Year: 2014

NIH Requires Genome Researchers to Share Data in Real Time

September 16, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment News

NIH tells genomic researchers: ‘You must share data’ (Chronicle of Higher Ed, 28 August 2014) – Scientists who use government money to conduct genomic research will now be required to quickly share the data they gather under a policy announced on Wednesday by the National Institutes of Health. The data-sharing policy, which will take effect with grants awarded in January, will give agency-financed researchers six months to load any genomic data they collect-from human or nonhuman subjects-into a government-established database or a recognized alternative. NIH officials described the move as the latest in a series of efforts by the federal government to improve the efficiency of taxpayer-financed research by ensuring that scientific findings are shared as widely as possible. “We’ve gone from a circumstance of saying, ‘Everybody should share data,’ to now saying, in the case of genomic data, ‘You must share data,’” said Eric D. Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH. The NIH’s plan to require data-sharing hasn’t been entirely popular with the researchers themselves, at least not in the early stages. When it appeared last year, the initial version of the NIH’s policy proposal drew criticism from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the nation’s largest coalition of biomedical researchers, and the Association of American Medical Colleges, whose members include all 141 accredited U.S. medical schools.

 

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Why General Counsels Need More Say in Cybersecurity

September 15, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment Security

Get the GC plugged in to cybersecurity (Corporate Counsel, 13 August 2014) – As more countries try to create rules to deal with cybersecurity and data privacy, general counsel need to become more engaged participants in the conversation, said Kaye Scholer partner Adam Golodner, because those rules will affect future business. Recent incidents, including the massive hacking of data by a Russian gang revealed last week and the theft of customer financial data from Target Corp. in December, only accelerate the process. So GCs should “engage in those discussions now,” Golodner told CorpCounsel.com this week. Cybersecurity is a fundamental issue for general counsel and corporate counsel, Golodner said, and it now has escalated to a board of directors’ issue. “We’ve seen significant change over the past three years where it has matured to a top-level risk management issue,” he explained. Proposed legislation in the EU, he noted, will set cybersecurity standards for all enterprises. The proposal affects network and information security separate from the EU’s data privacy directive. Before these standards become final, Golodner said, there’s still a chance for multinational companies to participate in what the rules will look like.

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Hackers Target U.S. Universities Over Retail and Healthcare

September 11, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment Security

US universities at greater risk for security breaches than retail and healthcare (ZDnet, 21 August 2014) – The back-to-school season is a busy time for many, even hackers. According to a new report by the security rankings provider BitSight Technologies, higher education institutions experience an influx in malicious cyberattacks during the school year. But what’s worse is that most of those universities are ill-equipped to prevent and handle such attacks, which, according to the report, results in cybersecurity rankings below that of retail and healthcare – two sectors plagued by near-constant security attacks that often result in successful breaches. The majority of attacks experienced by higher education institutions come from malware infections, with the most prevalent being Flashback, which targets Apple computers. Other prominent malware include Ad-ware and Conficker. BitSight said universities are the targets of so many attacks because they harbor a trove of sensitive and personal data, ranging from addresses and social security numbers to credit card numbers and intellectual property – and hackers are quick to notice the weak IT infrastructure in place to keep that data protected.

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Attorneys Using iPhones, Overlook iPads

September 10, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment All

2014 ABA Tech Survey shows more attorneys using iPhones, but iPad use holds steady (iPhone JD, 20 August 2014) – Every year, the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center conducts a survey to gauge the use of legal technology by attorneys in the United States. My thoughts on the prior reports are located here: 2013 ,2012 , 2011 , 2010 . No survey is perfect, but the ABA tries hard to ensure that its survey has statistical significance, and every year this is one of the best sources of information on how attorneys use technology. Yesterday, the ABA released Volume VI of the report titled Mobile Lawyers. This year’s report once again shows that a large number of attorneys are using iPhones and iPads. For those nine out of every ten attorneys who are using smartphones, 74% reported in 2014 that they were using a personally owned smartphone, and 28% used a smartphone permanently assigned by their law firm. Those numbers were closer to 66% and 36% in the prior three years, so it seems that in 2014, fewer law firms are buying smartphones for their attorneys and more attorneys are buying their own smartphones. Whether they buy it themselves or it is purchased by their law firm, what smartphones are those nine out of ten attorneys using in 2014? Last year, the big news was that over half of all attorneys were using an iPhone. This year, that number increases even more: 60.8% of all attorneys are using an iPhone (66.8% of the 91% of attorneys who use a smartphone). So if you can imagine a row of ten attorneys, this year one of them doesn’t use a smartphone at all, and six of them use an iPhone. What about the other three? Two of them are likely using an Android phone (24.5% of the 91% of attorneys who use a smartphone report using an Android phone in 2014, a small increase from 22% in 2013.) and that last attorney is probably using a Windows phone. Last year, based on the 2013 survey, I concluded that over 400,000 attorneys were using an iPad based on the survey numbers and the assumption that there are about one million attorneys in the U.S. This year, I still believe that there are over 400,000 attorneys using an iPad, but the 2014 survey results on lawyer tablet use were surprising to me in two respects. First, lawyer tablet use is not growing nearly as much as I had expected. In 2011, 15% of attorneys reported that they used a tablet device. In 2012, that more than doubled to 33%. In 2013, it increased to 48%. Thus, I would have guessed that more than half of attorneys would be using tablets in 2014. But that didn’t happen. The number instead increased only from 48% to 49%. Have we reached the point where most attorneys who want to use a tablet already have one? After all, as useful as an iPad is, I often hear attorneys tell me that laptops such as the MacBook Air are so thin and light that they carry theirs almost everywhere, and when you always have a laptop with you there is less of a need for an iPad. Is it possible that even though almost half of all attorneys now use a tablet, the other half will never see the need to do so?

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Lawyer-Run Organizations Become Hottest Targets for Hackers

September 8, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment All

UK’s Information Commissioner Voices Concerns About Data Security in Legal Profession (August 5, 2014) – The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has received reports of 15 incidents in the past three months involving mishandling of client data by those in the legal profession. The ICO is warning that barristers and solicitors who do not take adequate precautions to protect their clients’ data would face fines of up to GBP 500,000 (US $840,000). – http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2358882/ico-sounds-the-alarm-over-legal-professions-shoddy-data-handling [SANS Editor’s Note (Paller): I have first hand evidence that US law firms have lost huge troves of their clients’ data; the FBI disclosed that US law firms were targets of nation-state attacks in 2009; and the head of MI5 made it clear that the same was happening in the UK in a disclosure the year before. Nation states (as well as economic competitors) have figured out that organizations run by lawyers (as well as the consulting companies run by ex Federal officials) are the most cost-effective way to steal intellectual property from companies seeking to do business in their countries because those companies share the crown jewels with their lawyers and consultants and think they will protect the information. ]

 

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Harvard Fellow Argues for Use of Pseudonyms in Online Interaction

September 5, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment Opinion

Can pseudonyms make better online citizens? (Harvard Magazine, Sept 2014) – People socialize online more than ever: posting photos on Instagram, job-hunting on LinkedIn, joking about politics on Twitter, and sharing reviews of everything from hotels to running shoes. Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society , argues against using real names for most of these Internet interactions and relying instead on pseudonyms. A made-up handle is essential to maintain privacy and manage one’s online identity, she says. Her new book, The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online (MIT Press, 2014), also contends that well-managed pseudonyms can strengthen online communities, an idea that contradicts the conventional wisdom that fake names bring out the worst in people, allowing “trolls” to bully others or post hateful, destructive comments without consequences. Real names, such thinking goes, keep online conversations civil. But Donath often uses a pseudonym online, not because she wants to “anonymously harass people or post incendiary comments unscathed,” as she explained in a commentary published on Wired.comthis spring, but because she prefers to separate certain aspects of her life. In the age of Google, a quick search of a person’s name gathers everything he or she has posted under that name, from résumés to college party photos. As a public figure who studies how people communicate online, Donath’s academic writing can be found online under her real name. But when she writes product reviews on shopping sites such as Drugstore.com, or restaurant reviews on Yelp, she might use a pseudonym.

 

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