambitious and perhaps alarmist, there is a growing shift in the message behind space exploration: it is less for our own curiosity and more for our own survival. Projects like Breakthrough Starshot require a massive amount of technological innovation and financial investment, which makes their feasibility seem slim at best–but considering how rapidly space travel has developed since the 1950s, it is not absurd to consider that Milner’s nanocraft could be reaching the stars within a matter of decades. At this time, the most pressing limitation on Starshot’s capacity is financial, but if sufficient investment is provided, we may be visiting the stars before the century is out.

Resources

BBC: Hawking Backs Interstellar Travel Project

Sci-Tech Today: Starshot: Russian Billionaire and Stephen Hawking Back New Space Program

TIME: Yuri Milner, Digital Sky Technologies

NPR: Stephen Hawking’s Plan For Interstellar Travel Has Some Earthly Obstacles

Inverse: Apocalyptic Fears Drive Stephen Hawking’s Support for Breakthrough Starshot

Popular Science: Stephen Hawking Answers Our Questions on the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative 

Cosmos Magazine: Space Lasers and Light Sails: the Tech Behind Breakthrough Starshot

Christian Science Monitor: Stephen Hawking Proposes to Hunt for Aliens with a Fleet of Tiny Spaceships

New York Times: Reaching for the Stars, Across 4.37 Light-Years

Editor’s Note: This post has been edited to update the Breakthrough Starshot timeline. 

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Breakthrough Starshot and the Acceleration of Space Travel appeared first on Law Street.

A hospital in Los Angeles, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, recently agreed to pay a ransom of $17,000. But the ransom wasn’t paid to free some worker held hostage or to prevent the release of a catastrophic pathogen. Instead it was handed over to hackers for the safe return of its patients’ medical files. Hackers managed to penetrate the hospital’s computers and encrypt its files, and demanded a large sum to be paid in the form of Bitcoins. While this scenario sounds far-fetched, this type of crime is actually on the rise. Read on to find out more about ransomware, bitcoins, why these types of attacks are increasing, and what can be done to stop them.

What is Ransomware?

Ransomware is a type of malware employed by hackers to stop users from accessing their own information or data.  It does this in one of two ways. Either a screen is locked and instructions are provided for unlocking it, or important information is encrypted and a password or key known only to the hackers is required to reopen the essential information. While the exact date of ransomware’s origin is non-definite, it appears to have started in Russia sometime around 2006, spreading globally by 2012.

By 2013, ransomware hackers were using encryption through something known as CryptoLocker. Before encryption, ransomware typically blocked people from using their computers or tricked users into paying to regain access to their computers. An example of this is Reveton, which shows notifications claiming to be from a law enforcement agency, informing the user that a crime has been committed and a fine must be paid. But such malware could be uninstalled or removed with an antivirus program, though even that can be particularly difficult. When encryption came on the scene, hackers began encrypting files, making it impossible for users to access their own information without an encryption key. Even if the ransomware is removed, the files remain encrypted. This key element of ransomware is what makes it both very dangerous and lucrative, as it can be removed yet continue to do damage.

In 2014, ransomware hackers also began using the Tor network to remain anonymous. Tor is a unique network that does not directly plug into the internet, connecting through a series of servers instead. Hackers began using this network to communicate with command and control servers that store the encryption key, which can be sent to an infected computer after a ransom is paid. Doing so makes it nearly impossible to track an attack to an individual because their identity is concealed throughout the process.

The accompanying video gives a quick look at what ransomware is:

Payment

Paying the ransom part of ransomware is also an increasingly complex process. In the case of ransomware like Reveton, hackers often request payment through several services that are difficult to trace such as UKash, PaySafeCard, and MoneyPak. But a growing trend among these hackers has been to request the money in Bitcoins, which is how the hospital in Los Angeles paid its ransom. Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency that exist entirely online with no physical presence. Bitcoins are not controlled by a central bank and are based on mathematics, making it completely decentralized and not tied to the value of a commodity like gold or silver. Bitcoin is particularly attractive to hackers because of the anonymity it provides.

Growing Popularity of Ransomware

The threat of ransomware is also on the rise. As of January 2013, there had been 100,000 such attacks but by the end of that year alone that number rose to nearly 600,000, according to Antivirus software company Symantec. Symantec also looked at data from command and control servers used by ransomware hackers to estimate how profitable these scams really are. According to its calculations, hackers can earn around $33,600 per day, amounting to as much as $394,000 in a month. Two primary questions remain: how do hackers select targets and why are attacks increasing?

To answer the first question, targets so far have generally been chosen at random, although future hackers could research a target beforehand to find the most lucrative one. While targets are generally chosen at random, many victims have been infiltrated by viruses or spyware before, suggesting that certain victims may be chosen simply because their systems are easy to penetrate. Traditionally, these random targets were individuals who paid small sums, but recently, the size of the target and the requested ransoms have increased. Conventional wisdom on the use of ransomware is also changing as the payment for these random attacks has shifted more and more to Bitcoins.

Bitcoins help answer the second question–why are ransomware attacks on the rise? While Bitcoin is completely transparent when it comes to transactions, it is often very difficult to trace a Bitcoin address back to an individual, making it easy for hackers to remain anonymous. The rise of Bitcoin has given hackers a reliable and anonymous method to receive ransom payments, which likely contributes to the rise in ransomware attacks.

The video below comments on the attack in LA and the rise of such attacks:

Stopping Ransomware

So with ransomware attacks increasing, how can people avoid falling victim?  There are several steps any user can take to eliminate or, at least, mitigate their exposure to dangerous ransomware. First is to use a reputable anti-virus software to help prevent and remove malicious programs. But reputation is important, as there are many fake options that may actually give your computer a virus. Similarly, it is important to make sure your computer’s existing firewall is strong and activated.

Even with anti-virus software in place and a strong firewall, it is still paramount to be cautious. Using a pop-up blocker and being careful when opening email attachments is also an important way to avoid exposure. It is additionally important to back up files and information regularly. If you have a backup of your files in the cloud or on an external hard drive, you will still have access to your information even after it is encrypted by ransomware.

In the event of a ransomware attack, it is also important to get the authorities involved, including the FBI, as ransomware is generally beyond the scope of local police departments. In fact, the police themselves are not immune to attacks either, as police departments in both the Boston area and in Maine fell victim and paid subsequent ransoms.

So far, the FBI has actually had some success fighting ransomware.  In 2013, for example, it stopped the software platform Citadel, which was behind the Reveton-style ransomware attacks. In 2014, the FBI also disrupted a major botnet–a network of computers used to infect computers with malware– and seized control of the servers behind CryptoLocker. While the FBI has had some success fighting these hackers, in certain cases the bureau says the best way to fight ransomware is to actually pay the ransom. While this goes against the conventional wisdom of not giving into criminals’ demands, the encryption used is often nearly impossible to crack and the requested ransoms may be relatively small. Put simply, for some people its often easier to just pay up.

Conclusion

Not only is ransomware on the rise, it is becoming much harder to combat and hackers are moving to even more lucrative targets. While it is bad enough that individuals often have to deal with ransomware, hackers are now starting to go after essential institutions such as police departments and hospitals. While targets take on an ever-growing importance, the reality is that ransomware is not going away anytime soon. In many respects, ransomware is not that different from other types of malware, with the exception that it offers to restore the user’s capabilities for the right price. As is the case with other malware, ransomware shows no signs of fading. Its methods are becoming more effective and recovering payments is easier than it has ever been.

Unfortunately, potential targets and those already affected have little recourse in this battle. While the FBI has made some progress, even it suggests that paying up for relatively small amounts may be victims’ best option. An important question going forward is how to respond if hackers increasingly target important institutions. And as the profiles of these targets increase, will the ransoms increase as well?

Resources

Symantec: Ransomware: A Growing Menace

Tech Times: LA Hospital Hit By Ransomware Pays Hackers $17,000: Is It The Right Choice

Trend Micro: Ransomware

Tor Project: Tor Overview

Coin Desk: What is a Bitcoin?

Phys.org: Why Ransomware is on the rise

Norton: Beware the Rise of Ransomware

Federal Bureau of Investigations: Ransomware on the Rise

The Security Ledger: FBI’s Advice on Ransomware? Just Pay The Ransom

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Ransomware: Holding Our Digital Lives Hostage? appeared first on Law Street.

Phones, MP3 players, tablets, even watches have been heralded as next big thing in technology over the past decade or so. Now, however, that title belongs to Virtual Reality. Companies ranging from Facebook to Google to Microsoft have developed or are developing headsets that allow users to finally realize the virtual reality experience. While the industry is still in its infancy, a recent surge in funding and attention suggests virtual reality break-throughs in a number of different aspects of everyday life ranging from video games to movies. Read on to learn about the next big thing starting with its origins, how it actually works, what is currently available on the virtual reality market, and what is on the horizon.

History of Virtual Reality

The concept of virtual reality extends all the way back into the 1860s, when artists created 3-D circular pictures. However, like many other inventions, the progression of virtual reality was neither linear, nor was it the result of the work of just one person.   The rise of modern virtual reality can be traced the 1950s. In 1957 a man named Martin Hellig invented something known as the Sensorama, which combined 3-D pictures with wind, sound, and various smells.

This vision was shared by technician named Douglas Engelbart who saw the potential for digital displays in the future. His vision began being realized as part of a larger effort on behalf of the United States government to design a new radar system, whose recordings would be easier for humans to understand and interpret.

This work started bearing fruit in the 1960s when another scientist, Ivan Sutherland, developed a headset to design cars and mechanical parts on a computer. Another leap forward came in the form of flight simulators, which became increasingly popular in the 1970s as they offered a safer alternative to flight training than the actual thing. Initially, the simulator started off as stitched together movies, however as the technology advanced so they began offering video simulations that placed the person in the virtual cockpit.

VR also made it to the movies, as evidenced by the increasing incorporation and even reliance on visual effects in Hollywood blockbusters. In fact the first movie to depict the notion of Virtual Reality was the original Tron, which was released in 1982. VR was utilized in the video game industry as well as in arcades and early headsets, like Sega’s model form 1993. VR was also developed to assist with various rehabilitation exercises, namely to help those dealing with PTSD.  The video below takes an in-depth look at the history of virtual reality:

How does virtual reality work?

What exactly is virtual reality? For a basic definition it can be thought of as a computer generated three-dimensional world. This world can be experienced as the real world is, through sights, smells, and sounds. The basic parameters of generating virtual reality are similar, objects have to be life sized and there has to be some tracking mechanism, so when the viewer’s perspective changes what he or she sees also changes.

A key component of this is a concept known as immersion. Immersion includes depth and breadth of information. These deal with how a user interacts with their virtual environment and how effectively that environment is presented to them. There’s also another concept known as latency, which is the lag time between when a user changes their perspective to when the new perspective is clear. If the delay is too long, the immersive experience can be ruined. One important consideration regarding virtual reality is that while many of the recent models require or offer some form of a headset, a headset is not required to experience VR.

The Virtual Reality Industry

Presently

The number and quality of VR options on the market already vary widely. On the simplistic side is Google Cardboard, literally a cardboard box and a pair of lenses, which with a smart phone placed inside can give the illusion of virtual reality. At the other end of the spectrum are headsets like those produced by Oculus Rift. Oculus was initially funded through the crowd-sourcing site Kickstarter, until it was bought by Facebook for $2 billion dollars.

The Rift however, is not alone on the high end of virtual reality. Several rival headsets are also in production including the Samsung Gear, HTC Vive, and the Sony Morpheus. Perhaps the most intriguing rival is Microsoft’s HoloLens. Unlike the other headsets, which strictly focus on generating a virtual reality, the Microsoft headset is capable of augmented reality. Augmented reality is combining elements of the virtual and real world together.

Regardless of whichever headset a user prefers, there are number of uses for virtual reality already. Aside from some of the uses mentioned earlier such as gaming, treating PTSD, and training pilots, VR is also becoming valuable in sports. In football training, players can relive past situations in the hopes of better being able to diagnose how to perform in a certain situation in the future.

VR is helping dentists train as well, by offering an environment where they can learn without causing any real or feared damage to their patients. Virtual reality is also being employed in everything from public speaking training to helping people rehabilitate from strokes.

On the Horizon

So, what is next from this technology? Like with the advent of 3D movies, one of the first impacted fields will likely be the film industry. In July of this year, Oculus signed a deal with Felix and Paul Studios to produce VR videos. There are other deals also in place for companies like Samsung and Google, who are using their own VR devices to provide customers with virtual experiences.

Along with movies, another area that is increasingly incorporating VR is the gaming industry. In fact Facebook’s Oculus Rift headset was developed originally for video games. There are also a number of competitors, including Sony and Microsoft, who are also planning to use their own headsets along with their video game systems.

Additionally, it has been suggested that VR can play more of a role in everyday pursuits. For example, imagine a courtroom setting where jurors could potentially put on one of these headsets and be transported to a crime scene so they could more clearly appreciate the facts of a case.

Conversely, while Facebook and its competitors see VR as a medium accessed through a headset that may not be its final form. In fact according to a study by Siemens Research people completing tasks guided by one of the headsets are actually less successful than those simply following a paper manual. The article suggests an alternative to the headset in general. This comes in the form of improving camera and display technology for a more immersive experience.

For any of this to be accomplished though, the major challenges of VR must still be confronted. First is solving issues with tracking–a major problem for early versions of VR is that they couldn’t accurately respond to a user. Secondly, environments themselves must also be developed that are complex enough to grab a user’s attention, but can also match what the user perceives, meaning he or she should hear wind if they see a tornado. The following video looks at virtual reality and its future:

Conclusion

VR has certainly made leaps and bounds over the decades, evolving from 3D images to headsets that can increasingly mimic natural surroundings. Nevertheless, for all the progress made, there is still much farther to go. Most of the tech heavyweights have put considerable resources behind this technology, but there are still few early returns.

Additionally, even when these headsets start hitting the market in earnest, either later this year or early next, their actual availability may still be limited to a number of factors, such as cost. The Oculus headset for example, is projected to run for as much as $1500 dollars. Additionally, precisely how VR will be used remains a mystery. While there is talk of it infiltrating all corners of modern life, the initial efforts seem limited to video games, videos, and to enthusiasts. Even the idea of a headset is not set is stone, as other traditional uses such as screens present strong alternatives.  Virtual reality may one day be the end all, be all of technology. For now though, all most people can do is sit back, relax and imagine a world where VR reigns supreme.

Resources

How Stuff Works: How Virtual Reality Works

The Week: 6 Innovative Uses for Virtual Reality

Tom’s Hardware: The Past, Present and Future of VR and AR

University of Illinois: Virtual Reality History

CNET: Google Cardboard Reviewed

Wareable: The Best VR Headsets

Read Write: Virtual Reality Films Could Put the Whole Industry in the Spotlight

Game Rant: Virtual Reality in Gaming

Forbes: No More Headgames

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Making Reality Virtual: The Rising Tide of Virtual Reality appeared first on Law Street.

America is dealing with a hacking crisis. It seems that every other day we are bombarded with the latest hacking stories from both the private and public sectors. We are told to be cautious with all of our online activity and to remember all uploaded material remains in cyberspace forever. Almost all of us personally know someone who has dealt with identity theft and all the hassles that ensue. Some of the biggest companies in the world with the means to access the most anti-hacking software available aren’t immune to the problem. Even the national government recently made headlines concerning Chinese cyber attacks. So what can be done? In his 2015 State of the Union, President Obama addressed cybercrime. The Obama administration proposed new legislation and amendments to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Will these proposals better protect Americans from hackers?

Case Study: Ashley Madison

Just last week, a new team of hackers were at it again. People are already discreet about dating websites and apps. A level of anonymity is essential for a high volume of users. This is even truer when a dating website revolves around married men and women cheating. Ashley Madison’s slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.” Some may chalk it up to karma, but the invasion of privacy for these members is real.

The hackers call themselves “The Impact Team.” According to Brian Krebs, the blogger who initially reported the hack, they threatened to release stolen information unless the website shut down entirely. Apparently, the team gathered users’ nude photos, sexual fantasies, names, and credit card information. It also claims to have addresses from credit card transactions.

Members of the website can post basic information and use limited features without charge. The company rakes in money when members exchange messages, photographs, and gifts. The website even offers a feature to “collect gifts” for women to send and men to pay for later. The website also has a $19 deactivation fee. This happens to be one of the major qualms of the hacker team, who claim that information is never truly deleted from the website. The hackers’ manifesto published by Krebs stated, “Full Delete netted $1.7 million in revenue in 2014. It’s also a complete lie…Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real names and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”

Ashley Madison boasts over 37 million members, making it the second largest dating website in the world, second to Match.com. Ashley Madison’s parent company, Avid Life Media, values itself at $1 billion and was looking to go public on the London market this year. Ashley Madison has done away with the deactivation fee, but has yet to comment on whether or not it will shut down.

Although the majority of people aren’t online dating in order to have an affair, the hack embodies everything scary about online interactions. Personal information and discreet activities on websites or social media applications can be made public in the blink of an eye. Just this past March, 3.5 million AdultFriendFinder users were hacked. The hackers exposed email addresses, usernames and passwords, birthdays, zip codes, and sexual preferences. Overall, the trend doesn’t look good.

Hacking Statistics

Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report

Verizon conducts an annual Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). The latest report shows that 96 percent of online security incidents fall into nine patterns: “miscellaneous errors, such as sending an email to the wrong person; crimeware (various malware aimed at gaining control of systems); insider/privilege misuse; physical theft/loss; web app attacks; denial-of-service attacks; cyberespionage; point-of-sale intrusions; and payment card skimmers.” The 2015 report investigates more than 2,100 data breaches and roughly 80,000 reported security incidents. Over 70 organizations around the world help contribute to the report.

The 2015 DBIA reports a $400 million loss from approximately 700 million compromised records in 61 countries. The report shows that in 70 percent of the cases where the hacker’s motivation is known, there is a secondary victim. This is exemplified in the Ashley Madison case. Although the hackers are targeting the owners of the company, the users are violated as well. And in 60 percent of cases, hackers are able to infiltrate a company in a matter of minutes. The time of discovery falls significantly below that level.

The method of tricking people into divulging their information, like credit card numbers, is still around but is a much less effective method. Now, phishing campaigns are a primary source of attacks. A hacker usually phishes by sending an email with malware, usually included as an attachment. Today 23 percent of recipients open these types of email and 11 percent open the attachments. For over two years, more than two-thirds of cyber-espionage included phishing.

In more uplifting news, malware on cellphones doesn’t even account for 1 percent of the problem. Mobile devices are not the preferred medium for data breaches. Only about 0.03 percent of cell phones contained malicious materials.

U.S. Companies Hacked

According to a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, the financial loss by cybercrime doubled from 2013 to 2014. Retailers lost approximately $8.6 billion in 2014 due to cyber crime. Furthermore, successful cyber attacks resulted in a $20.8 million loss in financial services, $14.5 million loss in the technology sector, and $12.7 million loss in the communications industries.

Last year was plagued by cyber attacks. In January, Target announced 70 million customers had contact information compromised, while 40 million customers had credit and debit card information compromised. In the same month, Neiman Marcus announced that 350,000 customers had credit card information stolen, resulting in fraudulent charges on 9,000 customers’ credits cards. In April, an AT&T worker hacked the system for two weeks and accessed personal information including social security numbers. In May, EBay asked all its customers to switch their passwords after a cyber attack accessed over 233 million EBay customers’ personal information. In August, over 60 UPS stores around the country were hacked, compromising financial data. The list continues…

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

In order to combat these cyber attacks, Congress passed the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The act made accessing a protected computer a federal crime. Although it was initially established to protect government organizations and a few financial institutions, over the course of time, it eventually broadened. It was first amended in 1994 to allow private citizens to file civil suits against cyber attacks that resulted in loss or damages. It was again broadened in 1996 to encompass any computer used in interstate commerce. After 9/11, the Patriot Act amended the CFAA to permit the search and seizure of records from any Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Later in 2008, the CFAA was again amended to allow companies to file suits when the loss and/or damages did not surpass $5,000.

The CFAA has been subject to its fair share of criticism. Many believe the act to be too broad in scope. Opponents argue that computer policies are often “vague, confusing and arbitrary,” and breaking these policies shouldn’t be a federal violation. Institutions, like the Center for Democracy & Technology, Americans for Tax Reform, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the American Civil Liberties Union all have advocate against the CFFA.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. In a 2012 case, United States vs. Nosal, the court ruled that “a person who violates an employer’s computer use policy is not criminally liable for federal penalties under the Act.” The court argued that the law was not enacted to federally punish smaller crimes. However, a strong dissent left the issue controversial, if not unresolved. The definition of “exceeds authorized access” left ample room for a Supreme Court review. The crime only becomes a felony if it is executed for profit, the gained information is worth over $5,000, and/or the act is committed to further a state or federal crime.

The White House’s New Proposals

The Cyber Security Legislative Proposals aim to enhance cybersecurity information sharing between the private sector and government, modernize law enforcement authorities to combat cyber crime with the appropriate tools and training, and streamline national data breach reporting requirements. Last December President Obama announced,

In this interconnected, digital world, there are going to be opportunities for hackers to engage in cyber assaults both in the private sector and the public sector. Now, our first order of business is making sure that we do everything to harden sites and prevent those kinds of attacks from taking place…But even as we get better, the hackers are going to get better, too. Some of them are going to be state actors; some of them are going to be non-state actors. All of them are going to be sophisticated and many of them can do some damage.

A main target of the proposal is a number of amendments to the already-controversial CFAA. First, the proposal would increase the penalty for “circumventing technical access barriers,” i.e. hacking into a computer by sidestepping security or guessing another’s password. Violators under the current law risk a misdemeanor to a three-year felony. The proposal advocates punishment to start as a three-year felony and maximize as a ten-year felony.

Second, for contract-based crimes, the proposal would officially end the aforementioned circuit split. It states that breaking written policies would be a federal crime and officially defines “exceeds authorized access.” A person would exceed authorized access if he or she accesses information “for a purpose that the accesser knows is not authorized by the computer owner.” Technically, this would include using a work computer for personal activities like Facebook; however, the government would limit criminal liability by requiring the violation fall under one of three conditions: the breach happened on a government computer, the breach results in over $5,000 worth of information, or “if the user violated the written condition in furtherance of a state or federal felony crime.” These changes, along with a variety of others, make up the administration’s proposal.

Conclusion

Whether these proposals will pass through Congress remains to be seen. Broadening the scope of hacking to allow more crimes to fall under federal jurisdiction has traditionally lacked support from the body. The proposals are controversial, with a lot of personal information and accessibility at stake. It will be interesting to see the reaction from the public if these proposals are enacted. Cyber crime is an ongoing problem that affects all citizens, regardless of demographics, and only seems to be exploding. If this isn’t the answer, then what is?

Resources

Primary

White House: Updated Administration Proposal

Additional

Verizon: The 2015 DBIR

CNN Money: Hackers threaten to release names from adultery website

The Heritage Foundation: Cyber Attacks on U.S. Companies in 2014

Jolt Digest: United States vs. Nosal

Tech Target: What is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?

The Washington Post: Obama’s proposed changes to the computer hacking statute

The White House: Securing Cyberspace

Verizon: Verizon 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report Finds Cyberthreats Are Increasing in Sophistication

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Combatting Cyber Attacks: Will Congress Adopt Obama’s Plans? appeared first on Law Street.

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In the two years since former government contractor Edward Snowden released information about the extent to which the United States government was surveilling its citizens, the push to be able to protect private information has gotten much stronger. Protected email accounts and versions of the web existed well before Snowden’s leaks; however, discussions over how to truly protect online communication have proliferated since. One important aspect of these conversations is whether it’s appropriate to continue to allow the government to have access to citizens’ communications, but there’s simply no easy answer to these questions.

It’s within this wholly uncertain context that lawyers and law schools are beginning to address these questions. Southwestern Law School, a leading voice in media law located in Los Angeles, California, is one of the institutions tackling these issues head on. Recently, Southwestern Law’s Donald E. Biederman Entertainment and Media Law Institute hosted its annual online privacy conference, featuring a panel entitled “Government Access to Data: Surveillance, Privacy and Security After Snowden.” The panel featured leading voices in the field of online privacy: Jon Callas, a cofounder of both Blackphone and Silent Circle, and Timothy Edgar, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a visiting fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. It was moderated by Lee Tien, Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Read on to learn about the panel’s discussions on the topic of private email and its role in the legal field.

Protecting Online Communication: A History

In order to explore the discussion about online privacy that the Southwestern Law panel undertook, it’s important to understand the context of protected communication. Even before Snowden’s leak, no one liked to imagine that their private communications were easily readable. More importantly, so many of us now store our most important information online–whether that is bank accounts, identification information, or medical records. Pieces of our personal information that used to be kept under lock and key in paper form are now stored in electronic, intangible ways. So it makes sense that ever since this kind of online storage has existed, some have sought to protect their information from prying eyes.

But after Snowden’s leak the urge to protect information became particularly focused on one set of prying eyes: the U.S. government. During the Southwestern Law panel, Tien introduced the complicated conversation about protected communication as follows:

That issue has come back in the post-Snowden world. Because one of the things that became really, really clear from his revelations is that the government spends a lot of time and energy thinking about how it can subvert and undermine the technology we use to protect our privacy.

Email Encryption

This brings us to the concept of encrypted email–one of the most basic building blocks of protected communication. There are multiple ways to encrypt email, but at its most simplistic form, encryption means that a message cannot be read by anyone who is not authorized to do so–whether it’s a government agency, employer, or a hacker looking for vulnerable personal information to exploit.

Encrypted email usually involves public and private “keys.” As the names indicate, public keys are available to the public–essentially anyone with whom you want to trade emails–and private keys are kept by the owner of the email account. Imagine Person A wants to exchange emails with Person B. Person A gives Person B her public key, and Person B writes an email, then uses the public key to encrypt it. When Person A receives the email, she needs to use her private key to unlock the email that has been encrypted with the public key–and because she’s the only one who has the private key, she’s the only one who is able to do so.

Of course, that is just encryption at a very basic level and it can be significantly more nuanced than that. The encryption described above requires some people to have keys–usually an account provider such as Gmail, for example. The next level of encryption that is said to be on the horizon will place the encryption process on the computer rather than on servers, so even the company providing the service won’t have the key. But that’s also where the legal concerns the Southwestern Law panel discussed start to come into play.

The Legality of Encrypted Email

There’s nothing inherently illegal about encrypting emails, but that hasn’t stopped those who create the programs and services from running into legal trouble here and there, particularly with the United States government. One case discussed by the Southwestern Law panel surrounded an email service called Lavabit, founded by entrepreneur Ledar Levison. Snowden used Lavabit, and when he fled the country after revealing information about the NSA’s surveillance program, the FBI wanted to access his account. However, the government requested the private encryption key for Lavabit generally in its attempt to access Snowden’s key. Lavabit provides encrypted email to nearly half a million people. Levison at first was unwilling to give that information, and chose to shut down the company after a very long legal back and forth in which he was served multiple times. The dominant narrative about what happened to Lavabit focuses on the complicated nature of what the FBI was asking for. During the panel, Tien explained the sheer difficulty of what the government was asking Levison to do:

After Lavabit shut down, some similar companies followed in its wake. SilentCircle, also offering encrypted email services, shut down in anticipation of similar issues with the government at some point in the future. Callas, a co-founder of SilentCircle, explained the decision to shut down while at the Southwestern panel, citing fear of a reputation hit, and saying that “when the house next door gets raided, you wonder if you’re next, and that’s when you make sure that your shredder is working.”

Despite Lavabit’s abrupt closure, companies haven’t stopped their quests to create truly private, encrypted email–they’ve just had to become more careful. One of the new companies that sprung up in the wake of the Snowden revelations and the subsequent focus on encrypted email is called ProtonMail. It promises that new frontier of encryption: a company that doesn’t have the keys to encrypted email. If a company doesn’t have the keys itself–the way Lavabit did–it can’t provide them when the government comes to call. Andy Yen, one of the founders of Proton Mail, explained:

We encrypt the data on the browser before it comes to the server. By the time the data comes to the server it’s already encrypted, so if someone comes to us and says we’d like to read the emails of this person, all we can say is we have the encrypted data but we’re sorry we don’t have the encryption key and we can’t give you the encryption key.

ProtonMail isn’t the only new service that’s attempting to make encrypted email even more private. Levison, along with a number of like-minded partners, created the Dark Mail Project, which is working on a new set of email protocols called Dime. Dime is specifically focused on metadata in addition to the actual messages being sent. Metadata includes things like location and time when a message was sent. That kind of information has also been highly coveted by the government. Again, like with ProtonMail, the logic is that if the provider doesn’t have the information the government is looking for, the government can’t go after the company.

Whether or not that’s strictly legal, however, does appear to be a gray area. Since some of these features are so cutting edge, it’s hard for American law to keep up with it. As Dailydot explains it:

As the law currently stands, people aren’t required to build online services that are accessible by a government request; but, if your service is in any way penetrable, the operators of those services can be compelled to turn over what information the government could theoretically access.

This lack of clear guidelines has sparked frustration from both email encryption companies and the government, which has led to the government asking for something called a “backdoor.”

Backdoors

A backdoor to encrypted email is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a special entrance for the U.S. government–normally the FBI–to use in order to access data in case it needs to do so. But whether or not they should be instituted is a contentious point of debate. While the Southwestern Law panelists tended to argue against backdoors, in order to understand their points, it’s important to acknowledge the arguments for backdoors purported mainly by the government.

Arguments in Favor of Backdoors

The FBI’s argument for a backdoor is multi-faceted, but it all essentially boils down to a single idea: national security and safety. The most compelling argument is that if these types of software are used to arrange terror plots or other nefarious acts, the FBI, or any other relevant agency, needs to be able to gain access to that information. As President Barack Obama put it in January 2015: “If we find evidence of a terrorist plot…and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or email address, we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem.”

Those who espouse the necessity of backdoors also point out that it has nearly always been possible for the government–particularly the American government–to listen in on or read private correspondence between citizens if there is a national security issue at risk. While there are rules about reading citizens’ mail or wiretapping conversations, those options have almost always been open to government officials if the proper channels and rules were followed. The idea that a type of communication could be created in which the government simply could not access the messages is not consistent with American security practices to date.

Arguments Against Backdoors

One of the strongest arguments on this side is that creating a backdoor for the government weakens the system as a whole. There’s really no way to create a backdoor that only the U.S. government can use–it creates vulnerabilities that enterprising hackers, terrorist groups, or foreign governments can also exploit, albeit with a bit more difficulty. So, allowing the government to have access to encrypted emails in order to fight terrorism could backfire and weaken national security.

There’s also a counter-argument to the idea that the U.S. government has traditionally had access to our private communication. This argument posits that the government’s ability to search private citizens doesn’t entitle it to whatever it wants, but rather gives it permission to try to gain access. As Edgar put it during the Southwestern Law panel:

The FBI director has been making the government’s traditional argument, which is the government has a right to monitor communications as long as they get a lawful order for it, under whatever that legal standard is. And I’ve always thought, even since law school, that just gets it completely backwards. The government’s warrant isn’t a right, it’s a permission. It’s a judge saying you are permitted under the law to do something that if you were a private citizen would be illegal because we think it’s important for law enforcement or national security.

There’s also the concern that the U.S. government would use backdoors to continue one-size-fits-all surveillance on American citizens. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of Americans think it is acceptable for the U.S. government to monitor suspected terrorists, yet only 37 percent of Americans think it’s acceptable for the government to spy on American citizens. Given the significant evidence that that type of monitoring was exactly what was happening, it makes sense that many would be hesitant to allow the American government in to monitor “terrorists” if that means giving it access to non-suspects as well.

So is it actually possible to have entirely private email?

It’s not an easy question to answer. Instead, it’s a matter of weighing priorities and sacrifices, and those aren’t consistent from person to person, let alone the American government as a whole. Southwestern Law, as well as other legal and academic institutions, is working to answer these questions, but it’s important to keep in mind that there may never be a cut-and-dry answer.

In order for communication to be completely and fully protected, we have to realize that we may get to the point where companies and developers are building systems so protected that no one can break them, not even their creators. That is viewed by some as deeply problematic, because there really will be no ability for surveillance or access for the government at that point.

While we aren’t yet at that point, it’s indubitable that Snowden changed the way that we look at privacy, national security, and communication, and his releases sparked a larger national debate about how to protect email. But the reality is that there may never really be an answer to the question of how to protect our online communications.

Resources

Primary

Southwestern Law: Biederman Institute: Online Privacy Conference

Additional

Lifehacker: How to Encrypt Your Email and Keep Your Conversations Private

Forbes: The Only Email System the NSA Can’t Access

Guardian: Secrets, Lies, and Snowden’s Email: Why I Was Forced to Shut Down Lavabit

Time: Hackers Unveil Their Plan to Change Email Forever

Center for Democracy and Technology: A “Backdoor” to Encryption For Government Surveillance 

Wall Street Journal: Obama Sides With Cameron in Encryption Fight

Slate: Obama Wants Tech Companies to Install Backdoors for Government Spying

Economist: Going Dark

Pew Research Center: Global Opinions of U.S. Surveillance

Southwestern Law School

Southwestern Law School, home of the #1 Entertainment Law program in the country, offers more than 60 courses, seminars, externships and clinics in entertainment and media law through its J.D. curriculum and LL.M. program in Entertainment and Media Law. Southwestern Law School is a partner of Law Street Creative. The opinions expressed in this author’s articles do not necessarily reflect the views of Law Street.

http://www.swlaw.edu/

The post Protecting Email Communication: Is it Possible? appeared first on Law Street.

The gaming industry is massive, raking in $100 billion worldwide. The industry has come a long way since Tetris and Pac-man. Video games are on cellphones–think Candy Crush. Gamers can use a headset to talk to one another half way across the globe while playing out a visually realistic battle scene. The technology is impressive and has lured people in from all different backgrounds and ages. One would think that the diversity of the games would be mirrored in the industry itself; however, critics of the industry frequently lob accusations of misogyny and the perpetuation of rape culture, which is ironic since 48 percent of gamers are women. Is this merely the market responding to the demand of its consumers or is this the industry actively demeaning a large section of its customer base?

Gender Roles Inside the Games

Female Gamers

A female presence has always been in the gaming industry, but it has skyrocketed in the last few years. In 2011, 1.2 million girls and women played on their consoles more than five days a week. Today that number is more than 5 million.

It is time to change the face of the stereotypical gamer. In reality, males between the ages of 10-25 only account for 15 percent of the market. Puzzle-oriented games on cell phones, like Words With Friends, have created a more diverse marketplace. For example, according to the Entertainment Software Association, from 2012-2013, female gamers over the age of 50 increased by 32 percent. With cell phones and social media, games are much more user-friendly. Game developers took notice and started creating games specifically aimed at women. “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” amassed $51 million since its launch, making it one of the highest grossing apps on iPhones and Androids.

But these types of games cannot take all the credit. Yes, they have helped bring a new audience, but the average female gamer has been playing for more than 13 years, which predates the explosion of such casual mobile games. Many females play more stereotypical games like “Call of Duty” and want to be treated fairly. According to a study conducted by Danielle Keats Citron, author of “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace,” 70 percent of female gamers play as a male character in order to avoid sexual harassment and ridicule. Apparently, playing as a male character ensures equal treatment.

Female Characters

Female characters inside more stereotypical video games like “Assassins Creed” or “World of Warcraft” are sexually objectified and hyper-sexualized. Female protagonists look more like porn stars than badass warriors. Of course, this is only true when female protagonists are even allowed in the games. And female extras are even worse off, some experiencing extreme sexual violence.

The latest installment of “Assassin’s Creed,” for example, offered no female protagonists. Ubisoft technical director James Therien claimed adding a female character would have “doubled the work” for the animation team. Game designer Jonathon Cooper, a lead developer for earlier installments of the game, denied this, estimating it would have only taken days. So what’s the real reason?

When female protagonists are offered, they are hyper-sexualized. Most “women in drawn art, comics, and animation must and show, look and move with flowy, exaggerated gestures, graceful movements, and hip, chest, and ass thrust forward.” These women perpetuate completely unrealistic ideals of women. Skimpy clothing, skirts, bows, and makeup don’t create an advantage in combat.

Then of course there is the damsel-in-distress stereotype. The female character is at a loss until her knight in shining armor type comes to rescue her. For example, there is Princess Peach who “wears a gown, dainty gloves, and a clueless expression, which imply nothing as far as skill and ability, unless you consider her special attack: a dimpled, smiling heart that protects her cart.” Her character is indeed less capable than her male counterparts.

“Grand Theft Auto V” promotes extreme sexual violence. Even more exaggerated by a first-person view option, a gamer can watch as a prostitute services the character. All you need to do is drive or walk up close to a prostitute. It can even boost character health to more than 100 percent. And in the end, you can kill the prostitute and take your money back. Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of GTA’s publisher Take-Two, called this type of scene “beautiful art.”

LGBTQ Characters

Females are not the only demographic portrayed negatively in the video game world. The LGBTQ community is just as much underserved. Although there are exceptions, most LBGTQ video game characters come out as the villain. The “Metal Gear Solid” series depicts the variety of gay and bisexual characters as enemies of the main character. “Fable II“ and “Fable III” represent the bisexual character, Reaver, as fickle and decadent. The protagonist in “Ballad of Gay Tony“ is a murdering “drug-addicted crime lord.” More often than not, LGBTQ characters are absent. But when they are provided, the associations with the characters are almost entirely negative.

 Professional Women in the Industry

As proved, the number of women playing video games is only on the rise. This is cannot be said, however,  for the number of women taking on professional roles in the gaming industry. Only 11 percent of women are game designers and only three percent are programmers. This is even more shocking when compared to the percentages of women in graphic design (60 percent) and tech sectors (25 percent). And according to a 2011 survey by Gamer Developer Magazine, female programmers make $10,000 less a year and female designers make $12,000 less than their male counterparts.

In November 2012, a massive Twitter conversation, among thousands of men and women gamers and developers was sparked by the tweet “Why aren’t there more female game developers?” Answers ranged from safety (females being groped at conventions) to blank stare responses to questions about over-sexualized female characters. The conversation received national coverage and long awaited recognition.

There are notable and exciting exceptions. Kirsten Duvall has been working in the industry for the last 20 years and is currently the Business Development Director of Everyplay Unity Technologies. Tracy Fullerton is the Director and experimental game designer at the University of South Carolina’s Innovation Lab. USC is one of the world’s leading video game schools. And Chelsea Howe is an extremely effective Creative Director at EA Mobile. These women prove that female success in the industry can be done regardless of the rocky road.

Case Study: #GamerGate

Here is a look at a prime example of the hostility women can face in the industry. Gamergate started around two women: Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Quinn, a game designer, released a free game/interactive story called Depression Quest. Quinn’s ex-boyfriend publicly claimed in a number of lengthy blogs that Quinn had cheated on him with people in the field to further her career. It boiled down to Quinn being accused of trading coverage for sex and ethics in journalism. The attacks spiraled out of control leading to death threats. Days later, Sarkeesian, a feminist writer and media critic, got thrown into the mix. Sarkeesian previously advocated for less sexualized female characters and greater female inclusion. Sarkeesian’s video series “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” received a lot of attention. Her unpopular opinion was answered with unspeakable malice.

This was not your run-of-the-mill negative attention. Both women received graphic and disturbing threats and felt it necessary to leave their homes. These threats all came under the viral hashtag #Gamergate. Shortly after, Jenn Frank and Mattie Brice, notable women in the industry who defended Quinn and Sarkeesian, announced their resignations from the industry due to similar threats.

 The Legal End

Unfortunately as far as regulations go, there are few to none. The courts have time and time again defended game developers under free speech and the First Amendment.

In the 2005 case Entertainment Software Ass’n v. Blagojevich, the federal court found Illinois’ video game statute unconstitutional. It ruled against the previously implemented law banning the distribution to minors of video games with certain violent content. The court did, however, mandate labels restricting such video games to adults and ensure retailors displayed signs explaining video game rating systems. The 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision. A year later the same verdict was rendered in Michigan and Louisiana in Entertainment Software Ass’n v. Granholm and Entertainment Software Ass’n v. Foti. Many states endured this battle until the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in California in 2011. In a 7-2 opinion, the court stated “speech about violence is not obscene” and that they are “as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature.”

As of now, the only legislation in effect is the “Video Games Rating Enforcement Act” that mandates specific labels on video games displaying the ratings based on violent content. One bill introduced, but untimely denied, was the “Children Protection from Video Game Violence and Sexual Content Act.” The act advocated for stricter regulations regarding viewership and video game content. The bill died in the House.

Conclusion

Females are serious heavyweights in the gaming community more than ever before. They love to play as much as males. This includes games of all intensities from Zelda to Trivia Crack. The industry is just starting to take this demographic seriously. But the hostility and open sexism toward women is real and can’t go unchecked, even if it isn’t coming from the majority of gamers. Industry leaders need to make the inclusion of women a priority, and they can start by hiring more of the many intelligent, competent women in the industry.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Congress: Video Game Legislation

Additional

Boston Globe: Women Remain Outsiders in Video Game Industry

Washington Post: More Women Play Video Games Than Boys, and Other Surprising Facts Lost in the Mess of Gamergate

Daily Dot: How Sexist Video Game Animators Keep Failing Women

Entertainment Consumers Association: Video Games and Government Regulations

Fortune: 10 Powerful Women in Video Games

Hastac: Damsels in Distress: Female Representation in Video Games

HuffPost Tech: Sadistic and Decadent: Queering Video Games

Mirror: Grand Theft Auto V: Shocking Video of Prostitute Sex With Gamer in Controversial First-Person Viewpoint

Washington Post: The Only Guide to Gamergate You Will Ever Need to Read

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Gaming Industry: Misogynistic and Living in the Past appeared first on Law Street.

3D printers have revolutionized a multitude of industries. Although they have been around for the last 30 years, people know very little about them. The first few rounds of 3D printers have been crazy expensive, isolating them from the general consumer market. Although there have been buzz-worthy exceptions, the printers have traditionally been out of reach for the general public. But for those with access, like those in the military and medical fields, 3D printing is allowing wonders. As of last year, a new wave of 3D printing seems to have taken off. Less technically advanced versions have hit the everyday market. You can now find them in your average hardware store. The future of this innovation seems limitless. 3D printers could be a household item in the not-too-distant future. With that in mind, institutions like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are already discussing regulations. Read on to learn more about 3D printing and what’s in store for the innovative technology.

 What is 3D Printing?

A 3D printer creates compact, three-dimensional products compared to the average printer that produces an image on paper with ink. The materials used for 3D printing are endless, but include plastic, wax, resin, paper, gold, and titanium. The printer jets are directed by computer-assisted design software to “create an object by spraying or squeezing one thin layer of material at a time onto the platform, then melding them into place with a precisely directed laser.” The culmination of layers eventually form the desired object.

First you must create a virtual design of the intended object. This is done in a Computer Aided Design File using a 3D modeling program. You can also use a 3D scanner in order to make a 3D digital copy of an already existing object before entering it into a 3D modeling program. The software then cuts the final model from the digital file into “hundreds or thousands of horizontal layers” and prints the object “layer by layer,” to ultimately produce a three-dimensional object.

Unlike typical manufacturing processes, 3D printing is an additive process, not a subtractive one. Typically, material is cut away from a larger whole to produce a desired object. The layer-by-layer process of 3D printing is “highly efficient because there is virtually no wastage.” As a bonus, the resulting product can be more minutely detailed and up to 60 percent lighter in weight than a traditionally manufactured product.

Common 3D Printing Methods

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

In this method, the 3D printer lays “high power particles of plastic, metal, ceramic or glass powders” into a specific 3D form. The chosen materials placed in the printer are fused layer by layer on top of a powder bed. After the creation of each layer, “the powder bed is lowered one layer thickness.” The process repeats for each new layer until the desired object is created. The unused powder base remains as a support structure and extra can be used for another printing project.

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

Any home 3D printer would most likely use FDM. In this process, the printer, “extrude[s] a stream of heated or melted thermoplastic material” in the additive layer-by-layer process. Thermoplastic material becomes pliable or moldable at a specific temperature and solidifies again once cooled. As the material leaves the printer through an extrusion nozzle, the material should immediately harden and take the desired shape.

Practical Application

The U.S. Army and 3D-Printed Food

To create 3D-printed food, ingredients are placed in the printer’s cartridge and dispensed in the additive layer-by-layer process to create specific foods. The U.S. Army is looking to develop 3D technology that ultimately creates food that can sustain a warfare environment.

Supplying durable and nutritious food for soldiers in combat is difficult, especially long term. 3D printers offer a possible ingenious solution–3D technology can print food specific to a soldier’s dietary needs. First, a solider would undergo an initial scan that sends nutritional information back to the computer software. If a solider is experiencing a certain vitamin deficiency, for example, a 3D printer can then dispense food that nourishes that individual’s needs.

According to Lauren Oleksyk, a leading food technologist at the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, “some companies are actually considering 3D printing meat or meat alternatives based on plant products that contain the protein found in meat.” As of today, 3D-printed food is only created in powder or liquid forms. Further research will determine if the creation of printed solid food is possible. Military experts and 3D scientists predict soldiers will be eating printed food by 2025.

Medical 3D Developments: Prosthetic Hands

State-of-the-art prosthetic devices are extremely expensive, costing thousands of dollars. 3D printing offers a cheaper alternative. One in one thousand babies are born each year with missing fingers and others lose them due to injuries. Many parents find investing in a costly prosthetic replacement for a growing child impractical as it will need to be soon replaced with another. With 3D technology, the materials used for a prosthetic hand, for example, can cost as little as $20-$50. There are also various volunteer organizations available that share machines and software plans with others in need.

3D prosthetic hands are often made to look fun and colorful for children. They can be made with fluorescent or glow-in-the-dark colors. The Cyborg Beast model “looks like a limb from a Transformer,” while the Raptor Hand and Talon Hand models, “hint at comic-book superpowers.”

The above video shows a 3D-printed prosthetic hand that can open and close by flexing the wrist. This pulls on cables called tendons. Each piece is printed individually and assembled afterward. The printing process is about 20 hours, while assembly takes about two or three hours. Ivan Owen, one of the 3D-printed hands inventors, claimed “it is not much harder than putting together a complex Lego kit.”

The easy accessibility due to volunteers and openly shared machines and software and low cost make 3D prosthetic replacements a true medical wonder. Prosthetic hands are just one of the ways in which 3D technology is changing the face of prosthetics.

Regulations

Regulations must be put into effect for safety, especially as 3D technology enters the medical arena. The FDA states that it regulates 3D devices in essentially the same way it regulates non-3D devices, although there are added questions in the review process. Medical manufacturing companies can conventionally distribute medical devices in a few sizes. With 3D printing, these same products can be inexpensively tailored to the individual. Oxford Performance Materials, a Connecticut-based biomedical firm, printed a cranial prosthetic that replaced 75 percent of a man’s skull. All this innovation, however, must be checked. FDA medical engineer James Coburn explains, “We typically ask manufacturers to put safeguards on their products so you can’t go beyond the design space, so that when you’re patient-matching a device to someone, it will tell you when you have exceeded that limit and won’t let you push beyond it.” This also protects individuals with 3D printers from printing a dangerous device.

3D-printed products in the aviation field are also monitored. They must be fire-resistant and reliable. The Federal Aviation Association (FAA) looks for 3D products that meet or exceed the characteristics of their non-3D counterparts. For example, Custom Control Concepts, a company that “builds tailored interiors for high-end luxury jets,” finds it difficult to win FAA approval. The company uses Ultam (one of the only FAA-approved 3D plastics) and uses an FAA approved on-site testing laboratory. As another example, GE Aviation “uses in-process monitoring” to make sure that the pieces match standards and “puts every third part through a scanner and X-ray it.”

This GE Aviation video demonstrates the making of a 3D jet engine and shows a safety test in progress.

There is also the fear that 3D printing can be used to create weapons. On May 5, 2013 the first 3D gun, called the Liberator, was printed by Defense Distributed, an American organization lead by a “25-year-old Texas law student and committed libertarian named Cody Wilson.” In 2014, Congressman Steve Israel (R-NY) introduced legislation that would fully ban 3D guns. Although it was not successful, he plans to reintroduce legislation that would once again ban 3D guns and all completely plastic firearms. Israel argued:

My legislation is about making sure that we have laws in place to ensure that criminals and terrorists can’t produce guns that can easily be made undetectable. Security checkpoints will do little good if criminals can produce plastic firearms and bring those firearms through metal detectors into secure areas like airports or courthouses.

It is yet to be seen whether this legislation will make it through.

 Conclusion

We have only just seen the beginning of 3D printing. It could enter our everyday lives in force within the next couple of years. Regulations and perfecting various products have slowed the general trend, but the kinks and safety approvals will eventually work themselves out. Researchers and scientists are dedicated to perfecting this new art. The benefits seem utterly limitless. It seems right to invest time, money, and effort into any machine that can give patients new limbs or keep U.S. soldiers healthy, but it’s important to make sure that it’s all done as safely as possible.

Resources

3D Printing: What is 3D Printing?

National Geographic: What, Exactly, is a 3D Printer?

3D Printing for Beginners: A Comprehensive Introduction to 3D Printing Technology

Fed Scoop: How the FDA Regulates 3D devices

Financial Times: Regulatory Concerns Hold Back 3D Printing on Safety

Forbes: US Army Looks to 3D Print Food For Soldiers

Live Science: What is Stereolithography?

The New York Times: Hand of a Superhero

NPR: Army Eyes 3D Printed Food For Soldiers

Popular Mechanics: Should We Be Afraid of the 3D Printed Gun?

Wired: Bill to Ban Undetectable 3D Printed Guns is Coming Back

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Regulating the Innovative World of 3D Printing appeared first on Law Street.

Periscope, a new live-streaming application, was launched less than a month ago, but it’s already making headlines with celebrities and ordinary people alike broadcasting their daily activities and conversing in real time. Live streaming is not a novel concept, but it might be the next big thing in the social media world. As people are ready to embrace this new way of interacting, “periscoping” may soon become a daily activity for many people across the globe. Read on to learn more about Periscope and what live-streaming applications can bring to the table.

What is Periscope?

Periscope is part of the next generation of social media applications that are based on real-time interactions. Acquired by Twitter for nearly $100 million and launched on March 26, 2015, the tool seems to be on the rise.

How was Periscope created? 

Periscope started two years ago when CEO and co-founder Kayvon Beykpour was traveling to Istanbul, Turkey. The protests in Taksim Square, near the hotel in which Beykpour was supposed to stay, became violent; however he couldn’t find any meaningful information on the web about the extent of that violence. Thus, the idea for Periscope was born. He had an urgent need to see the protests in real time, but there was no social platform to do so. Periscope has already demonstrated its abilities to capture events in real time, including live streaming protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and capturing the fires in San Francisco’s Mission District and New York’s Lower East Side.

How does Periscope work?

Periscope is an IOS application that can live stream what you see at any given moment. It can essentially broadcast your every move if you wish. People are already using it in a variety of ways, including artistically, conducting Q&As, walking around a city, talking, or just showcasing their everyday activities. The app also has a way to interact with those who are watching, all in real time. Viewers can choose to ask questions or leave comments that are shown through a trace of messages on the screen, like a live feed. Engagement can also be demonstrated through hearts that viewers can create by tapping the screen as many times as they like. This feature shows viewers’ level of engagement and interest–the more hearts that are tapped, the stronger the viewers’ levels of satisfaction and excitement are.

Unlike other live-streaming apps, Periscope lets you save your broadcasts for a certain period of time, which enables viewers to play back what they’ve already seen. The app also allows viewers to invite their followers to watch a live steam together.

Some users of Periscope report a need for certain technical updates, such as better search features, better browsing, and a better notification system. The developers have already fixed the issue of the “zoomable map” that could pinpoint a person’s location when live streaming, and are continuing to work on other improvements.

Watch the video below to learn more about Periscope from BeyKpour who speaks about his idea and the app’s capabilities.

Is Periscope the first live-streaming app? 

All in all, progressive technological advances constantly change the world of social media interactions and online communication. Facebook was launched in 2004 and forever changed the way people communicate online. Twitter followed in 2006. Both companies have continued to expand by acquiring photo and video-oriented social media platforms; Facebook acquired Instagram, while Twitter bought Vine. Now, new advances are under way and live-streaming applications may be the next big thing.

History of Live-Streaming Apps

Periscope is not the first application to allow users to live stream their experiences. Live streaming has been around since the 1990s when video recording and instant messaging became the big thing. The reason why Periscope is making  waves right now is because live streaming has moved into the mainstream, and people are more comfortable revealing information about themselves.

Even before the idea of Periscope was born there were an abundance of applications that could be described as under the live-streaming umbrella. UStream was founded in 2007 and provides free video-streaming services as well as paid ProBroadcasting options. YouNow, launched in 2011, allows live broadcasting. Justin.TV has been around for several years and just recently was renamed Twitch Interactive, a new platform to broadcast video games or any gaming-related content. Livestream is another app that lets users broadcast and watch live events.

Meerkat

Meerkat is a live-streaming application that was launched on February 27, 2015–one month prior to Periscope. In this regard, Meerkat can be considered the first “new generation” live-streaming app. The application really made its debut last month at SXSW in Austin, Texas. A number of performers were “meerkating,” aka live-streaming their shows, which greatly promoted the app. Meerkat is a real competitor of Periscope as both apps are brand new, well designed, and easy to use. Unlike Periscope, however, Meerkat doesn’t provide an option to save broadcasts–all of its live streams are instant and cannot be replayed.

Watch the video below to learn more about Meerkat from its founder, Ben Ruben.

What are the concerns with using live-streaming apps?

Live streaming applications such as Periscope and Meerkat raise certain concerns, including the infringement of privacy, intellectual property rights, and harassment and cyber bullying.

Infringement of Privacy

Clearly, live streaming can invade peoples’ privacy. If you are in a public space, anybody can live stream you, revealing your activities and location. The fact that one may not wish to be live streamed is irrelevant as there are no real remedies for it. Generally, when people are in public places they don’t expect privacy, but with live streaming, the invasion of privacy becomes more pervasive and inescapable. People can be streamed without their permission or knowledge.

Celebrities and politicians have even greater privacy concerns, as Periscope can provide users with the instant ability to live stream public figures if spotted on the street or in any other public place. It could completely transform the way famous people maintain their images and market themselves.

Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property rights generally protect people’s creations, whether they are in the form of music, design, photography, performance, or any other artistic expression. Intellectual property rights include trademark and copyright laws.

Live streaming is an immediate recording of something that is happening at any given moment, and therefore doesn’t require downloads or saving a copy of one’s broadcast. This leads to confusion as to how to apply existing copyright laws to the new generation of apps that can live stream certain content. In their terms of use, both Meerkat and Periscope state that users are prohibited from exploiting third-party copyrights and trademarks in their live recordings. In addition, under United States copyright laws, it’s illegal to reproduce, distribute, display, or perform a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright holder.

As of now, live streaming is subject to the same laws that protect any copyrighted video, song, or photographic content. If one live streams, he distributes the content of his broadcast to an unknown amount of users and reproduces it at the same time. This can potentially infringe on artists’, publishers’, and labels’ copyrights if the content is copyrighted on the first place.

Simply put, if you live stream at a concert or sporting event, you could violate copyright laws, public performance laws, and exclusive rights of broadcasting stations to live stream an event. Most of the time concert venues and sport leagues clearly state on admission tickets their policies regarding video recording or streaming of the event. Not only can this violate the right of the artist to solely profit from her performance, but in the case of sporting events, can infringe on intellectual property rights of leagues and pay-per-view (PPV) producers. In addition, major television providers spend millions of dollars to obtain exclusive rights to broadcast games and other major events. Record labels’ performance rights can be easily infringed as well by live streaming sound recordings at shows.

It’s possible that live streaming performances and sporting events can also violate reproduction and distribution rights of copyright holders. As Periscope archives users’ live streams for 24 hours, it can potentially infringe on reproduction rights if the saved content is considered intellectual property.

Harassment and Cyberbullying

Using social media can perpetuate harassment and bullying. Generally, every social media platform has rules and protocols that prohibit pornographic or overly sexual content, as well as content that can incite violent, illegal, or dangerous activities. Periscope is not an exception–its community guidelines are crafted to prevent sexual comments and online harassment of any sort. However, the new app is still struggling with enforcing these rules as its instant messages are bursting with sexually explicit communications. It was reported that many female users have been sexually harassed while live streaming.

As Periscope exposes more intimate moments of people’s lives, the dangers of using this technology may become greater than those of other social media. The difficulty can be seen in its live feed, which vanishes in a matter of seconds–how can this dissipating content be reviewed? Private broadcasting settings are another worry as those can appeal to people who operate sex cameras or conduct other illegal activities.

Periscope is a very new app so there are expectations for future updates and technical improvements. The company has acknowledged the need to find a better solution for moderating users’ content, and is working now on a new feature that will allow for the easy and instant blockage of undesirable users.

What changes can live-streaming apps bring to our lives?

With live-streaming applications on millions of smartphones around the globe, changes in media coverage, politics, and advertising are imminent. But the biggest change may be manifested in a completely new kind of online interaction. With Periscope and other live-streaming applications, it will be easier to reconnect with families, and share happy moments such as weddings, birthdays, and graduations all in real time.

Live streaming can revolutionize news reporting by giving media outlets the opportunity to produce real-time news. At the same time, live streaming will create challenges for reporters as events and stories unfold instantly, journalists will have to adapt to the ever-changing dynamics of live-streaming reporting.

The advertising industry will greatly benefit from live-streaming apps, as well as experience difficulties in using such apps for marketing purposes. Live streaming can bring brands closer to customers, provide unbiased and instant feedback about products, and help to promote transparency in companies’ practices. On the other hand, brands that decide to live stream for the purposes of promoting their products may be overwhelmed by the amount of people they will need to alert about their live-broadcasting. Companies will need to make sure that every person featured in live streaming intended for commercial purposes has signed a release, otherwise the brand can be sued for violating personal rights.

The world of politics is about to change, too. Political campaigns can be live streamed, providing instant access to candidates’ everyday activities and all sorts of political events. Labor Secretary Tom Perez and Senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul are already using Meerkat and Periscope to live stream their political endeavors. Some financial and structural constraints of political campaigns may be diminished as live streaming is a free and easy-to-use platform that provides instant access to millions of voters.

Conclusion

Humanity seemingly has no other choice but to embrace new technology and welcome a new generation of social media apps based on live streaming. But as technology evolves so should our laws. There is an urgent need to rethink and reevaluate current laws pertaining to intellectual property rights and synchronize them with technological advances. There is also a need to create better ways to protect individuals from bullying and women from sexual harassment on the web. Media outlets, record labels, and sports leagues should also embrace new technologies. Consumers should be ready for a closer engagement with brands. Meerkat may have started the revolution, but Periscope made a mind-blowing breakthrough. We’ll have to wait and see what’s next when it comes to live streaming.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Copyright Office: Promoting Investment and Protecting Commerce Online: The ART Act, the NET Act, and Illegal Streaming

Additional

Australian Business Review: Periscope: Will the Live-Streaming App Be the Next Big Thing?

ABC News: Periscope, Meerkat, YouNow: Which Live Streaming App is Right For You

BBC News: Periscope: Anglesey Man Behind Video Streaming App

Billboard: The Meerkat Minefield: Legal Issues With Live-Streaming Apps

CBS: Periscope, Meerkat Threaten Multi-Billion Dollar Sports Broadcast Copyrights

Columbia Journalism Review: How Social Media Livestreams Will Impact Political Journalism

Customer Think: As Twitter Acquires Periscope, Live Video Streaming Apps Will Transform Social Media Marketing in the Second Half of 2015

DailyMail: New Live Streaming App Periscope is Already on Its Way to Becoming a Parent’s Worst Nightmare

Fast Company: Streaming Video on Periscope Just Got Way Less Creepy

Graham Cluley: Periscope Raises Privacy Concerns

Guardian: Periscope Up! Twitter’s Live-streaming App is Exciting Us, But Here’s How it Could Be Better

Huffington Post: Why You Should Care About Periscope, Twitter’s New Live-Streaming App

Huffington Post: What Does Periscope’s Live Mobile Streaming Mean to Media?

IT Business: Up Periscope, Down Privacy? Twitter’s Live Streaming Service Bound to Cause Controversy

Kerry O’Shea Gorgone: Meerkat, Periscope, Privacy and the Law: Is Live-Streaming Video Legal?

Legal Zoom: Copyright Law on Streaming PPV Events

MIT Technology Review: Broadcast Every Little Drama

New York Business Journal: Down Periscope: MLB  Set to Crack Down on Live Streaming From the Bleacher

The New York Times: As Twitter Introduces Periscope, Tech Titans Bet on Live Streaming Video

Providence Journal: So Social: Meerkat, Periscope Make it Easy to Live Stream From iPhone

Verge: Periscope, Twitter’s Answer to Meerkat-Style Live Streaming, is Now Available

Wired: Twitter’s Periscope App Lets You Livestream Your World

Valeriya Metla

Valeriya Metla is a young professional, passionate about international relations, immigration issues, and social and criminal justice. She holds two Bachelor Degrees in regional studies and international criminal justice. Contact Valeriya at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Periscope & Meerkat: Live Streaming is the Latest Social Media Development appeared first on Law Street.

As we live in the New Media Age, the internet has become an omnipotent tool that millions of us use every day for a variety of reasons. The internet changed the way we go about our daily lives, providing a myriad of possibilities to meet people, organize tasks, buy products, and even search for people’s public records with the click of a mouse.

Read More: The Big Business of Big Data

As the information broker industry is rapidly growing, the United States is struggling to catch up and adopt comprehensive data protection laws to regulate it. This prompts a discussion on how to balance online access to public records and personal privacy. Read on to learn more about data protection and freedom of information laws, the data broker industry, and the consequences of easy access to online public records.

What are public records?

Public records are documents that can be openly accessed for inspection by any person. Often, personal information becomes a part of a public record when a person interacts with government agencies on the local, state, or federal level. Public records can include quite a collection of data: birth, marriage, death, arrest, tax, property ownership, driver’s license, occupational licenses, and voter registration information. Most of the time, providing personal information to government agencies is mandatory, leaving individuals no choice but to disclose their addresses, social security numbers (SSNs), and medical or employment histories. For example, if one donates over $200 to a political campaign, he has to provide his name, address, and employment information. All of the provided data automatically becomes a matter of an individual’s public record, and can be accessed through countless information broker websites. Court files are also public records, and all information contained within the files, with few exceptions, can be accessed without legal restrictions as well.

How do you access public records?

Historically, public records could be obtained only in paper form by physically going to the government agency or court house that collected and stored the applicable information. Starting in the mid-1990s, courts and government agencies began to provide online access to their public records directories, and to sell public files to information brokers and data compilers. Now, government or information broker websites can provide easy access with just the click of a mouse. The data broker industry is booming with thousands of companies selling all sorts of public records online.

What are information brokers?

Information brokers are companies that collect all sorts of data, including internet browsing information like consumer survey data and social media profiles, analyze an individual’s information, package it, and sell it to advertising and marketing companies. Some of the information brokers also obtain public records from local, state, and federal government agencies, and re-sell them online, adding appropriate packaging and a more sophisticated design to the reports. Many of these companies provide access to public records on a subscription basis, when a member pays a monthly fee for unlimited access to millions of public records. As there are virtually no laws that directly pertain to the information broker industry, public records can be accessed by anyone, regardless of their purpose and intentions. There are also no licensing requirements, no central registration system of any sort, and no mechanism through which it would be possible to request a copy of a personal public record that has been circulating online. Even though the information broker industry has been operating for decades, its volume and scope is much greater now, with thousands of companies mining and compiling individuals’ public records, ready to reveal our most sensitive personal data to anyone at any time.

Watch the video below to learn more about information brokers.

What are the laws that govern the information broker industry in the U.S?

The information broker industry is governed by various data protection and freedom of information laws. While the United States strongly adheres to freedom of information practices codified in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), there is no comprehensive data protection legislation, except for narrowly applicable laws that are subject-specific and limited in scope.

Freedom of Information Laws 

Freedom of information is a fundamental human right recognized in international law and in many national laws around the globe. As of 2012, there were 93 countries that adopted comprehensive freedom of information laws or similar administrative regulations. In the United Sates, the right to access information from the federal government is outlined in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a comprehensive law that provides government accountability and safeguards the freedom to access public records. In addition to this federal legislation, each state has some sort of FOI laws, with different degrees of accessibility and restrictions. As the information broker industry provides services in relation to availability of information contained in public records, it operates within the FOI legal framework.

Data Protection Laws

Data protection laws are centered on safeguarding personal information from unauthorized usage. Worldwide, more than 80 countries have adopted comprehensive laws to uphold the privacy of their citizenry. In 1970s there were only eight countries that had data privacy laws on the books; in 2010 the number skyrocketed to 89. The United States is one of only a few developed countries that doesn’t have a comprehensive law that protects online privacy, but instead relies on sectorial laws that provide limited amounts of regulation and have many loopholes. Most of these laws pertain to personal information held by the federal government, while legislation that regulates personal information in public records systems is essentially limited to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

The Fair Credit Reporting Act

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is guided by the fair information practices that were developed by the Department for Health, Education, and Welfare in the 1970s. On the whole, FCRA regulates the practices of credit reporting agencies. It promotes agencies’ accountability and safeguards security of personal data. The law requires information to be accurate, purpose specific, and accessible. It also outlines limitations on collection and usage of personal data as pertaining to credit reporting.

California’s Data Privacy Laws

California is one of the few states that protects the personal privacy of its residents as it pertains to online access to public records. In 2003, it enacted the Online Privacy Protection Act (OPPA) that requires websites that collect personal information on California residents to post and comply with the privacy policy of the state. In 2013, California enacted so-called “Don’t Track” legislation (AB 370) that requires certain websites to disclose information on how they collect data and track users. During the same year, the Right to Know Act was introduced in the State Assembly, but it failed to pass due to strong opposition from the trade groups representing the information technology industry. If enacted, it would require data brokers to provide a copy of an individual’s stored information upon request.

Case Study: Instant Checkmate

Instant Checkmate is a California-based people search engine that operates by compiling and selling instant access to criminal background checks. Originally, Instant Checkmate was a small internet startup, but it recently gained popularity due to its appealing packaging and additional features, such as its public criminal records directory, crime wire blog, and reverse phone look up.

Notably in 2014, Instant Checkmate paid $525,000 in a settlement for allegedly violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The lawsuit, filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), claimed that the company was operating as a consumer reporting agency, but wasn’t complying with FCRA regulations, including accuracy of provided information and verification of the identity of those who were requesting consumer reports through its website.

Now, the company markets itself as a tool to locate childhood friends and check out online dates. When you enter the website, the first thing you see is a notice that states:

You may not use our service or the information it provides to make decisions about consumer credit, employers, insurance, tenant screening, or any other purposes that would require FCRA compliance.

As the FCRA is limited to regulating credit reporting agencies only, it’s not applicable to the rest of the information broker industry. In order to avoid FCRA regulations many information broker companies simply run a disclaimer stating that they are not a credit reporting agency, and continue to operate outside any legal framework that pertains to  personal privacy. Instant Checkmate is one of many information broker companies that has used this tactic to escape FCRA compliance.

Watch the video below to learn more about Instant Checkmate, how it operates, and how the information obtained through its platform can be used by the third parties.

What are the advantages of online access to public records?

Online access to public records further upholds freedom of information as a fundamental right, and provides certain benefits to consumers and employers.

Benefits for the Citizenry

Access to public records is a mechanism to monitor the government as it allows its citizenry to review official actions and keep government agencies accountable. Online access to public records is an additional and more powerful tool to safeguard liberties and to ensure transparency of governmental practices. In this regard, the internet provides a platform to oversee and track government actions in relation to various matters, including decisions in individual cases.

Benefits for Consumers

Access to public records is an important consumer tool that is widely used in spheres such as employment, child support, retirement, and identity theft prevention, just to name a few. Online access to public records can highly benefit consumers and those who directly interact with government agencies and courts, if public records are accurate and up-to-date.

Benefits for Employers

In addition, access to public records can help employers screen applicants to decrease liability implications in the future. If using appropriate channels of inquiry, online background checks can assist employers in choosing the right candidate for the position.

What are the disadvantages of online access to public records?

Online access to public records increases privacy concerns, especially when the information broker industry lacks government oversight and is poorly regulated.

Discrimination and the Rise of the “Dossier Society”

Due to the fact that everybody can access public records online, individuals’ pasts become a matter of the present, including any transgressions, law violations, or simply embarrassing moments. In turn, it leads to discrimination and disenfranchisement of individuals whose records are not squeaky clean, denying them employment opportunities, normal relationships, and, simply, privacy. Some experts predict that in the future we could become a “dossier society,” meaning a society where everybody has an electronic profile that provides a detailed account of the individual’s life. In this view, a dossier society won’t allow social forgiveness and will force those who have blemishes on their records to work low-paying jobs without any possibilities for professional growth and development.

Economic Crimes

Most public records, including divorce decrees, child custody cases, and bankruptcy filings, contain sensitive information such as SSNs, financial account numbers, and dates of birth. Allowing online access to those records increases the risk of economic crimes, particularly identity theft. Online access to public records exacerbates the problem of financial fraud as it’s relatively easy to obtain personal information on the web as there are hundreds of websites that provide detailed records for a small fee. Identity theft has devastating consequences for victims as they cannot obtain credit, home loans, employment, or rent apartments.

Data in the Courtroom

Details of court cases, including the personal information of plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses, becomes a part of the court record, and, therefore, public records. Not only can revealing personal data discourage plaintiffs from proceeding with cases, but can undermine the safety of those who are involved in the proceedings, including witnesses who testify against one of the parties. In addition, defendants often use personal medical or sexual history to promulgate damaging allegations against plaintiffs in medical bill payment or sexual harassment cases. Online access to public records facilitates the process of obtaining court files, making it relatively easy to mine personal data that can be used to alter court proceedings.

Inaccurate Information

Many times allegations that are made during court proceedings turn out to be false, particularly in disputes between business partners, former lovers, or neighbors. As a result, inaccurate information becomes a matter of an individual’s pubic record. As public records can be widely accessed online, inaccuracies in connecting information to specific individuals also frequently occur. In addition, some information brokers’ files can be outdated, creating additional errors in background reports. Mismatches and inaccuracies in personal data reports can link individuals to crimes they didn’t commit, deny them opportunities for employment, and destroy their reputations. In 2002, a New York resident was awarded $450,000 in damages as his profile contained a false criminal conviction.

Personal Safety

As many information broker companies claim that their services can ensure personal safety by revealing criminal histories of online dates, neighbors, and other acquaintances, online background checks can also do exactly the opposite and jeopardize safety for some people. As personal information of witnesses and victims is a matter of a public record, if their identities and addresses are revealed, they can be targeted by criminals for retribution, stalked, or even re-victimized by their domestic partner.

Targeting Consumers

Information broker companies are clearly making money from compiling and selling public records online. Not only do they amass information from different government websites, but re-package and sort it, creating a brand new product in order to earn additional profit. Information from online public records is extensively used by commercial profilers for marketing and advertising purposes. Business owners also often use information from online public records to target specific groups, including those with credit or bankruptcy problems, for advertising.

Watch the video below to learn more about information brokers and how they are mining, compiling, and selling personal data to third parties.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, citizens of any democratic society should have a right to access public records in order to hold their government accountable and keep its practices transparent. At the same time, personal information of individuals should be protected, and, for that reason, the information broker industry should be regulated to make sure that unauthorized users don’t have access to sensitive and often private matters. As this technology progresses, these questions will all need to be considered.

 Resources

Primary

California Legislative Information: AB-1291 Privacy: Right to Know Act of 2013

California Constitution: Article 1 Declaration of Rights

California Legislative Information: AB-370 Consumers: Internet Privacy

U.S. Department of Justice: The Freedom of Information Act

Additional

Social Science Research Network: Global Data Privacy Laws: 89 Countries, and Accelerating

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse: Public Records on the Internet: The Privacy Dilemma

Electronic Privacy Information Center: Privacy and Public Records

Top Ten Reviews: Instant Checkmate

Yahoo Finance: Free Public Criminal Records Directory Offered on Instant Checkmate Website

New Media Institute: What is New Media?

International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology: Data Protection and Privacy in the United States and Europe

FreedomInfo: 93 Countries Have FOI Regimes, Most Tallies Agree

CNN Money: Data Brokers Settle Charges Over Background Checks

Crime Wire: An In-Depth Look at Instant Checkmate

Crime Wire: What Kind of Background Check Does Instant Checkmate Perform?

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Valeriya Metla

Valeriya Metla is a young professional, passionate about international relations, immigration issues, and social and criminal justice. She holds two Bachelor Degrees in regional studies and international criminal justice. Contact Valeriya at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is well known for its brutality and fighting prowess. However, to create a caliphate and establish its own vision of Islam, ISIS leaders have done more than win battles and intimidate enemies. Taking a page from the Arab Spring, the group has adopted a very modern approach to attracting its followers and spreading its message. Read on to learn about ISIS’ use of social media and the results of its campaigns.

Read more: Understanding ISIS’ Radical Apocalyptic Vision

ISIS and Social Media

The use of media by terrorist groups and even Al Qaeda, ISIS’ precursor in some ways, is not new. Under ISIS however, a transformation has begun. It started slowly–when ISIS was first on the rise it engaged mostly in simple, private media communications among its own members or dissidents. But with the fall of Mosul in June 2014, the group finally had its stage and was ready to broadcast to the world audience. Far from the grainy videos of Osama Bin Laden wandering around in the mountains, ISIS began live tweeting its actions and posting statuses on Facebook. On Twitter especially the group has been successful in delivering its message by commandeering popular hashtags.

ISIS Fighters have also taken selfies next to victims or in occupied areas in attempts to show how great life is under the aspiring caliphate. ISIS has even engaged in unsolicited product placement, flashing images of Nutella and Call of Duty in videos and other forms of media. Perhaps most importantly to its Western audience, it started attracting an English-speaking membership that could communicate directly to the English-speaking world. Perhaps no better example exists than the man known as “Jihadi John.” Born Mohammed Emwazi, he graduated with a degree in computer science from the University of Westminster, England. Despite his British upbringing, in 2013 he left Britain for Syria. Emwazi is by now a familiar figure, as he has been involved in some high-profile executions of non-Muslims.

ISIS has even utilized less popular forms of social media. For example, it’s used PalTalk, a video chatroom where radical clerics have convened to praise ISIS and its leadership. The group created an Android App called Fajer Al Bashayer (Dawn of the Good Omens) that provides users with up-to-the-minute updates on ISIS’ movements. The app also includes software that appropriates the Twitter accounts of the downloaders and uses them to further propagate the group’s ideology. ISIS even has its own magazine, Dabiq, which combines graphic insights into violence perpetrated by the group with interviews of its members, resembling a sort of gossip magazine. The video below details how ISIS has been using social media to its advantage.

Influence of the Arab Spring

How did ISIS end up turning to social media to further its cause? Well, it may have taken some inspiration from the Arab Spring. In 2011, one of the catalysts that fueled the Arab Spring movement was the use of social media to coordinate gatherings and denounce authoritarian regimes. While this has been employed for similar causes before, the scope in this case was revolutionary and transformative.

Various Middle Eastern leaders took notice and began to censor social media access they deemed dangerous. This may have had the negative consequences of chasing off progressive voices who lost faith in social media as a means of communication. But, it gave groups like ISIS ideas about powerful ways to attract members and money. The accompanying video explains the way social media has been used from Arab Spring to ISIS.

Have ISIS’ social media campaigns been successful?

How successful has the group been in attracting new fighters and inflows of capital? These results can be broken up into two categories: those who have pledged direct support to the group and the potential lone wolves it has inspired at home in Western nations.

Direct Supporters of ISIS

The first group includes people who have actually moved to ISIS-controlled areas. Many of them, particularly from the West, are drawn by the notion of a Muslim paradise. Often they feel out of place in Western culture. Many are young and eager to find a place where they can be accepted.

The message seems to be finding a plentiful breeding ground too, as thousands of Westerners, including teenagers, have already gone to the Middle East to fight for ISIS. Evidence of this startling trend can be found all over the West. In late 2014, there were three sisters from Colorado who were stopped in Germany as they were trying to fly to ISIS-controlled territory. More recently, the news has focused on three teenage British girls who are believed to have left their homes to join ISIS.

While ISIS is sinister in every way, its recruitment of girls and young women is especially so. Preying upon feelings of alienation and offering acceptance, ISIS has lured many women from Western nations to its cause. While many of these girls may dream of aiding a movement and finding a soulmate, they often experience something much worse. Their fates can include rape, forced marriages, and even enslavement at the hands of their alleged liberators.

How exactly is ISIS seducing these women and its other alienated recruits? The answer to that question comes in two parts. First, ISIS tries to attract attention and create a bigger name for itself. The end goal here is to project its strength and its ability to stand up to entrenched powers such as the United States. This strategy can speak particularly to people who feel victimized by the dominant cultures in the West.

Secondly the group has made a series of videos depicting how great life is under ISIS. These include highlighting the group’s charity  work, its efforts at establishing an appropriate Muslim state, and choreographed scenes of violence to appeal to viewers. ISIS also has responders who will directly engage Westerners who feel an inclination to join ISIS. These responders act as recruiters, echoing the themes of the videos that show the greatness of life under ISIS and the satisfaction women and others can gain living in an ISIS sphere.

The group is also getting some financial support online. ISIS has used Twitter as a place to receive donations along with recruits, despite the best efforts of the US government.

Lastly the group has been able to garner support and allegiance from other like-minded terrorist organizations through social media. Recently, the infamous Nigerian terrorist group, Boko Haram, pledged its support for ISIS and has even begun adopting some of its tactics for publication and recruitment.

Read More: Boko Haram: How Can Nigeria Stop the Terror?

Lone Wolves

Along with calling for would-be jihadis to come join the cause in Iraq and Syria or to provide donations, ISIS has also employed another tactic. It’s used social media campaigns recorded in French and subtitled in English to encourage radical action in Western countries. Instead of encouraging dissatisfied men and woman in these areas to come join the war in the Middle East, it calls for them to make war against their own governments at home. In this regard there also seems to be some examples of success on ISIS’ part. The most notorious so far is the attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris and the killing of hostages a few days later in a kosher deli. These, along with subsequent attacks on police officers patrolling the city, have been attributed to ISIS-inspired terrorists, although exact motives remain uncertain. The video below depicts ISIS’ efforts to arouse lone wolves in the West.

Fighting Back

While ISIS has shown a mastery of modern day social networks, Western forces are also fighting back. The United States has already launched a major social media offensive, dedicating a contingent of manpower and materials to fighting ISIS propaganda online. The British have taken a similar approach and adopted the American model for its own program. Both countries are also pressuring companies such as Twitter and YouTube to clean up their sites and rid them of ISIS propaganda.

It is far from clear how effective these efforts have been. Many experts caution against ridding the web entirely of ISIS and its supporters as their posts can be valuable sources of information on the group. Additionally, while the U.S. and British governments are launching their own offensives against ISIS, many people remain skeptical about how effective government-run social media can be. Lastly there are strategic concerns to be considered. While to most people ISIS comes off as repulsive, a mystique could be created about the group by denying it the opportunity to speak, which could further improve recruiting.

Conclusion

ISIS’ use and mastery of social media is intriguing. The fact that it uses sites such as Twitter or Facebook seems almost unbelievable, and stands in direct contrast to common assumptions about the backward nature of terrorist organizations. Additionally, the efforts in response by the United States and its allies also clearly show that the nature of warfare has rapidly changed in the social media age.

Despite the seemingly harmless means by which it communicates and disseminates its messages, ISIS remains a ruthless terrorist organization. It is also clear however, that it is successful both on the battlefield and on the internet. The next step for the West is how to counter ISIS’ message while pushing  back in Iraq and Syria. Unfortunately the military part will likely be the easier path, even as debate over putting boots on the ground proofs devisive. There’s a new battle being fought, but this time, it’s on our computers.

Resources

Primary

Anti-Defamation League: Hashtag Terror

Additional

Independent: Mohammed Emwazi

CNN: What is ISIS’ Appeal to Young People?

CBS News: ISIS Message Resonating With Young People From U.S., West

U.S. News & World Report: ISIS Ability to Recruit Women Baffles West, Strengthens Cause

Hill: ISIS Rakes in Donations on Twitter

Newsmax: Tell ISIS Aligned Groups They Are Targets

Fox News: “What Are You Waiting For?”

Daily Beast: Can the West Beat ISIS on the Web?

Daily Beast: ISIS is Using Social Media to Reach You, Its New Audience

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Online journalism has opened the door for non-traditional journalists to enter the industry. However, as more and more people trickle into the field, the ethical concerns inherent in journalism evolve as well. Digital media ethics of all kinds exist, they serve to streamline the practices of all sorts of online journalism: blogging, writing, photojournalism, and even social media journalism. Many discussions circle around how online journalists, and those with an audience equal to or even surpassing print journalists, should research, publish, and interact with the text. Read on to learn about how the internet is changing the field of journalism, the basics of journalistic ethics, and what new questions are arising for online journalists.

Changes in the Water

Journalism is transforming at an alarming rate–paper sales of newspapers and magazines are down, and online consumption is at an all-time high. No matter the topic–daily news, celebrity gossip, sports analysis, or even legal news–it’s online. Part of this is because of the turnaround time. No longer is there a need for multiple newspapers depending on the outcome of an event. Instead, a journalist can write, edit, post, and interact on a topic in just a few seconds on social media platforms within minutes on a blog or website.

Change can be difficult to circumvent, especially for those who are used to doing things “the old fashioned way.” Shrinking physical sales equate to shrinking profits from sales, advertising, and usage. Still, online journalism leads to experimentation, integration, and collaboration. Most of the principles taught in college classrooms up until only a few years ago centered on the mass production of newsprint, dating back to the late nineteenth century instead of the current age. Schools are picking up on the advent of digital journalism, teaching ethics, and discussing best practices. Without clear cut guidelines, however, it can be difficult to get everyone to agree on just what the online journalistic ethics actually are and how to implement them. But the question isn’t just how to come up with ethics and how to implement them, but rather: how do we create online journalistic ethics that will work for everyone creating content?

What exactly is online journalism?

Before setting any ethics, there are a few questions to answer. There is a distinct lack of clarity over what it means to be a journalist, mostly among those who actually write, but not as much among those who consume. But still, the questions remain: what is journalism and what is online journalism? Like print journalism, the online variation requires  having the skills to investigate, research, work with technology, and write clearly. Ethics wise, all of these skills are used to verify truth and promote accuracy.

Types of Online Journalism

There are countless different types of online journalism. While this list isn’t exhaustive, some examples include: websites affiliated with major media companies, the websites that mesh articles and blogs, and those websites that are comprised of all blogs.

Traditional News Sites

The Washington Post has been a major American paper for more than a century. It has a completely separate print newspaper from its website and stories that originally premiered on the website rarely, if ever, end up going to the printer; however, stories that run in the newspaper do appear on the website. Some newspapers, such as The New York Times, require readers to subscribe to the service in order to read stories and access some content online. Today this type of journalism has a smaller staff of writers that may also dip into the print writing. As such, many of their ethical issues mirror those of print writers.

Hybrid News Sites

For websites that mix blogs and news articles like the Huffington Post, you will see a combination of ethics coming into play–including those surrounding images and the concerns of a 24-hour news cycle. These websites may pool from a greater number of writers  with a varying amount of skills and knowledge. In addition, they may aggregate content in addition to or instead of creating original content more than traditional news sites.

Comment News Sites

Comment-based news sites, most commonly blogs, are another way to share news. Most often, editorial content that was produced by a variety of journalists is dissected and discussed by the blogger and then through audience participation. This content is often the shortest form of news, ranging up from the 140-character limits of Twitter into full blog postings. Whether or not this is truly journalism is up for debate–but there are definitely bloggers who follow journalistic principles, and those who focus entirely on opinion.

Journalism Code of Ethics

Print journalism has had a code of ethics for decades. As per the Society of Professional Journalists, there are four categories to the code:

Seek Truth and Report it

Whenever possible, journalists need to be able to ensure that what they are reporting is true and reported fairly and accurately, without bias. This includes providing appropriate context, following up on a story if facts evolve, reporting sources fairly,  and avoiding stereotypes and assumptions.

Minimize Harm

Journalists are present to report, but must remain observers. That means that they need to be respectful of the subjects and take precautions such as the ability to “balance a suspect’s right to a fair trial with the public’s right to know.”

Act Independently

This principle is simple–a journalist shouldn’t report on a topic if he or she has a vested interest in it, such as a personal relationship with a subject.

Be Accountable and Transparent

Whenever possible, journalists should allow the public to understand the reasoning behind the information included, and the validity of that information. In addition, journalists have a responsibility to correct any errors they may have made.

While online journalists are still held to these standards, there are additional ethical concerns that online journalists have to take into account; however, many of these ethical concerns fit into the categories of the code.

New Concerns in Online Journalism

Anonymity

Online journalism gives people the chance to be anonymous, and not in a “Dear Abby” sort of way. Anonymity is a prominent facet of the internet. Today, someone can just create a name and start posting content–few would even know if that person isn’t who he or she says wrote the article. Some portals require identification, but it can be as easy as taking someone else’s photo, duping the program with a fake email, and turning off location services.

Anonymity takes away the risk of journalism and allows people to be honest and free with their thoughts; however, some worry it also creates an environment filled with irresponsibility and hurt. Even if online platforms take the extra steps to remove the anonymity of it all, comments and shares aren’t protected from “trolls” or those with ill will.

In addition, it makes many question the validity of online reporting from anonymous platforms. After all, it’s inherently not transparent. Whether or not anonymous journalists can truly be considered “journalists” is a hot topic for debate.

24-Hour News Cycle

The 24-hour news cycle that is possible because of online journalism is also one of the biggest things to cause concern in the online news market. Journalism ethics do require reporters to be accountable and seek to report truthfully, but that becomes more difficult when everything is moving so quickly. Reports, images, and opinions circulate the world faster than ever through Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, blogs, cell phones, and hashtag activism. This speed does not always promote quality, clarity, or accuracy. Instead, it is sometimes a gut reaction to the events at hand, leading to misunderstanding, and at times, fear. Major news sources like CNN often pick up rumors that are later found to be untrue, especially in situations where there is little other information. These reports can cause a “trickle down” effect where incorrect information gets reported once and then repeated, as recently seen in the Ferguson case.

Impartiality: Editors Wanted

When people write about things that they are very passionate about, which is often the case for online journalists, there is a tendency to not remain as impartial as one would wish. Online media sometimes encourages people to tell their opinion and back it up without ever posting the “flip side” of the argument. Many bloggers, in particular, take pride in this, seeing themselves as activists for particular causes or movements, rejecting neutrality; however, that doesn’t neatly fit into the ethical guidelines that require journalists to stay unbiased and truthful.

Of course there has always been an opinion sector in journalism. In fact, some even claim that we are seeing a return to the partisan journalism that colored the profession throughout the early 1900s. Some argue that the responsibility may just fall to the reader on this one: it’s important to search out people on both side of the argument.

Social Media + Reporting = Journalism?

News organizations often send their reporters “into the field” to use social media to pass on information to the general public, creating a brand and influencing traditional reports. Typically they use Twitter, but have been known to use Instagram and even Snapchat as well; however, the new world of online personas creates an ethical gray area.

Take, for example, a reporter who writes political think pieces. In her published articles, she remains impartial on the topic of Hillary Clinton’s presidential run; however, on her Twitter account, she follows @ReadyForHillary and constantly tweets about her desire for Clinton to run. Could these comments give a critic something to chew on regarding authenticity in reporting? In the past, the ability to figure out a writer’s political leanings was much harder because there was less information out there for public consumption.

The ethical challenge for news organizations that use online and offline reporting is to develop social media guidelines that allow reporters or staff members to explore the online media world while also having an online presence. That sometimes means requiring that journalists take on multiple personas, a private one and a public one, in the aims of keeping their public name neutral.

Image Ethics

Photojournalism has only boomed in popularity relatively recently since the start of the internet. Photos and videos now make it easier than ever to capture historical events; however, those same programs that allow us to snap photos and share them in just a few minutes also allow for those photos to be altered and manipulated in a relatively short amount of time. If there was no one else at the event, manipulating an image could manipulate a whole event. Take for instance the latest video of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie falling off of a chair. Said to be punishment for him supporting an opposing football team, the Philadelphia radio station added music and doctored the video, making Christie seem like a clown.

Can news sources trust the images that come from regular citizens? In the past it wasn’t as confusing, as pictures were more difficult to manipulate unless you had intense training. Now, most people know how to use at least some of the tools on Photoshop. According to the Center for Journalism Ethics: “Photojournalists often talk about how it is permitted to change the ‘technical’ aspects of a picture such as altering slightly the tone or color of a photo. But they draw the line at any further changes. Changing the meaning or content of the image so as to mislead viewers is considered unethical.”

Conclusion

In the end, we are left with a lot of questions and very few answers. The problem is that we are currently in the midst of a huge change in journalism. Ten years ago no one would have predicted the rise of websites like Instagram and Twitter because we just didn’t have that technology yet.

Until we have the answers for those questions, and the thousands more that stem from them, the answers of ethics for online journalism is left up to the individual–company, blog, person, or website. Soon enough, we will start to see a convergence on topics like anonymity and image use–it’s already happening. Colleges are slowly rolling out courses only on online journalism. The best we can do, for now, is work with integrity and professionalism and try to hold our news sources to those same standards.

While the principles of journalistic ethics still do hold true, new questions are popping up every day. Journalists do still have an obligation to seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent. The internet may make it more difficult to parse out how those ethics apply in every situation, but they remain the standards of professional journalism.

Resources

Primary

SPJ: Code of Ethics

Additional

MIT: Ethics in Photojournalism: Past, Present, Future

Boise Weekly: Ferguson Case Reveals Media Flaws

Atlantic: How is Social Media Changing Journalism

Huffington Post: Impartial Journalism’s Enduring Value

Huffington Post: Journalism in a New Era

State of Media: Newspapers by the Numbers

Center for Journalism Ethics: Online Journalism Ethics – Photojournalism

Center for Journalism Ethics: Online Journalism Ethics

Poynter: Online Journalism Ethics

SABEW: Online Journalism Poses Challenges, But Doesn’t Require New Ethical Guidelines 

Guardian: Authenticity Has Replaced Authority

Indiana University: Journalism Ethics Cases Online

Editor’s Note: This post has been revised to credit select information to the Center for Journalism Ethics. 

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What New Ethical Concerns Affect Online Journalism? appeared first on Law Street.

Hacking attacks are estimated to cost the global economy a whopping $400 billion each year. With recent attacks on Sony and U.S. Central Command, it seems like nothing online is completely safe. The United States is scrambling to improve cybersecurity and prevent attacks that could otherwise have major impacts on national security, the economy, and personal safety. Here’s what you need to know about cybersecurity policy, government efforts, and what to expect in the future.

What is cybersecurity?

In the increasingly digital world with an ever-growing e-commerce sector, cybersecurity is of vital importance. Cybersecurity is a broad concept that resists a precise definition; it involves protecting computers, networks, programs, and data from cyber threats. Cybersecurity can help protect privacy and prevent unauthorized surveillance and use of electronic data. Examples of cyberattacks include worms, viruses, Trojan horses, phishing, stealing confidential information, and control system attacks. Because of it loose definition, it is hard for the government to regulate how businesses should protect their systems and information. A number of different measures are used to ensure at least a basic level of cybersecurity.

How does cybersecurity work?

Cybersecurity helps to prevent against the risks associated with any cyber attack, which depend on three factors:

1. Removing the threat source. Determining who is attacking can indicate what kind of information or advantage they are seeking to gain. Cyberattacks may be carried out by criminals, spies, hackers, or terrorists, all of whom may do it for different reasons.
2. Addressing vulnerabilities through improving software and employee training. How people are attacking is important in trying to set up the best cybersecurity possible. This can be likened to an arms race between the attackers and defenders. Both try to outsmart the other as the attackers probe for weaknesses in their target. Examples of vulnerabilities include intentional malicious acts by company insiders or supply chain vulnerabilities that can insert malicious software. Previously unknown, “zero day” vulnerabilities are particularly worrisome because they are unknown to the victim. Since they have no known fix and are exploited before the vendor even becomes aware of the problem, they can be very difficult to defend against.
3. Mitigating the damage of an attack. A successful attack may compromise confidentiality, integrity, and even the availability of a system. Cybertheft and cyberespionage might result in the loss of financial or personal information. Often the victims will not even be aware the attack has happened or that  their information has been compromised. Denial-of-service attacks can prevent legitimate users from accessing a server or network resource by interrupting the services. Other attacks such as those on industrial control systems can result in destruction of the equipment they control, such as pumps or generators.

Examples of common cybersecurity features include:

• Firewall: a network security system to control incoming and outgoing network traffic. It acts as a wall or barrier between trusted networks and other untrusted networks.
• Anti-virus software: used to detect and prevent computer threats from malicious software.
• Intrusion Prevention System: examines network traffic flows to prevent vulnerability exploits. It sits behind the firewall to provide a complementary layer of analysis.
• Encryption: involves coding information in such a way that only authorized viewers can read it. This involves encrypting a message using a somewhat random algorithm to generate text that can only be read if decrypted. Encryption is still seen as the best defense to protect data. Specifically, multi-factor authentication involving a two-step verification, used by Gmail and other services, is most secure. These measures (at least for the time being) are near impossible to crack, even for the NSA.

Watch the video for a basic overview of cybersecurity.

What is the role of the federal government in cybersecurity?

Most agree the federal role should include protecting federal cyber systems and assisting in protecting non-federal systems. Most civilians want to know online shopping and banking is secure, and the government has tried to help create a secure cyber environment. According to the Congressional Research Service, federal agencies on average spend more than 10 percent of their annual IT budget on cybersecurity measures.

There are more than 50 statutes that address various issues of cybersecurity. While much legislation has been debated in recent years, no bills have been enacted. The most recent and significant cybersecurity legislation came in 2002 with the passage of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), which requires each federal agency to implement and report on cybersecurity policies.

Over the past several years, experts and policymakers have shown increasing concern over protecting systems from cyberattacks, which are expected to increase in both severity and frequency in the coming years. Most proposed legislation and executive branch action with regard to cybersecurity focus on immediate needs, such as preventing espionage and reducing the impact of successful attacks. Historically there has been an imbalance between the development of offensive versus defensive capabilities. Coupled with slow adoption of encryption technologies, many programs were vulnerable to attack. While the cybersecurity landscape has improved, needs still exist with regard to long-term challenges relating to design, incentives, and the environment. Overcoming these obstacles in cybersecurity remains a challenge.

Design

Developers of software or networks are typically more focused on features than the security of their product. Focusing primarily on the product’s features makes sense from an economic standpoint; however, shifting the focus away from security makes these products more vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Incentives

The distorted incentives of cybercrime make it hard to prevent. Cybercrime is typically cheap, profitable, and relatively safe for criminals. In contrast, cybersecurity is expensive, often imperfect, and companies can never be certain of the returns on the investments they make in cybersecurity.

Environment

Cybersecurity is a fast-growing technology. Constantly-emerging properties and new threats complicate the cybersecurity environment. It is very difficult for the government or private companies to keep up with the pace of changing technology used in cyberattacks. What laws and policies do exist are almost always out of date given the rapid pace of change in cybersecurity.

Watch the video below for an overview of the difficulties of cybersecurity policy.

Has President Obama taken any action on cybersecurity?

With recent attacks and data breaches at Sony, Target, Home Depot, and the Pentagon’s Central Command, the need for toughened cybersecurity laws has been highlighted. Cybersecurity is an issue where both sides of the political aisle see the need to work together. It is clear that a comprehensive policy playbook is needed to guide the government’s response to such serious cyberattacks.

On January 13, 2015, President Obama announced a new cybersecurity legislative proposal, which consists of three parts:

1. Enabling cybersecurity information sharing: The proposal enhances collaboration and cybersecurity information within the private sector and between the private sector and the government. The proposal calls for the private sector to share cyber threat information with the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC). Sharing information about cyber threats with the NCCIC would shield companies from liability. The bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to share threat information as quickly as possible with other agencies like the FBI or NSA. The proposal would also require private entities to comply with privacy restrictions like removing unnecessary personal information and taking measures to protect any personal information that must be shared.
2. Modernizing law enforcement authorities to fight cybercrime: This ensures that law enforcement has the proper tools to investigate and prosecute cybercrime. These provisions would criminalize the sale of stolen U.S. financial data, expand authority to deter selling of spyware, and shutdown programs engaged in denial-of-service attacks. Other components criminalize various cybercrimes.
3. National data breach reporting: Many state laws require businesses that have suffered from breaches of consumer information to notify consumers. The proposed legislation would simplify and standardize these existing state laws. The proposal would also put in place a timely notice requirement to ensure companies notify their customers about security breaches.

Watch the following video for an outline of President Obama’s plan.

On January 16, 2015, President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron promised to cooperate with regard to cybersecurity. Cameron expressed concerns about encryption technologies that might make it easier for would-be terrorists to avoid detection. Cameron hopes to outlaw certain forms of encryption. President Obama did not as easily dismiss privacy concerns, but did state that he believes the government can do a better job of balancing both privacy and security.

Why is it hard to implement effective cybersecurity policy?

Congress has tried for years to pass legislation encouraging companies to share information from cyberattacks with the government and with each other; however, liability issues and privacy concerns stopped such laws from passing. Many privacy advocates are speaking out against President Obama’s proposed legislation for the same reasons. They fear that such information-sharing legislation could further the government’s surveillance powers. Some groups caution that substantial National Security Agency reform should come before considering any information-sharing bill. Privacy concerns such as these have made it difficult to pass cybersecurity packages in Congress in the past; however, the recent Sony attack may prove to be a game changer in passing new cybersecurity bills.

Even if President Obama and Congress can implement the above changes, it will still be difficult for the government to enact more effective policy changes. Technology can easily mask the identity or location of those organizing cyberattacks. This can make identifying and prosecuting those responsible near impossible. Justifying an appropriate response to attacks is even harder.

Legislatures and citizens also tend to be kept in the dark due to extreme security regarding a country’s cyber capabilities. Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA sparked public interest in cybersecurity and in the extent of the government’s capabilities. But still, information regarding the U.S.’ cyber policies remains classified and not open to general discussion. Without transparency, it is hard to exercise oversight or explain to the public the government’s cybersecurity activities.

Critics also contend that President Obama’s proposal leaves large gaps in cybersecurity policy. The policy fails to establish ground rules for responding to cyber attacks once they have occurred and it remains unclear how the United States might respond to cyberattacks against government networks or even private sector entities like Sony. While attacks may be criminalized, prosecuting these cases with limited evidence is difficult.

A recently uncovered 2009 U.S. cybersecurity report warned that the government was being left vulnerable to online attacks because encryption technologies were not being implemented fast enough. While the country has come a long way since 2009 there is still much room for improvement. A 2015 review of the Department of Homeland Security stated that:

DHS spends more than $700 million annually to lead the federal government’s efforts on cybersecurity, but struggles to protect itself and cannot protect federal and civilian networks from the most serious cyber attacks.

Conclusion

More needs to be done in the realm of cybersecurity to prevent against cyberattacks. While less legislation may have worked in the past, the scale of recent cyberattacks shows the vast potential for damage to the government, companies, and individuals. President Obama’s recent proposal may be a good start, but more long-term policies are needed to protect citizens from serious cyberattacks. No cybersecurity solution is permanent, so public policy must constantly evolve to suit the needs of its citizens in the cyber realm.

Resources

Primary

Department of Homeland Security: Federal Information Security Management Act

White House: Securing Our Cyberspace: President Obama’s New Steps

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: A Review of Missions and Performance

Additional

Congressional Research Service: Cybersecurity Issues and Challenges

National Journal: Obama’s New Cybersecurity Proposal Facing Skepticism

UMUC: Cybersecurity Primer

Forbes: Why a Global Security Playbook is Critical Post-Sony

Guardian: Secret U.S. Cybersecurity Report

Reuters: Obama Seeks Enhanced Cybersecurity Laws to Fight Hackers

NPR: Obama, Cameron Promise to Cooperate on Cybersecurity

Yahoo: Obama Says Hacks Show Need for Cybersecurity Law

Huffington Post: What’s Wrong with America’s Cybersecurity Policy?

Alexandra Stembaugh

Alexandra Stembaugh graduated from the University of Notre Dame studying Economics and English. She plans to go on to law school in the future. Her interests include economic policy, criminal justice, and political dramas. Contact Alexandra at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Cybersecurity: Will We Ever Be Safe? appeared first on Law Street.

Following the recent fiasco at Sony, hacking has been catapulted squarely into the spotlight. But hackers are doing more than just delaying movie premieres–they are causing serious damage and have the capability to cause much more. Before we get too scared of these anonymous boogeymen, however, it is important to understand what hacking is and who the hackers are.

What are hackers and what do they do?

So, first of all, what is a hacker? While the answer to that question is very complicated, for clarity’s sake a succinct and clear explanation of a computer hacker and computer hacking is this:

Computer hackers are unauthorized users who break into computer systems in order to steal, change or destroy information, often by installing dangerous malware without your knowledge or consent.

This definition is of course limited, as hacking is not relegated solely to computers and is not always a negative thing. Below is a video that offers a fuller picture.

While not all hacking is negative, much of it is, and it is important to understand specifically what the intentions of many hackers are and how they operate. Hackers often lure their unsuspecting victims with bogus scams sent through emails or websites. Some hackers also prefer the approach of directly attacking a computer if it does not have the requisite protection in place, such as a firewall; however, while hacking may appear as simple as pressing a button in a movie, it is more complicated than that. More specifically, what a hacker does is infect another person’s computer with malicious software or malware. Once the unsuspecting user has activated the malware, either by clicking on a link or opening an email, his computer can then become infected with a virus. If a computer does become infected the hacker essentially has unlimited access to the operating system. This then enables him to have virtual control over the user’s computer and internet activity. Normally the hacker will try to maintain a low enough profile so the user is not alerted; in the meantime he will attempt to obtain sensitive information. Whatever way hackers choose to attack, they often try to steal things like passwords, account numbers, and means of identification such as a social security number.

The purpose behind all of this is nefarious; stealing an individual’s money, abusing their credit, or even turning a profit by selling the acquired information to a third party is often the end goal. Two prime examples of this are the major hack of Target’s credit card system in 2013 and the similar hack of EBay this year. Nonetheless, while hackers seem to have similar motives, the group is in fact quite heterogeneous and can vary from countries to individuals.

State Actors

The first type includes hackers utilized by a country’s government or military. In this way, hackers are used like other weapons such as tanks or missiles. In this regard, perhaps no country employs hackers and hacking more than China. According to a 2013 article from Bloomberg, China accounted for 41 percent of hacking assaults in 2012–four times that of the second place country on the list. While there’s no way to say definitively whether those hacks came from the Chinese government, the idea comes as no surprise to those familiar with the United States’ claims that China has long hacked American corporations in order to steal trade secrets and then passed them along to Chinese companies. For example, there were hacking accusations against China earlier this year by American corporate icons such as U.S. Steel and Alcoa.

However, the United States is far from an unwitting victim of these attacks. In fact the number two country from the same list of top hacking nations was the United States. In 2012, for example, ten percent of hacking attacks originated from within the United States. In addition, the United States military has increased the portion of its budget focused on cyber warfare. In 2015, the U.S. Cyber Command plans to spend $5.1 billion on cyber combat. The video below explains the threat of cyber warfare.

There is already evidence of suspected U.S. cyber warfare at work. Aside from unpublicized U.S. attacks against the Taliban in Afghanistan, there’s the more notable example of the Stuxnet virus that infected the Iranian nuclear infrastructure and severely damaged its nuclear program. There is also the recent shutdown of North Korean internet access that many suspect was American retaliation for the suspected North Korean hack of Sony.

Along with the United States and China, other countries where hacking is a major weapon include Taiwan, Turkey, and Russia.

Non-State Actors

Indeed non-state actor hackers may pose an even bigger threat to global systems than government operations. One reason why is while government operations are generally strictly military or defensive in nature, non-state operations run the gamut.

Patriotic Hacking

One example is something known as patriotic hacking. In essence, these groups are self-appointed to represent a particular country and will respond in kind to any perceived slight against the nation they represent. One such group formed in China in response to the accidental bombing of a Chinese embassy in Belgrade by the United States during the war in Kosovo. Similar groups have also formed in many countries such as Israel, India, Pakistan, and the United States.

An example of a patriotic hacker–or “red hacker” as they are known in China–is Wan Tao. Wan Tao hacked everything from the U.S. government to Japanese political email accounts. While it is believed they he was never explicitly ordered to do so, the hacker’s targeted attacks fell in line with Chinese Governmental actions. As if to emphasize the underlying nationalism in his attacks, Wan Tao even had a name for his group, the China Eagles.

Hacktivists

Another type of non-state hacking group is known as hacktivists, which are people who use both legal and illegal means to achieve some political goal. Perhaps the best example is the group known collectively as Anonymous. Known for dawning the Guy Fawkes mask, Anonymous has been involved in hacking cases related to social issues ranging from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the shooting death of Michael Brown that set off the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. A more expansive definition of hacktivism is provided in the video below.

Other Non-State Actors

There are countless other non-state hacking groups at play today. One example is the massive hack of JP Morgan Chase in October 2014. In this case, the personal information of 83 million bank customers was stolen.  While Chase was quick to deny any information such as account numbers was taken, experts in the field remain more skeptical.  Regardless of what exactly was stolen, the culprits were again believed to be Russian hackers who stole personal information with the intent to sell it or profit off of it through other means such as fraud. There is also the persistent fear of terrorist hackers, although little has yet to come of this.

Putting Up a Firewall

While governments and individuals swarm to the attack there are also efforts to fight back against hackers, and like hackers and hacking these efforts take many forms. At the highest level are government efforts like those of the United States government. Specifically, as touched upon earlier, the United States has created a cyber command capable of launching retaliatory strikes against its enemies through cyber space if the U.S. were attacked. In essence then the United States is creating a deterrent through cyber space much like it already has through both conventional and nuclear means.

There are also altruistic attempts such as the ones being undertaken by organizations like I Am the Cavalry, which allows researchers to share their findings and help improve the security of four major sectors: medical devices, automobiles, home services, and public infrastructure.

In addition, there are more classical capitalist efforts employed by corporations. Several major corporations such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are actively courting hackers, often holding competitions with prizes like lucrative job offers. The goal of this approach is to pick up where traditional IT efforts leave off. Traditional efforts are geared at creating defensive measures so hackers cannot break into a system; however, this new approach utilizes hackers themselves specifically because they have the opposite mindset and are looking for the vulnerabilities to attack. By harnessing hackers’ aggressive skill sets and playing off their competitive mentalities these companies and many more are, in essence, using hackers to prevent hacking.

Conclusion

As the world becomes more digital and connected the threat of hacking will increase. In the future everything from cars to even toasters can and will be vulnerable to hacking and misuse. Furthermore, this threat will not necessarily come from other countries, but also non-state actors and even individuals. The motivations and allegiances of these people and groups vary widely and make the problem infinitely more complex.

Nonetheless, while efforts to prevent hacking can seem hopeless, like trying to keep a ship with a million leaks afloat, all is not lost. Indeed there are already efforts underway to fight back, which vary as much as those of the hackers themselves. As history has shown, no ship is unsinkable. Thus hacking is always likely to be a problem and an increasingly dangerous one; however, it can also offer an avenue for improvement and a channel to voice social concerns. While hacking may be the next great threat, like previous scourges it may also present unique opportunities for change and improvement for society as a whole.

Resources

Primary

Center for A New American Security: Non-State Actors and Cyber Conflict

Additional

Bloomberg: Top Ten Hacking Countries

CNN World: North Korea Denies Sony hack

Forbes: The Top 5 Most Brutal Cyber Attacks of 2014

Time: Here’s What Chinese Hackers Actually Stole From U.S. Companies

Time: China’s Red Hackers

WebRoot: Computer Hackers and Predators

Bloomberg Business Week: Target Missed Alarms

Washington Times: Cyber Command Investment Ensures Hackers Targeting US Face Retribution

The New York Times: North Korea Loses its LInk to the Internet

New York Post : Hackers Steal 83 Million Chase Customers’ Info

Mashable: Hacktivism

International Business Times: What is Anonymous?

CDR Global Inc: Hacking for Good

Guardian: There are real and present dangers around the internet of things

I Am the Cavalry: Homepage

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In recent weeks, celebrity Chelsea Handler has created quite a virtual stir by posting revealing photographs of herself on the popular photo-sharing app Instagram, which were subsequently taken down for violating the company’s mature content policy.

Handler’s photos being removed by the site’s admin would seem to be a cut-and-dried case–the second item on Instagram’s Basic Terms is “You may not post violent, nude, partially nude . . . pornographic or sexually suggestive photos or other content via the Service.”

However, the star’s next move was to point out the gender politics at play because men’s nipples are acceptable to show on the site. Here’s a quick rundown of Handler’s Instagram drama that aired on CNN.

It’s worth noting that in the video, they showed a screenshot of the removed post that Handler tweeted, as Twitter’s guidelines are less strict. This ability to reach more than five million Twitter followers without censorship is probably why this specific case of Instagram content removal has garnered so much attention.

And Chelsea Handler isn’t the only famous face to come into conflict with Instagram’s restrictions.

Singer Rihanna’s account was mistakenly shut down after posting photos from a cover shoot for Lui magazine, prompting the fed-up star to leave the site altogether. Actor Scout Willis was banned from the site after posting a photo of a jacket she designed that depicted the torsos of two topless women. Grace Coddington, Creative Director for Vogue, was banned in May for posting a line drawing of herself topless.

Coddington’s image has since been restored to her again-functional Instagram account.

The sheer variety of reasons relating to nudity and the female nipple that people have been banned from Instagram, even temporarily, has sparked conversation among those who would follow Willis’ lead and #FreeTheNipple, or more specifically, erase the stigma that makes the female nipple something to be hidden or censored while males can go shirtless in public or in the media without reproach.

Willis then took her protest to the streets by walking around topless, arguing the fact that something legal in New York City isn’t allowed on Instagram. Newsy explains in the video below.

Willis went on to explain for herself in an article for XOJane, in which she remarks that this censorship doesn’t just apply to celebrities, though their cases are the most obvious examples. She writes, “My situation was in no way unique; women are regularly kicked off Instagram for posting photos with any portion of the areola exposed, while photos sans nipple–degrading as they might be–remain unchallenged.“

In light of the site’s controversy, should nudity continue to be banned on Instagram?

What’s the Argument for Enforcing the Guidelines?

Ultimately, Instagram has laid out its policies in black and white in its ever-ignored Terms and Conditions section, including its right to “modify or terminate the Service or your access to the Service for any reason, without notice, at any time…” Those who run Instagram have the power and the prerogative to dictate how the site is to be utilized by users.

And that’s not to say there’s no reasoning behind Instagram’s guidelines pertaining to nudity and inappropriate content.

In an age where Internet trolls can hide behind their keyboards, the rules can be the difference between a safe space for users and a cyber-bully’s haven. This is especially true for celebrities, whose lives are constantly up for scrutiny in the media and who are often subjected to online harassment, threats, and criticism.

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom defended the company’s policies in an interview with BBC Newsbeat, saying, “Our goal is really to make sure that Instagram, whether you’re a celebrity or not, is a safe place, and that the content that gets posted is something that’s appropriate for teens and also for adults.”

While only 11 percent of teens had Instagram in 2012, according to Pew Research, this is a demographic the company would be foolish to ignore. By censoring nudity on the site, Instagram is ensuring it won’t be a social media outlet that parents should fear, as 62 percent of parents worry about the kind of content available to their children on the Internet.

The idea of what’s appropriate for viewing can also be applied on a global scale, as in the past few years Instagram has achieved growing success worldwide. According to the site, upward of 65 percent of users are outside the U.S. With a variety of users, creating a standard to minimize discomfort for those in areas that are more conservative is a good way to make sure Instagram can flourish there uninhibited by social restraint.

Against the Guidelines

If a person is offended by the site’s content, he or she could simply unfollow the offending user. For example, if a user is conservative for religious, social, or personal reasons, it might not be the best idea to follow Chelsea Handler, as she is known for her brash and pulls-no-punches comedy.

And even under the nudity guidelines, unfollowing still might be necessary because what is deemed inappropriate by the site’s admin (and by those who flag photos for review because of inappropriate content) seems arbitrary and ambiguous. Take, for example, the cover shoot that caused problems between Rihanna and Instagram. She was featured relaxing in what one assumes is a chair on a beach you can’t see in a hat and pink bikini bottoms. Her nipples are clearly shown.

However, there’s been another photo shoot recently, and it’s caused a lot of buzz–Kim Kardashian posed nude for Paper Magazine. Its photos have been shown across media platforms (sometimes with censoring, sometimes without), including on the star’s Instagram.

Kardashian wasn’t banned, even temporarily, and the content has not been removed. There are no female nipples involved, but there is certainly nudity.

One might question if there were an exception because the photo shoot could be considered art or fashion, but recalling Rihanna’s magazine cover, Scout Willis’ jacket, and Grace Coddington’s drawing invalidates that theory.

Even within Handler’s own account there is ambiguity, but again it comes down to the female nipple as opposed to nudity in general. In one photo that has gone uncontested, Handler is sitting wearing only underwear, but it is taken from an angle that obscures her breasts. In another photo, her naked butt is fully visible and shown side by side with the Kim Kardashian photo above. In the caption, Handler challenges the site with, “Your move, Instagram.”

While they are a central focus for celebrities taking a stand, nipples aren’t the only source of ambiguity on the site, though. Earlier this year, blogger Meghan Tonjes posted a photo of her underwear-clad butt on her Instagram as a statement of body positivity with the hashtag #honormycurves.

Given that her photo is not unique on a site where butt selfies are, indeed, a thing, Tonjes believes her photo was flagged for inappropriate content because of her plus-sized body type. This experience led Tonjes to launch a body positivity campaign on Instagram and YouTube, beginning with the response video included below. In her response, Tonjes shows a variety of photos that haven’t been removed from Instagram that look no different (or, debatably, even more inappropriate) than those images that have been taken down.

[Note: The video automatically skips to around the six-minute mark, but she begins explaining her situation around 55 seconds in.]

Instagram eventually restored the photo to Tonjes’ account with an apology, but not before she could expose some very blatant double standards in the admin’s judgment, as well as the judgment of those who flag photos for inappropriate content because of personal discomfort rather than an overarching problem. Tonjes also points out that there is no appeal process for when content is removed in which a user can defend themselves or their photos.

Conclusion

It is clear that Instagram has some unhappy users, some of whom have decided to terminate their accounts altogether. Should the site acquiesce, which would placate some users and potentially draw in new ones, and risk losing some of their more conservative following?

One potential alternative would be to find a more fair way to enforce the rules the site clearly wants to keep, so those whose photos are removed feel less targeted and alienated. It seems the problem isn’t in the use of guidelines per se, but is rather in the vague nature of the terminology “inappropriate content” and what exactly is considered “nudity” or “partial nudity.” If these terms were clearly defined, the company would have a much more solid argument for enforcing their Terms and Conditions.

Or the site could continue unchanged because ultimately the business has been expanding regardless of a little outrage.

Resources

Primary

Instagram: Instagram Terms of Use

Instagram: Press Page

Pew: Teens, Social Media, and Privacy

Pew: Teenage Life Online

XoJane: I am Scout Willis And This Is The Only Thing I Have To Say About Walking Topless Down The Streets of New York Last Week

Additional 

BET: Rihanna’s Instagram Account ‘Briefly Disabled’

Independent: Instagram Defends Nudity Rules After Scout Willis ‘Nipple Ban’ Topless Protest

Independent: Grace Coddington Banned From Instagram for Posting Topless Line Cartoon

Independent: Scout Willis Topless Instagram Protest

BBC: Instagram Defends Nudity Rules After ‘Nipple Ban’ Protest

Buzzfeed: This Woman’s Butt Selfie Was Banned From Instagram, So She Fought Back

Kelsey Kennedy

Kelsey Kennedy is a freelance editor with degrees in Magazine Journalism and Performance Theatre from the University of Missouri, Columbia (MIZ!). When she isn’t out exploring New York, she loves getting far too invested in characters on the page, stage, and screen. She ultimately wants to make a difference in the world and surround herself with creative people. Contact Kelsey at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Instagram Nudity Problem: What’s the App to Do? appeared first on Law Street.

The FCC is on the verge of allowing internet fast lanes that would allow content providers to pay for faster access for their customers. Read on to learn why this proposal has generated so much controversy.

What is an internet  fast lane?

When commentators say “fast lane,” they are usually referring to paid prioritization. This is when an Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as Comcast or Time Warner, charges a content provider, such as Google or Facebook, an extra fee for faster “lanes” of bandwidth. Effectively, the ISPs would be allowing content providers to pay for easier access to customers.

Netflix recently agreed to pay Comcast for faster access to its customers. This is the first deal of its kind.

Netflix is not happy about the deal at all. In a blog post, CEO Reed Hastings referred to the fee as an “arbitrary tax” and expressed concerns that escalating fees could continue to be charged to Netflix and other content providers. Netflix may have agreed to pay this fee not to gain an advantage but to gain download speeds they once had. This graphic from the Washington Post shows that Netflix’s download speeds on Comcast tanked during the negotiations and then suddenly spiked once Netflix agreed to pay the fee:

Why are ISPs allowed to create fast lanes?

ISPs like Comcast are allowed to charge content providers for faster access because of a recent court decision that struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) rules regarding net neutrality. The FCC is the federal agency in charge of regulating communications over mediums such as radio and television.

Net neutrality is the concept that all data on the Internet should be treated equally. You should be able to load a Netflix page just as fast as you can load a YouTube page. This video from Mashable provides a clear visualization of the concept.

The FCC created regulatory rules in 2010 that would enforce net neutrality. Cable companies and other ISPs immediately cried foul and filed lawsuits.

On January 14, 2014, a U.S. appeals court overruled the new rules. The reason? Broadband Internet is classified by the government as an information service. The FCC does not have the authority to regulate information services. The Internet used to be classified as a telecommunications service until a 2005 Supreme Court ruling. The FCC is allowed to strictly regulate telecommunications services.

What is the FCC doing about fast lanes?

In the wake of the court ruling, the FCC is in the process of writing a new set of Internet rules that allow for fast lanes. For the past few months, the FCC has allowed public comment on its website on one main question: should the new rules allow fast lanes?

There is a possibility that these rules would permit only some heavily regulated fast lanes to exist. The FCC says that the rules would require these lanes be “commercially reasonable,” but that’s a vague requirement that could be exploited.

There’s also a possibility that the FCC could go in the opposite direction and ban prioritization. The FCC would do this by reclassifying broadband Internet as a telecommunications service, giving it the power to strictly regulate ISPs. This reclassification would almost certainly face a legal challenge by ISPs, as well as a challenge from Congress.

How have people reacted to this proposal?

The FCC received more than one million online comments about the proposed rule change in the span of five months. That is the most comments the agency has ever received, and almost topped the number of complaints the Commission received after Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl.

Activists and content providers alike are not happy that the FCC is even considering legalizing fast lanes.

The Internet Association, an industry group that represents companies like Amazon, Google, and Uber, submitted a lengthy comment to the FCC’s website arguing, in part, that “charging for enhanced or prioritized access […] undermines the Internet’s level playing field.”

The association also expressed concern that ISPs might provide prioritization to their own content. For example, Comcast owns NBC Universal. A fast lane rule would allow Comcast to prioritize access to NBC television streaming over the quality of other network streaming services.

John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, took a more cynical view in this widely shared segment. Oliver accused the FCC and Chairman Tom Wheeler, who used to be a lobbyist for cable companies, of corruption. He also called on Internet trolls to flood the FCC with comments.

MoveOn, the liberal activism website, released this television ad encouraging viewers to call the FCC in support of network neutrality.

MoveOn’s lead campaign director Victoria Kaplan also released a statement saying that “MoveOn members strongly support Net Neutrality and are calling on the FCC to scrap proposed rules that would undermine an open Internet.”

ISPs, for the most part, are issuing vague statements about how they support an “open Internet.” For example, Comcast released a statement saying that “we support the FCC putting in place legally enforceable rules to ensure that there is a free and open Internet, including transparency, no blocking, and anti-discrimination rules.” This doesn’t really say anything specific. Comcast argued later in the statement against a reclassification of broadband Internet, but never argued why they should be allowed to charge for fast lanes.

In stunning contrast, AT&T provided a robust defense of fast lanes in its FCC comment. The whole document is definitely worth a read, but here’s the most important quote:

“In no other area of the economy does the government ban voluntary market transactions (here, for example, quality-of-service enhancements) specifically in order to prevent those with superior resources from offering better services to their own customers.”

The line AT&T concluded the paragraph with is equally important to understanding the company’s argument:

“In short, the theoretical basis of this rationale for a strict nondiscrimination rule is thoroughly unsound and anathema to a market economy.”

AT&T’s argument is pretty unique. It is essentially saying that not allowing content providers to pay for a fast lane or not allowing ISPs to offer such an “upgrade” goes against the very foundation of a capitalist economy.

What’s important about this argument is the claim by AT&T that the fast lane would only amount to an “enhancement” in service for some companies and not a downgrade in service for companies that do not pay the fee.

Many activists doubt this will be the case. Instead, the “free” lane would be significantly slower. As John Oliver put it in the previously embedded segment, “if we let cable companies offer two speeds of service, it won’t be Usain Bolt and Usain Bolt on a motor bike. They’ll be Usain Bolt and Usain Bolted To An Anchor.”

Conclusion

Soon, the FCC will create a new set of rules governing the Internet. It will either allow fast lanes to exist and face harsh public criticism or it will fight for net neutrality and face a barrage of lawsuits and challenges from ISPs and Congress. This is an issue you will want to keep an eye on if you use the Internet regularly.

Resources

Primary

FCC: FCC Launches Rulemaking On How To Protect The Open Internet

FCC: Comment: AT&T

FCC: Internet Association: Comment

Additional

Netflix CEO: The Case for Net Neutrality

Wall Street Journal: Court Tosses Out Open Internet Rules

CNET: 2005: FCC Changes Internet Classification

Hill: Former FCC Chairman on Net Neutrality

NPR: One Million FCC Comments Filed

Comcast: Comment

Guardian: Welcome to the Age of Digital Discrimination

MoveOn: Keep Internet Open

NextGov: The FCC is Getting Serious

Geeksided: MLB Speaks Out Against Fast Lanes

Eric Essagof

Eric Essagof attended The George Washington University majoring in Political Science. He writes about how decisions made in DC impact the rest of the country. He is a Twitter addict, hip-hop fan, and intramural sports referee in his spare time. Contact Eric at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Internet Fast Lanes Will Change How You Use the Web appeared first on Law Street.

“You may not know them, but data brokers know you,” Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chairwoman Edith Ramirez said at the release of an FTC report about the data broker industry. Data brokers know where you live, what you buy, what medical conditions you have, your background, interests, and even the names of your kids. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, so it is no wonder most Americans have no idea the thriving market for their personal information even exists. Here’s everything you need to know about how data brokers collect your information, what it is used for, and what protection you have.

What are data brokers?

Data brokers are companies that compile and resell or share the personal data of consumers. The FTC released a report on May 27, 2014 examining nine companies in the industry: Acxiom, CoreLogic, Datalogix, eBureau, ID Analytics, Intelius, PeekYou, Rapleaf and Recorded Future. These companies derive a whopping $426 million in annual revenue from their products.

The information set held by these companies is massive. Acxiom estimates it holds roughly 1,500 pieces of data per consumer. Another broker dwarfs Acxiom with 3,000 data points for nearly every U.S. consumer. One broker is said to maintain about 700 billion aggregated data elements and adds more than 3 billion pieces of data each month. Another database has information on 1.4 billion consumer transactions alone, such as credit card purchases. Watch an in-depth look at data brokers by 60 Minutes below.

Where do data brokers find their information?

Contentions with the data broker industry arise from the fact that information gleaned does not come directly from consumers. Data brokers garner a lot of information from publicly available sites. A site relaying U.S. Census data can provide information regarding local demographics and real estate value. These firms get additional information from voter records, tax records, court records, mortgages and property information, driving records, and numerous other avenues. Companies can scour social media sites, such as LinkedIn, for any publicly-available information. Data brokers also gain a lot of information from card loyalty programs, credit cards, and advertising agencies that may follow a user’s online activities. If you recently bought a subscription to Forbes Magazine or purchased a new dress from a catalog sent to your home, these data brokers will know. By compiling all this information, brokers begin to paint a profile of you, including your age, race, income, social security number, religion, political affiliation, criminal history, movie preferences, gun-ownership, gym membership, and hobbies.

What is this data used for?

Individual data points are compiled to form a profile of potential consumers who can then be targeted for specific products. The information allows companies to more accurately target consumers for advertising campaigns and gain information about consumer preferences. The FTC report shows that data brokers usually package data into two forms:

1. Data elements: Age, family, and interests.
2. Data segments: Compilation of interests used to to create a list of people with similar characteristics. Here are some examples of these list segments: “African-American Professional;” “Allergy Sufferer;” “Bible Lifestyle;” “Biker/Hell’s Angels;” “Plus-Size Apparel;” “Twitter User with 250+ friends.” Other categories include people with high cholesterol or those interested in novelty Elvis items.

Data brokers then use this information to create various products in three different categories:

1. Marketing: This includes mail, email, telemarketing, mobile, and TV campaigns. To target consumers, marketers use a process called “onboarding.” Onboarding allows marketers to load offline information, such as magazine subscriptions or store loyalty cards, into cookies that digital advertisers use to target consumers. Cookies are stored in a computer’s browser and allow advertisers to promote their products on numerous Internet services.
2. Risk Mitigation: This includes identity verification. These products use analytics to help banks comply with “know your customer” identity verification requirements under the USA Patriot Act. Products also include fraud detection to track patterns of attempted fraud. For instance, these products can track how long an email address has been used or whether a delivery address matches a listed consumer.
3. People Search: This includes products generally intended for use by individuals. Products can search for someone’s criminal record, ancestry, phone number, telephone history, or social media information. Most come in the form of fee-based search products.

Does the data make our lives easier?

Many people would agree that products that help to verify one’s identity are a good thing. Companies that can link consumer purchases to personal information like an address, phone number, and email drastically reduce chances of fraud. Some also see personalized advertising as a good thing. Say you are a senior citizen. Rather than scrolling through the Internet and seeing ads for baby strollers or discounted student loans, you might see ads for healthcare services. Targeted advertising means you receive information and discounts for things you actually use instead of products with no relevance to your life. Ideally the more information data brokers have about you, the more they can target your individual tastes. While each individual piece of data has little benefit, the aggregation of this data by data brokers is immensely beneficial to companies doing market research to improve and tailor their products.

How are data brokers changing political campaigns?

The use of personal data is not limited to what you buy. In the 2012 elections, campaigns contracted with political data brokers to match voting records with cookies on computers. Voter registration lists have long been used to target voters. Combined with more information, these lists now take a powerful form in the digital arena. Political microtargeting allows campaigns to utilize information from data brokers to deliver a specific message to a target demographic. Data can help campaigns decide which voters are most likely to respond to a specific ad or which groups need to be targeted with a specific message. Candidates can target registered Democrat or Republican voters with online ads and can even target based on how much the individual has donated to campaigns before.

President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign was among the first to use big data to its advantage. The 2012 team assembled an analytics department five times the size of that in its 2008 campaign. Some insights into the use of data in Obama’s 2012 campaign:

• As TIME describes, the team discovered that East Coast women between 40 and 50 were not donating as much as hoped. This demographic was the most likely to hand over cash for the chance to dine with a gravitational celebrity. The campaign’s solution? A fundraising drive with the prize being a dinner with Sarah Jessica Parker.
• The campaign used data to predict how much money they would get from each fundraising email. They also used demographics to determine which groups would be most responsive to an email signed by either Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, or Joe Biden.
• The campaign bought data from brokers regarding the television-viewing habits of Ohioans. The campaign was able to combine lists of voters with lists of cable subscribers and then coordinate the information of watching habits. Using this information, they targeted campaign ads to specific demographics at the exact time these niche voters were watching TV. This led to the campaign buying airtime in shows like Sons of Anarchy and the Walking Dead rather than traditional news programming. Watch for more on the use of big data during Obama’s reelection campaign below.

Little information is disclosed on just how much data campaigns can access. Inevitably the collection and effective use of data will play a huge role in the 2016 presidential election, but not all consumers are happy with that. The regulation of the use of data for political purposes raises questions of free speech and privacy. Others claim microtargeting actually offers more privacy, since the data does not include names or physical mailing addresses. It may be hard, however, for consumers to opt out of political advertising. Even lists like the National Do Not Call registry have exceptions for political campaign calls. According to a study by the University of Pennsylvania, 86 percent of Americans said they did not want political advertising tailored to their interests.

What are the problems with data brokers?

There is a certain “creepiness” factor to data collection without consumer consent. Target tried to market products to new parents by identifying them even before the baby was born. Data showed that pregnant women purchased products like cocoa butter and calcium tablets. Target began sending targeted mail to these women. But instead of finding it helpful, the women found the fact that Target knew they were pregnant to be unnerving.

Others worry about the effects of outdated data. Consumers have little access to immediately change what information that brokers have on them, such as an address change or marriage. This means people could potentially be prevented from making a purchase solely based on outdated information. Outdated information becomes more offensive when the deceased remain on data broker lists and continue to receive offers in the mail. Some women revealed stories of experiencing a miscarriage yet continuing to receive insensitive mailings from Gerber and American Baby Magazine.

Companies that have such specific information about segments of consumers may take advantage from the data. An example from the FTC looks at the case of a consumer labeled to be a biker enthusiast. This person might get more coupons for motorcycles and gear, but they could also see higher insurance rates if companies use this information to conclude this individual engages in risky behavior. Watch a Congressional hearing on the industry’s issues below.

An Acxiom presentation to the Consumer Marketing Organization in 2013 indicates further issues with potential discrimination. Acxiom placed customers into “customer value segments.” Data showed that while the top 30 percent of customers add 500 percent of value, the bottom 20 percent actually cost 400 percent of value. The bottom 20 percent call customer service numerous times and cost the company in returns. The company would be better off ignoring these customers altogether, and data brokers can help companies to identify these costly customers. These high-cost customers could then face higher prices or poor service without even being aware they are discriminated against.

Do people have any protection?

The problem most people have with the collection of data is that they have no say in it. They are not aware when information is being collected, nor are they in control of what it is used for or if it is correct. The resale and illegal use of the data is prohibited. Data brokers also suppress protected lists such as phone numbers on the Do Not Call Registry.

Some data brokers do try to protect consumers. Some voluntarily remove information regarding children and teens from their data. Others provide ways to edit and review what data the broker has on you. Acxiom uses aboutthedata.com for this very purpose. Epsilon allows consumers to review information, but reviewing the information costs $5 and requests can only be made by postal mail. Trying to review information collected by every broker is extremely time consuming. Watch for more on how to protect yourself below.

No laws require brokers to maintain the privacy of consumer data unless it is used for prohibited purposes. Federal law protects the confidentiality of medical records. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) restricts the search of information when determining eligibility for employment, credit, or housing; however, most data does not fall under the scope of FCRA.

What is the FTC pushing for?

The FTC report recognizes the immense value of data brokers to both companies and consumers; however, the FTC has offered the following recommendations to improve the industry and bolster consumer protection:

• Create a central database where consumers can see what information about them was collected. The database should also allow consumers to opt out from the data collection.
• Require brokers to list their data sources.
• Increase industry visibility and consumer awareness.
• Comprehensive legislation to prevent the discriminatory use of data. For instance, some categories infer sensitive statistics. “Metro Parents” are single parents primarily high school-educated handling the stresses of urban life on a small budget. “Timeless Traditions” are immigrants who speak some English but generally prefer Spanish.
• Adopt a series of best practices, including better protection for minors, improving data security, preventing unlawful discrimination, and restricting collection to only needed data.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and other groups attacked the FTC report. In an interview with the Washington Post, Stuart Ingis of the DMA said, “You’d think if there was a real problem, they’d be able to talk about something other than potential” abuses.

The data broker lobby is very powerful. Senators John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) and Edward Markey (D-MA) led the regulatory push by proposing the DATA bill on February 12, 2014, requiring data brokers to be transparent about the information they collect. But considering the fact that political campaigns benefit from data broker information when targeting voters, it is unlikely there will be new legislation on data brokers in the near future. In the meantime, expect data brokers to know much more about you than you know about them.

Resources

Primary

FTC: Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability

Ed Markey: Markey, Rockefeller Introduce Data Broker Bill

White House: Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values

Senate: A Review of the Data Broker Industry

Additional

Yahoo: FTC Wants More Transparency for Data Brokers

Data Privacy Minitor: FTC Report Seeks Congressional Review

Privacy and Security Law Blog: “Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You”

Washington Post: Brokers Use Billions of Data Points to Profile Americans

ProPublica: Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You

Slate: What Do Data Brokers Know About Me?

CNN: Why Big Companies Buy, Sell Your Data

New York Books: How Your Data are Being Deeply Mined

Pulitzer Center: Consumer Data Privacy in Politics

Time: Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win

ProPublica: Everything We Know So Far About Obama’s Big Data Operation

AdWeek: Confessions of a Data Broker

Alexandra Stembaugh

Alexandra Stembaugh graduated from the University of Notre Dame studying Economics and English. She plans to go on to law school in the future. Her interests include economic policy, criminal justice, and political dramas. Contact Alexandra at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Big Business of Big Data appeared first on Law Street.

Between laptops, cellphones, tablets, and iPads, students have more access to technology than ever before, and this comes with numerous benefits — but it also comes with a lot of responsibility. Apps that allow anonymous users, such as the social networking app Yik Yak, are accused of creating more harm than good. Do these anonymous apps make cyberbullying easier?

What is Yik Yak?

Yik Yak was founded by two Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers, Brooks Buffington and Tyler Droll, at Furman University. The app was first released November 7, 2013. Yik Yak allows users to anonymously post to a community bulletin board, much like an anonymous college Twitter feed. Posts are text only and limited to 200 characters. The catch is that posts can only be read by those within a 1.5-mile radius of the person who posted. Users can reply to posts and then vote — an upvote expresses approval and a downvote conveys the opposite. Eventually posts with enough downvotes will disappear from the feed altogether.

Yik Yak is the first app to allow hyperlocal communication while retaining user privacy. The app claims the only information they will ever require is a user’s location. Yik Yak is used for telling jokes, sharing events, providing commentary, and relaying funny sightings. It initially gained popularity on Southern campuses and has spread by word of mouth to 250 campuses nationwide. According to Business Insider, the app is used by nearly 80 percent of the student body at smaller schools. The founders’ goal is to create a local community that keeps everyone, rather than just a select few, informed. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Droll said:

“We saw on our college campus that only a few people really had a voice. They’re the people with big Twitter accounts, maybe student athletes, who had thousands of followers. My thought was why can’t everyone have this power?”

While founders liken it to a campus bulletin board, critics contend that the app is more like a bathroom stall door where vicious rumors are spread. On June 30, 2014, Yik Yak got a huge boost in the form of a $10 million investment from DCM, Azure Capital Partners, and others. The funding will be used to hire new employees, improve the app on Android and iOS, and increase marketing efforts. Other investors have been wary due to concerns that the app does more harm than good.

So what’s the problem with Yik Yak?

The majority of messages on the site are positive; however, the ones that are hurtful can be horrific. Cruel comments spread quickly, even if the post is eventually removed. While the app was intended for college students, it has naturally spread to younger teens who use it to bully and spread rumors. Yik Yak does not require any potentially identifying information to sign up, including any pseudonym or avatar, and there is no way for users to see a thread of someone’s past yaks. Many users simply think what they post on the app is untraceable. Other similar apps, such as “Whisper” and “Secret” share anonymous posts with other users and have the potential for abuse. However, Yik Yak has more downloads than both of these apps combined and typically hits schools like a hurricane — even after one day of popularity, the app’s damage is done.

Yik Yak posts community guidelines, but the nature of the site makes it difficult to consistently and immediately enforce these rules. Following abuse of the app by younger teens, Yik Yak moved to ensure the app is only used by those 17 years and older. According to Yik Yak, users agree not to:

• “Transmit any pornographic, obscene, offensive, threatening, harassing, libelous, hate-oriented, harmful, defamatory, racist, illegal, or otherwise objectionable material or content;”
• “Transmit or encourage the transmission of unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature”

Ultimately, it is users who are left to police the app. Users can flag negative posts that they deem offensive. If two or more users flag a post, it is removed from the site. Alternately, users can send a picture of an offensive post to Yik Yak, and it will immediately be removed. Posts which contain names or phone numbers are removed. Yik Yak can terminate accounts of those who violate the terms and conditions, but not before the damage is done. Watch some of the controversy surrounding the app below:

How has the app been abused?

Most abuse of the app has come from high school students, but college students are guilty too.

Rumors

New York Magazine chronicled the rapid spread of Yik Yak at Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut. Nasty comments forced many students to leave school in tears. No one was safe from the anonymous racist, homophobic, sexist messages that spread through the school in hours.  A sampling of the tamer posts includes comments like the following: “The fact that O.P has diabetes makes me happy;” “Nobody is taking H. to prom because nobody has a forklift;” “S.D. + 10 years = trailer park;” and “J.N. is a fag.”

Criminal Activity

The disruption at Staples High School was not an isolated incident. Marblehead High School in Massachusetts was twice evacuated due to bomb threats posted on Yik Yak. Students in California and Alabama have already been charged for making terroristic threats via Yik Yak. Users think they are completely anonymous.; however, authorities can track the address of the user and obtain their cell phone number from Yik Yak when necessary. While criminal posts are investigated, the everyday, hurtful posts are not. Watch some of the issues with Yik Yak below:

Offensive Jokes

Most recently, the app has been used by Wall Street interns to bash Goldman Sachs. Some of the posts are funny and innocent, “Goldman interns wear sandals with socks” and “GS interns eat lunchables.” However, other posts are more offensive: “God hates fags and GS interns.”

What is being done to address cyberbullying on Yik Yak?

Bullies once used the playground. Now, cell phones can taunt from afar, and apps are the new breeding ground for bullying. Cyberbullying is defined as harassing or making fun of someone online or while using a cell phone or other electronic device. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, roughly 25 percent of high school and middle school students report being cyberbullied at some point. Seventy percent of students report frequently seeing bullying online. Bullying can have extreme consequences, including low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, anger, frustration, withdrawal, and antisocial behavior. And It does not end at high school — almost 20 percent of college students report being cyberbullied in their college careers. The disguise of anonymity on online apps makes it significantly easier for bullies to feel free to say anything they want without repercussions. Listen below to some of the bullying on Yik Yak at Boston College:

Yik Yak’s founders claim they did not expect the app to be so popular with younger users who are more likely to cyberbully. The pair do not believe high schoolers are psychologically ready for the app and have taken measures to limit use by younger teens. Technically, users must be 17 and over, but most teens ignore the restriction. School districts in Chicago faced significant problems with the app, leading Yik Yak to remove it from the Chicago area for a short time. Some Chicago school districts even sent letters home to parents about the growing problem.

Yik Yak now geo-fences high school and middle schools through a third party. The app uses GPS to detect when a user is inside a school building and will prevent anyone from posting from that location. Restricted service is in place at approximately 130,000 schools across the country.  While access may be prevented at school, students can still go home and post on Yik Yak.

What more can be done?

The anonymity of apps like Yik Yak make it extremely difficult for schools or anyone else to crack down on inappropriate use. Schools may be able to monitor social media accounts and discipline harmful behavior, but Yik Yak allows users to remain completely anonymous. When used responsibly, Yik Yak maintains that “anonymity is a beautiful thing.” There are no repercussions for mean posts, but vicious rumors spread faster than they can be taken down.

The App’s Responsibility

At some level, the app must take appropriate measures to ensure it is not being used in a harmful manner. Yik Yak declares it is not responsible for offensive or objectionable content. Further, Yik Yak relies on its users to monitor content. The app could take more responsibility by using a filter and automatically flagging certain offensive words that would require further approval from administrators. The Yik Yak site declares it reserves the right to monitor disputes and disable accounts. Critics contend that Yik Yak should have the obligation rather than right to fulfill those roles. Many also argue for greater repercussions for the app’s rule violators.

Role of Parents

It is also unreasonable to expect an app to constantly monitor user-generated content. Parental involvement is necessary to monitor minors’ access to technology. Parents should strive to set guidelines, implement controls, and be knowledgeable about the technology their children are using. It is nearly impossible to monitor all of a child’s technology and social media activity. Instead, experts argue parents should have honest conversations about expectations and responsible behavior even on anonymous apps. By the time a child is in college, there is little more a parent can do to try to prevent bullying. Watch what parents need to know below:

Conclusion

Ultimately an app like Yik Yak is only part of the problem. Dozens of apps like Whisper, Snapchat, Vine, ask.fm, and JuicyCampus have the potential for abuse and bullying. The elimination of Yik Yak would not stop cyberbullying altogether. Students must be educated about the effects of cyberbullying and make the decision to behave responsibly despite the lure of anonymity.

Resources

Primary

Yik Yak: App

Cyberbullying Research Center: Home

Sage: Cyberbullying in College

Additional

Business Insider: Yik Yak, a 7-Month-Old School Gossip App

Wall Street Journal: Yik Yak Raises $10 Million

New York Magazine: A Gossip App Brought My High School to a Halt

Venture Beat: Anonymous Messaging App Yik Yak Grabs $10M

Fox News: Psychiatrist’s View: Yik Yak is the Most Dangerous App I’ve Ever Seen

Huffington Post: Yik Yak Makers do the Right Thing

The Breeze JMU: Yik Yak is an Invasion of Privacy

Chicago Now: The Real Problems With Yik Yak

NY Daily News: Student Monitoring: Cyberbullying Leads LA-area School District to Spy

Business Insider: Here’s What You Need to Know About Yik Yak

ACLU: Social Networking, Your Privacy Rights Explained

DISTIMO: Anonymous Sharing Apps

Chicago Tribune: Students Urged to Delete Controversial Social App

New York Magazine: NYU Students are Mocking Goldman Sachs Interns on Yik Yak

Alexandra Stembaugh

Alexandra Stembaugh graduated from the University of Notre Dame studying Economics and English. She plans to go on to law school in the future. Her interests include economic policy, criminal justice, and political dramas. Contact Alexandra at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Technology and the Bullying Epidemic: The Case of Yik Yak appeared first on Law Street.

In an era engulfed by technology, previous ways of life have undergone a revamping. One aspect is the way in which social movements are conducted. The implementation of social media as a key tool in producing change has created “hashtag activism,” a way of protest both hailed and scorned by critics for its influence.

What is Hashtag Activism?

Hashtag activism is the act of supporting a cause that is being advocated through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and other networking websites. Although sometimes criticized for its lack of effectiveness and promotion of lazy activism, it is the implementation of social media as a platform to raise awareness on a multitude of issues.

On September 17, 2011 the #OccupyWallStreet movement began to raise issues of economic and social inequality in the United States. Arguably one of the first major Twitter campaign, the protest mobilized thousands of people almost exclusively through the Internet. Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor under President Clinton, notes that, “Occupy put the issue of the nation’s savage inequality on the front pages” and “to that extent, it was a stirring success.” Although  with a lack of clear objectives and leadership the movement was unable to sustain long-term economic changes, #OccupyWallStreet created a new method of activism that was adopted in future campaigns.

Cases of Hashtag Activism

#Kony2012

War criminal and Ugandan military leader Joseph Kony is known for abducting children and turning them into child soldiers and sex slaves. In an effort to draw attention to his offenses Invisible Children, Inc. released a short documentary titled Kony 2012 in March of 2012, kick starting the “Stop Kony” movement that swept the United States. As of June 1, 2014 the film has over 99.5 million views on YouTube.

Americans helped contribute to the nearly 2.4 million tweets #Kony2012 accumulated in March 2012. Stimulated by the general public and celebrities alike, the United States deployed 100 military advisers to join the force of 5,000 sent by the African Union to suppress the violence in Uganda.

Abou Moussa, the U.N. Central Africa representative said, “We need to take advantage of the high level of interest, goodwill and political commitment to finally put an end to this crime.”

However, Joseph Kony remains on Forbes World’s Most Wanted Fugitives list as he has yet to be captured by the authorities.

#BringBackOurGirls

Boko Haram, a terrorist group in Nigeria, kidnapped 276 female students from their school on April 15, 2014. Since their abduction, the girls have involuntary converted to Islam and forced into marriages at the bride price of $12 dollars a piece.

Parents and activists were frantic for the government to escalate their involvement to find the missing girls, and their need to spread awareness led them to Twitter. According to BBC Trending‘s Anne-Marie Tomchack, Ibrahim M Abdullah, a lawyer in Nigeria, was the creator of the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. The story of the abducted girls did not begin to gather attention until April 23, 2014 when Nigerians adopted the new slogan and began tweeting it.

Perhaps the Nigerian government would be able to ignore regular citizens calling for help, but once First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got involved the issue could no longer be disregarded.

Time’s Laura Olin stated, “It’s not everything, but it’s a start. And the world is now talking about 276 stolen girls in Nigeria when before it wasn’t talking about them at all.”

Boko Haram has continued to terrorize the people of Nigeria. Since the abduction of the school girls, the militants have kidnapped even more children and murdered people in towns along the way. The Nigerian government has been all over the place with its involvement. Statements banning protests were released, followed by a quick change of heart from the administration claiming it has, “never, ever tried to violate anybody’s rights. We believe in human rights, we believe in citizens’ rights.” Allegedly the military knows where the remaining girls are, but has yet to go in due to the danger of the camp.

#YesAllWomen

On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus in Isla Vista. Six people were fatally wounded and another thirteen were injured before Rodger committed suicide in the midst of a police chase. Before the attacks began, Rodger posted alarming and irate videos to YouTube declaring his disdain of all women since they had been rejecting him throughout his life. In addition to the series of videos, he produced a 137 page autobiographical manifesto written in the same sentiment.

Although it is clear that Rodger was more vicious and vehement than most, the outlines of the prevailing misogynistic American cultural values were evident in his manifesto. Feminists could no longer stand for the perverse ideology and took to social media to let the world know.

Because being alone in a parking garage at night is one of the most terrifying experiences on earth #YesAllWomen

— jackie vasquez (@jvask) May 25, 2014

#YesAllWomen because even a taped confession admitting to raping me wasn't enough to put him in jail.

— Jessi Smiles (@jessismiles__) May 26, 2014

I shouldn't have to hold my car keys in hand like a weapon & check over my shoulder every few seconds when I walk at night #YesAllWomen

— Sophia Bush (@SophiaBush) May 25, 2014

The Twitter campaign #YesAllWomen created a place for women to share their own stories of sexism and brought attention to Rodger’s animosity toward women, that stemmed from the outlooks of our society. The New Yorker’s Sasha Weiss accurately described the moment as,

“#YesAllWomen is the vibrant revenge of women who have been gagged and silenced.”

#YesAllWomen is effective since instead of preaching to the typical feminist choir, it drew in the more mainstream population including men and celebrities. However, not all individuals were able to see the campaign for what it was and swiftly came to the defense of the male gender.

To counter #YesAllWomen, men’s rights activists were quick to tweet #NotAllMen. The thread was fashioned to establish that Rodger did not represent the entirety of the male gender; he was one of those terrible guys, not like the rest of them. #NotAllMen contributors felt the burning desire to let the world know they are not the problem and to once again push women’s issues to the back burner(if it was intended or not).

The people who tweeted #NotAllMen or believed that feminists were just on another one of their rampages missed what #YesAllWomen was intended to do. The true sentiment #YesAllWomen was expressed by CNN’s Emanuella Grinberg who said, “No, not all men channel frustration over romantic rejection into a killing spree. But yes, all women experience harassment, discrimination or worse at some point in their lives.”

As on May 26, 2014 the #YesAllWomen hashtag has reached 1.2 million tweets and 1.2 billion impressions.

 Arguments for Hashtag Activism

“Hashtag activism is a gateway between politics and popular culture, a platform to educate the ignorant and draw attention to the operation of power in the world,” stated Ben Scott in New America’s Weekly Wonk. By using a medium that is seen by millions of people daily, hashtag activism has the ability to alter a person’s attitude towards a cause by exposing them to others personal experiences and witnessing mass support. As social change is dependent on transformation at an individual level, Twitter makes itself invaluable as a campaign tool.

When victims see that others have endured the same trauma, it directly helps them as they can see that they are not alone in their pain. Even if they do not feel support by those they directly interact with in life, they know that people do care about them.

Along with the cases previously mentioned, computer-based activists also directly impacted the amount of funding for another issue they felt strongly about. Planned Parenthood annually receives $680,000 dollars from the Susan G. Komen Foundation that helps provide exams largely for minority and low income women. In January 2012, Komen announced that it would stop its funding of mammograms and breast exams through Planned Parenthood. The Internet went into an uproar, tweeting hashtags like #standwithpp and #singon. By Friday of that week, Komen had reversed its decision and stated it would continue to support Planned Parenthood.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, told the Los Angeles Times, “I absolutely believe the exposure on Facebook and Twitter really drove a lot of coverage by mainstream media… I’ve never seen anything catch fire [like this].”

 Arguments Against Hashtag Activism

Criticisms of hashtag activism stem from the thought that the generation that uses a social media-driven method of reform are observers, commenters, self-indulgent philanthropists – not true advocates witnessed in previous eras. CNN’s Dean Obeidallah stated that the ‘Greatest Generation’ in the 1940s and ‘50s were, “doers, not watchers.” In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the streets were flooded with protests of the Vietnam War and roared with a call for civil rights, forcing the hand of government officials to listen the people’s wishes.

Now the most common form of demonstration is retweeting another’s thoughts or giving a “like” on Facebook. Sure, online petitions are digitally signed, but the automatic signature lacks the passion displayed by movements that have come before.

Obeidallah relates the tactics of hashtag activists to the revolutionaries in the Arab world. He acknowledges that they did use social media, but their efforts did not stop there. Protesters risked their lives to achieve the change they yearned for, “All the tweets in the world would not have driven the presidents of Egypt or Tunisia from their offices,” declared Obeidallah.

Sarah Palin has also voiced her opinion on the inefficiencies of using social media to obtain success. On the former Governors Facebook page she posted a photo of a man with sheets of paper attached to his body, with hashtags scribed on them such as, “#StopLazyInternetActivism” and “#YouAreNotMakingADifference.” In regards to the abductions done by Boko Haram and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign that ensued, Palin included personal commentary in a caption:

Diplomacy via Twitter is the lazy, ineffectual, naïve, and insulting way for America’s leaders to deal with major national and international issues… If you’re going to get involved anyway, Mr. President, learn to understand this and believe it, then announce it: Victory is only brought to you ‘courtesy of the red, white and blue.’ It’s certainly not won by your mere ‘unfriending’ the bad guys on Facebook. Leading from behind is not the American way.

Evgeny Morozov, the author of “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, said, “My hunch is that people often affiliate with causes online for selfish and narcissistic purposes… Sometimes, it may be as simple as trying to impress their online friends, and once you have fashioned that identity, there is very little reason to actually do anything else.”

Many individuals share the impression that hashtags may come and go and they are no match for real world engagement.

Conclusion

While it cannot be denied that hashtag activism is an effective method in spreading awareness of a cause, the tangible achievements attained from physical protests perhaps outweigh those on the Internet. The absence of organization and leadership found in many Twitter-based campaigns have some people critical of the realistic capability these movements have in comparison to the street pounding tactics used during the civil rights movements. For a movement to be successful in a technology-driven generation, a combination of both civic engagement and hashtag activism would produce the best results.

 Resources

The New York Times: The Manifesto of Elliot Rodger

Washington Post: #BringBackOurGirls, #Kony2012, and the Complete, Divisive History of ‘Hashtag Activism’

Reuters: African Union Launches U.S.-Backed Force to Hunt Kony

#BBCtrending: The Creator of #BringBackOurGirls

Time: #BringBackOurGirls: Hashtag Activism Is Cheap – And That’s a Good Thing

CNN: Deadly California Rampage: Chilling Video, But No Match for Reality

New Yorker: The Power of #YesAllWomen

Time: Not All Men: A Brief History of Every Dude’s Favorite Argument

CNN: Why #YesAllWomen Took Off on Twitter

Hashtags: Social Media Users Respond to Existing Dangers Towards Women with #YesAllWomen

Weekly Wonk: #WhyHashtagActivismMatters

New Zealand Herald: Verity Johnson: Hashtag Activism – #TakeItSeriously

LA Times: Komen Learns Power of Social Media: Facebook, Twitter Fueled Fury

The New York Times: Hashtag Activism, and Its Limits

Christian Science Monitor: Happy Birthday, Occupy!

Forbes: The World’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives

CNN: Boko Haram Blamed for Nigeria Village Attacks; 15 Killed, Chief Kidnapped

Telegraph: Nigeria: Kidnapped Schoolgirls ‘S\

Alex Hill

Alex Hill studied at Virginia Tech majoring in English and Political Science. A native of the Washington, D.C. area, she blames her incessant need to debate and write about politics on her proximity to the nation’s capital.

The post Hashtag Activism: Is it #Effective? appeared first on Law Street.