April 2015 - JusticeHub Innovation Lab

Korea: When Laws Hold Back Tech

April 30, 2015 Christy Leos Leave a comment Economy, Government, News, Security

Having lived in Korea for the past 2 and a half years, I can say that I love this place. It is an amazing culture and a truly amazing country. It also helps that I am an internet junkie, and the service here is unbelievable. I pay 41,000 won per month (around $39.00) for 100mb internet service with no contract. This is truly a place where connectivity is king.

However, I have consistently had one major issue, and that is with online shopping and banking. When I want to go to my bank website, I have to download at least 5 security programs, including keylogging pretection software. These are all designed to keep you safe, and your information secure. Funny, that the only time my information was compromised was when it had nothing to do with e-commerce. These programs also degrade the performance of your computer.

One of the biggest issues I have is that most online shopping websites use ActiveX security from Microsoft. ActiveX is outdated, and really only works well with Internet Explorer. While I have nothing against IE, I do have issue with this,as it inherently limits browser choice. In fact, until about 2 years ago, my (soon-to-be) wife thought Internet Explorer WAS the Internet…

After searching, I found out that Korea passed a law in 1999 to protect consumers that required the use of ActiveX security. I see serious issues with laws such as these, and that is due to the inherent difference in pace between law and technology. The world has moved beyond ActiveX, and South Korea is for once, lagging behind, and this is due to enshrining ActiveX into law. However this will be changing soon.

This April, after months of rumors, the Government has finally announced plans to fix things!! This is wonderful news, however I fear that it has come too late in the game. I wonder if this had any effect on ticket sales for the Incheon Asian games(I had to have my wife order them, because the payment system was exclusively in Korean)?

All I can say is that I am glad that things are moving in the right direction, and that Korean consumers will finally have a choice in browsers.

CIJT: Do you think that it is beneficial to enshrine specific technologies into law? Any ideas on how to have law keep pace with technology?

Source article: BusinessKorea

Photo: ClipDealer GmbH

Texas vs NSA: Cutting the Cord

April 30, 2015 Christy Leos Leave a comment All, Privacy

A representative from Texas has proposed a very interesting way to try to combat NSA surveillance. Jonathan Stickland has proposed a state law (H.RB. No. 3916), which aims to combat NSA surveillance at a San Antonio site by cutting the cord so to speak. The bill would cut access to electricity and water utilities to any federal agency that “is involved in the routine surveillance or collection and storage of bulk telephone or e-mail records or related metadata concerning any citizen of the United States”.

Read the full BBC article here.

By Hustvedt (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

People of the CIJT, What do you think?

Google and Facebook Continue to Push Back on Government Access to Consumer Data

April 24, 2015 Administrator Leave a comment Privacy

Facebook and Google privacy heads disagreed on Wednesday April 23, 2015, with White House claims that the government needs ways around encryption of consumer data. Cryptography experts claim that a system designed to allow the U.S. government cirvumvent encryption could be exploited. Google’s chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, said the ability to access encrypted data could also decrease law enforcement’s accountability in data search and access.

Read full article via MIT Technology Review here.

“System Code” by Yuri Samoilov is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Federal Court Rules Against FBI Cutting Internet in Search Dupe

April 21, 2015 Administrator Leave a comment Privacy

US District Judge Andrew P. Gordon shot down evidence collected by the FBI during a search early this year investigating an illegal online betting ring. Agents cut Internet access to $25,000-per-night villas at Caesar’s Palace Hotel and Casino and searched the premises, posing as service repair providers.

“Permitting the government to create the need for the occupant to invite a third party into his or her home would effectively allow the government to conduct warrantless searches of the vast majority of residents and hotel rooms in America,” Gordon wrote. “Authorities would need only to disrupt phone, Internet, cable, or other ‘non-essential’ service and then pose as technicians to gain warrantless entry to the vast majority of homes, hotel rooms, and similarly protected premises across America.”

Thomas Goldstein, one of the nation’s top Supreme Court litigators who runs the SCOTUSblog, labelled the ruling as “monumental” in protecting privacy in the digital age.

Cybercriminals Target Medical Data

April 8, 2015 Administrator Leave a comment Security

Hackers often carry out massive cyberattacks to gain access to financial data through banks and retail companies , but this week’s cybercrime hit a seemingly new target: medical data, taken from the health insurance company Premera Blue Cross. The attack affected 11 million patients, making it the largest cyberattack involving medical information to date . The healthcare industry has been catching hackers’ attention lately. In February, the health insurance company Anthem reported a breach in which hackers accessed to about 80 million records , and in 2014, the Tennessee-based hospital operator Community Health Systems saw 4.5 million records accessed, though both companies said no medical data was exposed. Even so, as Pat Calhoun, the senior vice president of network security at Intel Security, puts it, the healthcare industry is just beginning to find itself in cyber-criminals’ crosshairs, making it slow to shield people’s records. Calhoun points out that healthcare breaches aren’t unheard of: In fact, according to Intel Security and the Atlantic Council’s latest report on cyber risks , about 44 percent of all registered data breaches in 2013 targeted medical companies, with the number of breaches increasing 60 percent between 2013 and 2014. Medical data is also becoming a highly lucrative target. “Financial data has always been a priority, because it’s low-hanging fruit,” Calhoun says. “But over the past couple of years, we’ve identified that medical information has a higher value on the black market than credit card information.”

Medical data has become the next cybersecurity target (NextGov, 20 March 2015)

Provided by MIRLN.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/stockimages