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I wrote a new essay entitled “Code, Nudge, or Notice?” that might interest CIS readers.  The essay compares side-by-side three ways that the government tries to influence citizen behavior short of making it illegal.  It uses contemporary examples, like the graphic warnings the FDA wants to put on cigarettes, to make the point that it sometimes hard to sort regulations into neat categories like “architecture,” “libertarian paternalism,” or “mandatory disclosure” (code, nudge, or notice).  Instead, I argue that regulators should focus on the more fundamental difference between helping people and hindering them.   Along the way, I make the point that all of forensics may be a kind of “code” that turns an ordinary location into a crime scene—sort of like putting a traffic camera up at an intersection only after someone runs the red light.  Thoughts warmly welcome.  Here is the abstract: Read more » about To Code, Nudge, Or Notice, That Is The Question

Patent trolls — companies that assert patents as a business model instead of creating products — have been in the news lately. This is hardly surprising, given that troll lawsuits now make up the majority of new patent cases. And the litigation is only the tip of the iceberg: patent trolls send out hundreds of demand letters for each suit filed in court. At the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we have been following this issue closely and are working hard to bring reform to fix the patent mess. Read more » about Trolls and Tribulations

Law professor and cybercrime expert Orin Kerr published a proposal to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to address the overcriminalization that he has been at the forefront of identifying and combatting. His current proposal, which very simply but comprehensively addresses a number of problems with the CFAA, is here.

By focusing purely on whether the service operator implements technological access barriers, the proposal risks a similar problem to the one that the current statute has, giving server owners plenary authority to criminalize the way members of the public interact with information made available online, but through “technological access barriers” rather than merely terms of service and employee agreements. Read more » about Thoughts on Orin Kerr's CFAA Reform Proposals: A Great Second Step

Yesterday, Representative Zoe Lofgren introduced on Reddit a bill to improve the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in the wake of Aaron Swartz's suicide during the pendency of his prosecution for violating various provisions of that law and of the Wire Fraud Act.  I've attached Read more » about Thoughts on Zoe Lofgren's CFAA Bill: A Great First Step