Does anyone really want the government deciding encryption policy?
If people spent half as much time protecting their data as they do trying to prevent the data being protected, we'd all be far better off.
Evan Schuman | 26 Jan | Read more
If people spent half as much time protecting their data as they do trying to prevent the data being protected, we'd all be far better off.
Evan Schuman | 26 Jan | Read more
It’s self-defeating to try to protect data by treating it all as if it’s equally sensitive.
Evan Schuman | 05 Jan | Read more
All companies need to pay more attention to the experience that ordinary users have when they try to install new products and upgrades.
Evan Schuman | 15 Sep | Read more
IT's relationship with privacy is delicate. Corporate IT needs to take privacy fears very seriously, but if IT jumps and shouts at every tiny possible privacy invasion, we'll have the Bot That Cried Wolf. Put another way, the best way to weaken privacy protections is to embrace so many privacy problems that none have any significance.
Evan Schuman | 11 Aug | Read more
Two prominent appellate courts have ruled in two unrelated privacy cases and dealt dual blows to privacy. A New York state appeals court said that Facebook had no right to resist coughing up extensive details about what its users are saying, while a federal appeals court said that anyone who unintentionally telephones someone -- a pocket-dial, sometimes known a bit more impolitely -- can't expect the listener to not listen and use the information.
Evan Schuman | 28 Jul | Read more
Sometimes, emotions make it difficult to see the most effective way of accomplishing an objective. And emotions can definitely arise when the subject is underage cyberthieves.
Evan Schuman | 14 Jul | Read more
Some things are just so predictable. A retailer is told about a mobile security hole and dismisses it, saying it could never happen in real life -- and then it happens. A manufacturer of passenger jets ridicules the risk posed by a wireless security hole in its aircraft, saying defensive mechanisms wouldn't let it happen -- and then it happens.
Evan Schuman | 19 May | Read more
Sony is reliving the nightmare that <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2858358/fbi-calls-sony-hack-organized-but-declines-to-name-source-or-finger-north-korea.html">its hacked databases</a> gave rise to late last year, now that <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2910891/wikileaks-publishes-searchable-database-of-hacked-sony-docs.html">Wikileaks has thoughtfully published all of the leaked documents in a searchable database</a>. Really, they are the most courteous hoodlums ever.
Evan Schuman | 21 Apr | Read more
It's a time-honored tradition: U.S. businesses find ways to skirt inconvenient or expensive laws by moving operations to other countries. Thus we have had U.S. corporations operating overseas to exploit child labor, run sweatshops or avoid taxes and rigorous health and safety inspections. Now the U.S. government says something similar is happening in regards to email.
Evan Schuman | 18 Mar | Read more
The Uber privacy report released last week (Jan. 30) is the perfect example of how <em>not</em> to handle a privacy PR disaster -- or any privacy policy matters at all.
Evan Schuman | 06 Feb | Read more
When Amazon unveiled its cloud-based corporate <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2877217/aws-launches-workmail-for-the-enterprise.html">WorkMail email offering</a> last week (Jan. 28), it stressed the high-level of encryption it would use and the fact that corporate users would control their own decryption keys. But Amazon neglected to mention that it will retain full access to those messages -- along with the ability to both analyze data for e-commerce marketing and to give data to law enforcement should subpoenas show up.
Evan Schuman | 03 Feb | Read more
BlackBerry's pitch to get back into the warm embrace of corporate IT shops seems logical enough at first glance: We're the most secure in mobile. Mobile is where all of your data and interactions are heading. Therefore you should give us all of your corporate business.
Evan Schuman | 26 Nov | Read more
In security and privacy circles today, no good deed goes unpunished. Consider Apple's recent privacy initiative. Under its new encryption policy, Apple can't divulge confidential information about its customers' data, because only the consumer's credentials can unlock the data -- and those credentials are completely under the control of the customer. For added security, Apple layered biometric authentication (fingerprint) on top, so that people wouldn't have to type their passwords/PINs in public, exposing themselves to the dangers of shoulder-surfing.
Evan Schuman | 11 Nov | Read more
The ability to access and use mobile data is a new area of law that continues to be shaped and reshaped.
Evan Schuman | 28 Oct | Read more
Google last week did something that is really hard to find objectionable: It said it deleted quite a few ("tens of thousands") nude pictures stolen from celebrities. But as with anything that involves such an influential company as Google, this move creates a precedent, and it's a dangerous one.
Evan Schuman | 08 Oct | Read more