The Cyberlaw Podcast: News Roundup

Cyberlaw Podcast alumnus Marten Mickos was called before the Senate commerce committee to testify about HackerOne’s bug bounty program. But the unhappy star of the hearings was Uber, which was heavily criticized for having paid out a large bonus under cloudy circumstances. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and others on the Hill treated the payment as more ransom than bounty and pilloried Uber for not disclosing what they called a breach. Even Uber, under new management, was critical of its performance.

As the only cyberlaw podcast with a Davos correspondent, we ask Alan Cohn to give highlights of the event from a cybersecurity point of view. I bring the color commentary and snark.

With the Microsoft Ireland case heading to argument, the Justice Department and Big Tech are hoping to head the court off with a legislative solution. Jamil Jaffer explains what the CLOUD Act will do. I point out who’s missing from the Grand Coalition and question whether Big Privacy has the clout to stop the act.

Fancy Bear hackers seeking high-tech weapons data from U.S. defense contractors get lucky—up to 40% of their phishing links strike paydirt. Michael Mutek explains what this likely means for the Defense Department—more regulation, probably. Whether more regs and more compliance will produce more security is the question no one can answer.

A cyber-diplomacy office is back from the dead, sort of: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson now says he’ll create a bureau for cyberspace headed by an assistant secretary. And, as Jamil explains, the fight switches to which undersecretary will oversee the office.

Nick Weaver and Jamil comment on the news that the Justice Department has pulled in an impressive haul of cyber-fraudsters, bookended by doubts whether any hackers can ever be extradited from places like the UK and Ireland. Because, face it, how many can’t claim to be on the spectrum?

I close with a tribute to John Perry Barlow, who died last week. If you wanted to know how many women would fall for a combination Grateful Dead lyricist, technologist, and cowboy, John could tell you. Exactly.

As always The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

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The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.