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Shooting the Messenger: Remediation of Disclosed Vulnerabilities as CFAA Loss
Get PDFThe Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) provides a civil cause of action for computer hacking victims that have suffered certain types of harm. Of these harms, the one most commonly invoked by plaintiffs is having suffered 5,000 addressing a vulnerability is sufficient to allow the vendor to sue the researcher whoreported it, because such remediation costs qualify as “loss” even in courts that read that term narrowly. To mitigate the CFAA’s legal risk to researchers, a common proposal is a statutory safe harbor for security research. Such proposals walk a fine line between being unduly byzantine for good-faith actors to follow and lax enough to invite abuse by malicious actors. Instead of the safe harbor approach, this article recommends a simpler way to reduce litigation over harmless research: follow the money. The Article proposes (1) amending the CFAA’s “loss” definition to prevent vulnerability remediation costs alone from satisfying the $5,000 standing threshold absent any other alleged loss, and (2) adding a fee-shifting provision that can be invoked where plaintiffs’ losses do not meet that threshold. Tightening up the “loss” calculus would disqualify retaliatory litigation against beneficial (or at least benign) security research while preserving victims’ ability to seek redress where well-intended research activities do cause harm. Fee-shifting would deter weak CFAA claims and give the recipients of legal threats some leverage to fight back. Coupled with the Van Buren decision, these changes would reach beyond the context of vendor versus researcher: they would help rein in the CFAA’s rampant misuse over behavior far afield from the law’s core anti-hacking purpose
John Wick: Keanu Reeves’s Epic Adventure
Get PDFThree films create the John Wick universe and franchise: John Wick (2014), John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), and John Wick: Chapter 3, Parabellum (2019). A fourth film is scheduled to be released in March 2023. All are wildly popular, and all are criticized for violence, particularly gun violence. I argue, however, that by examining the visual references that appear in all the films, it becomes clear that the films are defending themselves from such attacks through their allusions to ancient and classical epics from around the world. As Wick battles his way through museums and beautiful cities, the film reminds us that art, all art—fine and popular--relies on violence. Wick follows many of the traditions of the epic hero, and in the end, thanks to the visual cues in the films, he is no different than Achilles or Hector or even High Noon’s Will Kane. And if there is a hero, and if there is art, there will be blood
On-Screen: The Silver, Small and Smartphone Screens of Heroism
Get PDFThe representation of heroism on screens, and the ways we make sense of heroic imagery across them, is the theme of this special issue of Heroism Science. Each article makes the case that our comprehension of heroism can only be augmented and enhanced by the film, the television series, the video game, the news broadcast, the phone camera and the social media stream, all of them on screens that are silver, small and smart. The articles demonstrate how the screen’s ability to display, represent, convey, conjure and critique heroic moments. Moreover, this special issue shows how fictional heroism as a guiding principle has much in common with the guidance of the fictional utopia. We use both concepts as aspects to strive for socially, culturally, technologically, and diplomatically. Our understanding and our seeking the best possible course for humanity is aided and informed by the way we use fiction to metaphorically assess how that course can be undertaken
The Green Passport Program: Proposing A Study Abroad Program to Encourage Sustainable Behavior and Offset Emissions
Get PDFThe University of Richmond has a goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, and in order to do this, carbon offsets are likely a necessary component to implement in lieu of adequate technology to abate the usage of carbon from behaviors such as travel. The scope of this proposal focuses on the Office of International Education and study abroad travel, which accounts for a large amount of emissions in the University’s portfolio. The purpose of this study was to propose a program to the Office of International Education which oriented students towards sustainability while they engaged in a study abroad opportunity through their office. The Green Passport Program is an application-based program which utilizes carbon offsets and encourages sustainable behavior within the context of a liberal arts education.
Paper prepared for the Environmental Studies Senior Seminar/Geography Capstone.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Todd Lookingbil
Ethnography In-Sight: Spiraling through Fieldwork
No full textKnowledge and interpretation of an annual festival in the Brazilian northeastern city of Laranjeiras, Sergipe (see French, this issue) informs my particular dialogic relationship to this Photograph. The permanence of the handprints behind a figure moving through time depicted in this image illustrates two states of being, but also two ways—at least—of knowing: on the one hand, the visual and textual inscription of stasis and permanence, and on the other hand, the performative temporality of the body that inscribes movement and change. Red and Black. Seeing, interpreting, and understanding the image—a textual inscription of the brincadeira (game) of Red and Black—is itself a kind of “game” or “spiraling” between ways of knowing
Frenemy Federalism
Get PDFFederalism scholars have long been fascinated by the unique relationship between the federal government and states that have legalized marijuana. And with good reason. For the past fifty years, Congress has classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”), deeming the drug to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Congress’s aim in establishing Schedule I of the CSA was to “eliminate the market in Schedule I substances.” Thus, possessing, distributing, and manufacturing marijuana are federally illegal. Congress’s objective notwithstanding, over two-thirds of the states (and territories) have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. And, for the most part, the CSA does not preempt state laws legalizing marijuana. This creates a potentially volatile situation in which the substance is contraband under federal law but is legal under perfectly valid state laws
Trustworthy Digital Contact Tracing
Get PDFThis Article takes a closer look at digital contact tracing in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic and why it failed. It begins by explaining the shortcomings of traditional analog methods and the resulting need for digital contact tracing. It then turns to the norms regarding consent, the scope of the data collected, and the limits on subsequent use necessary for cooperative surveillance. We argue that any successful digital contact-tracing program must incorporate these elements. Yet while necessary, those strategies alone may not be sufficient. People justifiably lack trust in public health authorities, in new technologies, and in the tech industry itself. Consequently, we conclude that public health authorities must do more than simply seek consent, minimize collection, and prohibit subsequent use. They must take proactive steps to establish public confidence in digital contact tracing
Completing Expungement
Get PDFThe limits of expungement are where the hope for real reentry meet the desire for criminal justice transparency. That a criminal record, ordered expunged by a judge after a long and arduous process, continues to exist in the world of private actors is a cold, harsh reality for those attempting to reenter civil society. It is also reassurance for parents hiring a babysitter, school districts seeking new employees, and employers concerned about workplace liability. Not to mention, the thought that all records of criminal justice adjudication could be purged forever intuitively sounds Orwellian, even in an age where surveillance, whether governmental or corporatized, is the norm. Expungement—the process by which the official, public data of a criminal record is erased, sealed, or made private—remains an important tool in the battle against stigma and over-punishment after one formally leaves the criminal justice system. But technological and big data realities, coupled with transparency norms, will forever affect its efficacy. The internet is not going away, and private actors will always feel entitled to hold a default position that allows for the dissemination of public information about the criminal justice system, as that sentiment finds support in the history and expectations underlying the transparent administration of the legal system. For the successful expungement petitioner, a game of whack-a-mole is and will remain the norm. A sense of powerlessness to move on from one’s past, like the criminal record, persists