Category Archives: ari schwartz

Security fears over antitrust legislation raise looming questions about a federal privacy law

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A bill designed to break up America’s largest tech companies could come with an inadvertent side effect, its critics are arguing: weakening Americans’ privacy and data security. Detractors of the “American Innovation and Choice Online Act,” including Apple and Google, are campaigning against the legislation, contending that it would limit how companies are able to protect users’ privacy and security. “These bills may compel us to share the sensitive data you store with us with unknown companies in ways that could compromise your privacy,” Google’s president of global affairs Kent Walker wrote in a blog post Tuesday. Allowing users to download apps straight from the internet means “millions of Americans will likely suffer malware attacks on their phones that would otherwise have been stopped,” Apple’s senior director of government affairs Timothy Powderly wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The critiques are just a small part of the storm […]

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White House cyber summit with private sector nets impressive gains, but points to considerable work needed ahead

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The White House summit Wednesday demonstrated positive momentum for both the Biden administration and private sector in terms of their approach to cybersecurity, but also laid bare what remains inadequate, cyber experts said. The high-profile meeting brought together CEOs from the education, energy, finance, insurance and tech sectors, featuring companies like Amazon, Bank of America and ConocoPhillips. Some pledged billions more in cyber investments, while others committed to providing training and smaller services in response to the administration’s “call to action.” While impressive, observers noted, those commitments will require considerable follow-up, from expansion to other sectors to policy changes that could emerge from closer-knit relationships between industry and government. Even as the nonprofit Global Cyber Alliance’s Megan Stifel commended the White House for holding the meeting and the broad commitments that the companies made, she said it illustrated the lengths to which the U.S. can improve national cybersecurity. “A couple […]

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In the dark about ‘going dark’

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We can now add “a growing lack of trustworthiness on encryption-related topics” to the FBI’s list of problems. Recent reports have shown the FBI’s encryption argument is not only wrong, but greatly exaggerates the problem’s magnitude. This comes on the heels of a shocking report by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, suggesting that some FBI staff purposely slowed efforts to unlock Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting to pressure Apple to build a backdoor. These two episodes are troubling; lawmakers should demand a thorough accounting of the FBI’s actions and the public deserves full transparency about the true nature of the FBI’s encryption problem. The FBI and DOJ have long argued that the proliferation of end-to-end encryption — whereby only the user can access the plain text of their data — allows criminals to “go dark,” operating beyond law enforcement’s reach. Cybersecurity experts […]

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