Vogel Internet, Information Technology, and e-Discovery Blog : Texas Internet, Information Technology, eCommerce, & E-Discovery Lawyer & Attorney Peter S. Vogel : Gardere Wynne Sewell Law Firm : Dallas TX

Google is getting high marks for its May 2012 Transparency Report that when copyright owners complain about website infringement, that Google takes down those website urls (universal resource locators) 97% of the time. Google claims the other 3% are not taken down because of inaccurate or incomplete information.

In April 2012 1,255,402 url removal requests were made to Google search alone, not YouTube or Blogger. Top request for April 2012 were: Microsoft made 466,732 requests, NBCUniversal made 180,564 requests, BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Ltd made 147,977 requests, Elegant Angel made 43,828, and RIAA members made 25,540 requests. Computerworld added the following observation:

…the organization associated with the most copyright removal requests was not a music label but Microsoft Corp. More than 530,000 of the URLs that were the subject of removal requests linked to Microsoft content. Between July 2011 and now, Microsoft or its representatives have asked Google to remove over 2.5 million URLs from its search engine results at a median of 48,700 URLs per week.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has praised Google for the Transparency Report that 97% of url takedowns were complied with however the EFF went on to say:

This transparency report gives Google a chance to highlight some of its good citizenship as an online service provider. Although the burden of liability is supposed to be on the organization that sends the takedown notice — it is required to claim under penalty of perjury to have a good-faith belief of copyright infringement — in practice many groups are willing to skirt those rules, sending takedown notices to silence unfavorable speech or even without human review.

Google’s Transparency Report provides interesting insight about who makes url takedown requests, and given Microsoft competitive search engine Bing it would be interesting to see what transparency reports Microsoft issues.
 

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US citizens expect the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to protect the country from potential threats, but the recent announcement that DHS will monitor Twitter & Facebook will surely cause privacy advocates great concern. Social Media has been used extensively in the government uprisings world-wide and DHS is now drawing up guidelines to monitor Social Media. Undersecretary of the DHS Caryn Wagner told an audience at the National Symposium on Homeland Security and Defense in Colorado Springs:

We're still trying to figure out how you use things like Twitter as a source…How do you establish trends and how do you then capture that in an intelligence product?

The DHS guidelines may cast a pall over Social Media and impact how Social Media is used and surely the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) will keep a close eye. As a matter of fact, EPIC posted a recent report from Carnegie Mellon University that found that “privacy tools designed to protect consumers from online behavioral advertising are ineffective because they are difficult for users to understand and to configure.”

Everyone needs to stay tuned to see how this unfolds.
 

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A court recently ruled that the use of GPS tracking data in a drug distribution case violated the defendant's constitutional rights and the police needed a warrant. The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a brief in support of Antoine Jones that his expectation of privacy was violated by the GPS device placed on his vehicle. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned Jones conviction in the case of US v. Maynard. One may wonder if the GPS was tracked from a cell phone if the outcome would have been different. Since our cell phones have GPS data, it is any wonder that police might use the GPS cell data to track us? This court decision apparently protects us, at least for the time being.

Facebook About to Release Geolocation Features

A recent report indicates that Facebook will provide “location-aware data to become a part of existing platform applications,” which will compete with Foursquare and Twitter Places. Facebook already owns Hot Potato which is a check-in service and offered to buy Foursquare for $120 million which was rejected. Clearly Social Media is using geolocation data, and this will definitely grow! How courts rule about the use of GPS and geolocation data in Social Media in the wake of the the Maynard case will be interesting to monitor.

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A recent report that the White House wants the FBI to have access to an individual’s Internet activity may help with investigation of terrorism or intelligence, but what about our expectation of privacy? Notwithstanding all of Mark Zuckerberg’s recent comments about privacy, last winter Zuckerberg he told a live audience that if he were to ‘create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public.’ Also Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted in a CNBC interview that under the US Patriot Act that Google would turn over user information (which Google maintains for 18 months) without question. So maybe we have less privacy than we may think, but in the name of national security alone does it make sense for the White House/FBI to not even both getting a federal judge to issue a subpoena?

COMPANY PRIVACY: Social Engineer Defcon Contest

At the annual Defcon meetings (July 30-August 1) in Las Vegas there was a 3 day contest to see which Social Engineer could get the most company data from 30 companies. The FBI is not too happy, but after consulting lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation the following contest rules were created:

Each Social Engineer is sent via email a dossier with the name and URL of their target company chosen from the pool of submitted names.

Pre-Defcon you are allowed to gather any type of information you can glean from the WWW, their websites, Google searches and by using other passive information gathering techniques. You are prohibited from calling, emailing or contacting the company in any way before the Defcon event. We will be monitoring this and points will be deducted for “cheating”.

The goal is to gather points for the information obtained and plan a realistic and appropriate attack vector. The point system will be revealed during the Defcon event. All information should be stored in a professional looking report. 1 week prior to Defcon you will submit your dossiers for review to the judging panel.

Stay tuned to see how successful the Social Engineers were in getting information from these 30 companies. How easy will it be to get information? We all know the answer, pretty easy!
 

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Tim O’Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 in 2002 and in a recent report O'Reilly encourages more social networking for the government. Of course he’s not the Lone Ranger on Gov 2.0 as there are plenty of advocates including my good friend Ellis Pines who blogs about Gov 2.0 and encourages the use of GovLoop – a social network for Gov 2.0.

Are We Cybersecure?

Okay so great, Gov 2.0 encourages more social networking. But a recent report that the White House’s senior aide on cybersecurity resigned because she was “not empowered” is alarming since it is clear no one wants to be the Cyber Czar. In the meantime there are never ending reports of widespread Cyberattacks in the world, and hackers apparently have no problems breaching commercial websites.

Enlarging the use of social networking only compounds the problems of cybersecurity, so at this moment none of us should feel so safe. What do you think?

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A report that the National Security Agency (NSA) exceeded its authority by intercepting emails and phone calls of Americans make some people feel safer, and others wary. Many speculate that these massive email and phone call interceptions are systematic and intentional. For instance the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have been following NSA’s activities for some time and are alarmed at NSA’s actions.

US Patriot Act

In the wake of September 11 terrorist attacks on October 26, 2001 President Bush signed the US Patriot Act after passing both houses of Congress in less than one day. The US Patriot Act gave the federal government unparalleled power to search emails and private communications without many checks and balances in the name of protection from terrorists. The US Patriot Act was renewed in 2005 substantially without major change. Congress and US citizens want certain protections, but EPIC and EFF are concerned that the US Patriot Act is too broad.

Increased in Criminal Data Breaches

Reports that there have been a significant increase in data breaches by organized crime is hardly surprise, but it seems that NSA’s efforts in searching emails and phone calls have not really paid off to make our Internet a safer place in which to conduct business. Last year there were more than 100 confirmed data breaches involving roughly 285 million consumer records, most of which occurred from sites overseas. There needs to be a balance between safety from bad guys and protection of civil liberties.
 

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