Monthly Archives: August 2016

Honeypots

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In the cyber world, a honeypot

consists of data (for example, in a network site) that appears to be a legitimate part of the site but is actually isolated and monitored, and that seems to contain information or a resource of value to attackers, which are then blocked.

Of course, nothing prevents nefarious persons or entities from using honeypots to draw in honest folks for nefarious purposes.  Purposes like the following.

The trove of leaked Democratic National Committee emails posted to Wikileaks on July 22 has sparked concerns about malware as users access the vast trove of documents.
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On the day of the leak, Google’s Transparency Report warned users of dangerous downloads from Wikileaks.org. Google has not revealed specifically what was detected….

Malware was detected in the Global Intelligence Files dumped last year by Wikileaks, too.  Further, Wikileaks actually could be a victim in this malware ploy, too: they do little of their own hacking, getting their stuff from other sources.  One of their sources already has been implicated in the recent hacks of Democratic Party IT facilities like the DNC, DNCC, and Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign email servers, along with Clinton’s official State Department business personal email server: Russia is suspected of conducting these particular hacks.

Are these guys—Russians, Chines, ordinary thieves—setting up other botnets?  Setting up sources for stealing personal financial data or data useful for blackmail or data useful for espionage, with these sources to be tapped at a time of convenience in the future?  Setting up something else?

The Democrats’ Confession

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John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, told reporters this week that the way to win is to demonstrate Mr Trump is “unfit, that he’s unprepared and that we can’t put him in the Oval Office.” He added: “That’s the core of our strategy.”

President Barack Obama (D) says the Republicans aren’t “conservative” anymore (his definition of conservative, of course).

Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says Trump has taken the Republican Party a long way from Reagan (her definition of Reaganism, naturally).

Yep.  The Democrats know that all they have is a continuation of the character assassination they’ve inflicted for all of these last 7+ years.  Podesta, with these remarks, is admitting that the Democrats can’t run on this administration’s record of foreign and domestic failure or on Hillary Clinton’s record in that administration’s sustained failure or her integrity.

It doesn’t get any clearer than this.

A Free Speech Ruling

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The Federal trial judge got this one right, even though the Arkansas law had been on the books for 35 years.  The question concerned whether the State could restrict political speech by robocall with the mechanism of banning political robocalls.  The same statute did not ban other political calls, only robocalls, and the judge called them on that logical conflict.

The statute is underinclusive. Banning calls made through an automated telephone system in connection with a political campaign cannot be justified by saying that the ban is needed to residential privacy and public safety when no limit is placed on other types of political calls that also may intrude on residential privacy or seize telephone lines.

There’s a larger question here, too, though.  Once we begin limiting political speech, where does it stop?  What’s the limiting principle?  What naturally limits the thing, without relying on government forbearance?  One such limit mentioned in the ruling concerns signs containing political speech.  The signs cannot be banned, but their placement can be restricted based on safety concerns (for instance, visually blocking views of crossing traffic at intersections).  Robocalls, irritating as they are, don’t present themselves as usefully limitable, given the importance of free political speech and (incumbent) government attempts to restrict it, other than an Arkansas averred

prevent[ion of] the seizure of phone lines, which could interfere with emergency calls being placed or received.

However, as the judge noted,

The Attorney General fails to explain why automated calls other than commercial calls and those made in connection with political campaigns—for example, calls encouraging individuals to contact a member of Congress regarding a bill or to attend a townhall meeting regarding a public issue—using automated dialing systems do not trample upon the state’s interests in residential privacy and public safety.

The State’s safety claim doesn’t hold water.

And so, again I ask, when it comes to government limiting speech, particularly political speech, where does it stop?  What’s the limiting principle?  Safety certainly can be one such limit, but Arkansas’ law doesn’t—didn’t—apply it.

The judge’s opinion can be seen here.

Another Out of Control Agency

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…that’s overcome with its own self-importance.  I’ve written before about how the Securities and Exchange System abuses its own system of in-house judges for SEC purposes rather than for the public’s interest.

The Federal Trade Commission is another such agency that’s showing it’s outlived its usefulness and for the same reason.  In 2008, LabMD was “found” to have inadvertently exposed a file containing personally identifiable patient information.  I write “found” because the company that “found” the exposure then tried to use their discovery to peddle its data security services to LabMD.  The FTC brought a case against LabMD over the exposure, but last year an FTC in-house judge ruled against the FTC and tossed the case.

That judge, D Michael Chapell, tossed the FTC’s case last year because the commission could not identify any consumers who’d been harmed by LabMD’s allegedly weak security practices. Because no one had been harmed in the seven years since the patient file was exposed, it was unlikely that anyone would be harmed in the future, Judge Chappell concluded.

Wrong answer, Judge.

The FTC, which has the authority to review the rulings issued by its administrative court, said Friday the judge used an incorrect legal standard that was too stringent.

The ruling, being inconvenient to the FTC’s narrative, was rejected out of hand.

Here is the usefulness of an in-house system of judges.