The Data Breach Dilemma: Proactive Solutions for Protecting Consumers’ Personal Information

Data breaches are an increasingly common part of consumers’ lives. No institution is immune to the possibility of an attack. Each breach inevitably risks the release of consumers’ personally identifiable information and the strong possibility of identity theft. Unfortunately, current solutions for handling these incidents are woefully inadequate. Private litigation like consumer class actions and shareholder lawsuits each face substantive legal and procedural barriers. States have their own data security and breach notification laws, but there is currently no unifying piece of legislation or strong enforcement mechanism. This Note argues that proactive solutions are required. First, a national data security law—setting minimum data security standards, regulating the use and storage of personal information, and expanding the enforcement role of the Federal Trade Commission—is imperative to protect consumers’ data. Second, a proactive solution requires reconsidering how to minimize the problem by going to its source: the collection of personally identifiable information in the first place. This Note suggests regulating companies’ collection of Social Security numbers, and, eventually, using a system based on distributed ledger technology to replace the ubiquity of Social Security numbers

Questions related to Bitcoin and other Informational Money

A collection of questions about Bitcoin and its hypothetical relatives Bitguilder and Bitpenny is formulated. These questions concern technical issues about protocols, security issues, issues about the formalizations of informational monies in various contexts, and issues about forms of use and misuse. Some questions are formulated in the more general setting of informational monies and near-monies. We also formulate questions about legal, psychological, and ethical aspects of informational money. Finally we formulate a number of questions concerning the economical merits of and outlooks for Bitcoin.Comment: 31 pages. In v2 the section on patterns for use and misuse has been improved and expanded with so-called contaminations. Other small improvements were made and 13 additional references have been include

Digital and Mobile Security for Mexican Journalists and Bloggers

A new survey of 102 journalists and bloggers in 20 Mexican states shows nearly 70 percent have been threatened or have suffered attacks because of their work. In addition, 96 percent say they know of colleagues who have been attacked. Respondents to the survey also say they view cyber-espionage and email-account cracking as the most serious digital risks they face. And while nearly all have access to and rely on the Internet, social networks, mobile phones and blogging platforms for their work, they also admit that they have little or no command of digital security tools such as encryption, use of virtual private networks (VPNs), anonymous Internet navigation and secure file removal. The results of this survey show the urgent need to introduce Mexican journalists and bloggers to new technologies and protocols and help newsrooms develop a culture of digital-security awareness to counter increasingly sophisticated threats and attacks from both governmental agencies and criminal organizations