The Cyberlaw Podcast: Illuminating Supply Chain Security

What is the federal government doing to get compromised hardware and software out of its supply chain? That’s what we ask Harvey Rishikof, coauthor of “Deliver Uncompromised,” and Joyce Corell, who heads the Supply Chain and Cyber Directorate at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. There’s no doubt the problem is being admired to a fare-thee-well, and some evidence it’s also being addressed. Listen and decide!

In the News Roundup, Nate Jones and I disagree about the Second Circuit ruling that President Trump can’t block his critics on Twitter. We don’t disagree about that ruling, but I’m a lot more skeptical than Nate that it will be applied to that other famous Washington Twitter personality, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

GDPR still sucks, but now it bites, too. Matthew Heiman explains just how bad the bite was for Marriott and British Airways.

Gus Hurwitz reprises how much—or little—we know about the FTC and Facebook. We won’t know much, he says, until we answer the question, “Where’s the complaint?”

Talk about hard supply chain issues. Congress banned Chinese surveillance cameras from the federal supply chain, but that turns out to be a lot different from, you know, actually getting rid of them.

For a change of pace, Gus and I rag on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its petition that the Supreme Court overturn a Fourth Circuit ruling that adding “.com” to a generic term makes it trademarkable. You tell ‘em, USPTO! It’s not like adding “.com” to a word has the same creativity and distinctiveness as adding “i” in front of “phone” or “pod.”

Nate and I spar over whether Section 301 can be used to retaliate against France for its 3% digital tax.

Matthew tells us that the Trump administration isn’t sharing details on classified cyberattack rules with Congress, and after a modicum of mockery, we actually find ourselves agreeing with Congress’s demand to be briefed on the rules.

Finally, in quick hits, I flag the hypocrisy of those who claim to love the idea of privacy until it gets in the way of boycotting people they disagree with and the surprising ways that GDPR has enabled personal data breaches on an industrial scale.