The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.
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“We have become so beaten down by this that we just accept it,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a Northeastern University law professor. “The idea that anyone should be expected to read these terms of service is preposterous — they are written to discourage people from reading them.” Contracts are, in theory, meant to be mutually agreeable. How can they be if they’re designed so consumers cannot understand them? Read more about What Happens When You Click ‘Agree’?
“The Supreme Court’s opinion in this case could decide whether millions of ordinary Americans are committing a federal crime whenever they engage in computer activities that, while common, don’t comport with an online service or employer’s terms of use,” said Riana Pfefferkorn, associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at Stanford University’s law school. (Pfefferkorn’s colleague Jeff Fisher is representing Van Buren at the Supreme Court.) Read more about The Supreme Court Will Hear Its First Big CFAA Case
Riana Pfefferkorn is the Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Riana’s work focuses on investigating and analyzing the U.S. government’s policy and practices for forcing decryption and/or influencing crypto-related design of online platforms and services, devices, and products, both via technical means and through the courts and legislatures. She also researches the benefits and disadvantages of strong encryption on free expression, political engagement, economic development, and other public interests. Read more about Deep-Dive Discussion about Cybersecurity with Riana Pfefferkorn
We pay a lot of attention to the potential for attacks on critical infrastructure in areas such as energy (power plants, electrical grid, etc.), but I'm wondering whether we'll see an uptick on attacks in the farming and food production/supply chain, which is just as crucial to the continued running of society but perhaps less sexy. Read more about With the increased focus of ransomware attacks in health care, what other sector or type of business should be on high alert?
Phone-hacking tools “have served as a kind of a safety valve for the encryption debate,” said Riana Pfefferkorn, a Stanford University researcher who studies encryption policy.
Read more about The Police Can Probably Break Into Your Phone
Think of the last time you changed your profile picture on Facebook or Instagram. When you uploaded that photo, did you assume you were agreeing to let anyone do anything they want with that photo, including putting you in a facial recognition database to track your location and every photo of you on the Web? Facial recognition company Clearview AI seems to think so. The company is bolstering its legal team to build a First Amendment argument to help justify its dubious and dangerous facial recognition business. All of our privacy hangs in the balance. Read more about Getting the First Amendment Wrong
"“It’s good to put attention on this emerging subject, since what’s been science fiction is now becoming reality,” Patrick Lin, a philosophy professor at California Polytechnic State University, and a member of the Center for a New American Security’s Task Force on AI and National Security, said in an email. Read more about DoD Needs New Policies, Ethics For Brain-Computer Links (Jacked-In Troops?)
"Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies emerging tech, says the bills don’t mean you’ll wake up tomorrow to an Amazon robot knocking on your door. Instead, he says, they reflect “the recognition by well-positioned companies with capable national and in some cases in-state lobbying operations that now is the right time to shape favorable legislation on this topic, before everyone starts talking about it.” Companies often want to create “legal certainty,” he says, to give themselves more flexibility as they develop and start using new tech." Read more about Amazon and FedEx Push to Put Delivery Robots on Your Sidewalk
"“One wonders if the vision of a rapid, overwhelming, swarm-like robotics technology is really consistent with a human being in the loop,” says Ryan Calo, a professor at the University of Washington. Read more about A Dogfight Renews Concerns About AI's Lethal Potential
"People should no more believe in dystopia than utopia. The fact is that technology has changed the world for so many for so long for the better—from reduction of disease to extending life to increased food and health—that to dismiss those gains is just know-nothingism. As with all technological advances, not everyone shares equally in the gains or benefits in the same way, and some may even experience disproportionately negative impacts, but that does not diminish the overall societal value of the advancements. Read more about Are We Already Living in a Tech Dystopia?
"“Ten years is a very, very, very, very long time in the software world,” says Victoria Stodden, who studies computational reproducibility at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In establishing that benchmark, she says, the challenge effectively encourages researchers to probe the limitations of code reproducibility over a period that “is roughly equivalent in the software world to infinity”." Read more about Challenge to scientists: does your ten-year-old code still run?
"Cyber civil rights expert Danielle Citron, a School of Law professor of law, says Twitter should be credited with “trying to address hate speech in a coherent and systematic way.” In the last year, the company expanded its rules around hate speech to include dehumanizing speech against religious groups, as well as any language that dehumanizes people on the basis of their age, disability, or disease. Read more about Jack Dorsey, Twitter and Square Cofounder, Donates $10 Million to BU Center for Antiracist Research
Daphne Keller leads the newly launched Program on Platform Regulation a program designed to offer lawmakers, academics, and civil society groups ground-breaking analysis and research to support wise governance of Internet platforms. Read more about Q&A with Daphne Keller of the Program on Platform Regulation
""There is a myth that additional technology will make policing more efficient and effective," says Malkia Devich-Cyril, the founding Read more about Silicon Valley has been quietly selling ineffective tech "solutions" to police departments
"Using AI to identify ethnicity “seems more likely to harm than help,” says Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor at Princeton University who has researched how anonymized data can be used to identify people." Read more about The Quiet Growth of Race-Detection Software Sparks Concerns Over Bias
"“I feel like the evolution of GIFCT is a real illustration of just how slippery terms like platform responsibility or platform accountability turn out to be in practice,” Keller said. When politicians demand initiatives like the GIFCT, she continued, it appears as though democratic governments are forcing platforms to act justly and lawfully. “But that’s not what it’s turned out to mean at all in practice,” said Keller. Read more about The Future of Free Speech Online May Depend on This Database
"The lanes would be helpful for the current state of autonomous vehicles, which still cannot operate safely with human-driven vehicles under all traffic and weather conditions, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies vehicle automation.
But they also run contrary to another school of thought in the industry, that systems being tested are getting better and soon will be able to navigate roads with cars driven by humans, he said. Read more about Michigan plans dedicated road lanes for autonomous vehicles
"“Even assuming the lower court finds a good cause, it is not enough that the defendant wants the discovery when a federal law bars it and there are other means available to get it without rendering a statute unconstitutional,” said Albert Gidari, consulting director of privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society." Read more about California High Court Sets Rules for Facebook Subpoena
"“Often when measures are introduced for a specific purpose, they linger on because people become acclimated,” said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington, in Seattle. Many U.S. schools were already getting heavily into surveillance technology before the pandemic, he said. “When these technologies are no longer needed to detect fever or conduct contact tracing, will they all the sudden be used to detect truancy?”" Read more about Back to School? Look Out for Covid-Tracking Surveillance Tech