Latest in San Bernardino
On February 16, US Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, responding to an FBI request, ordered Apple to provide software to bypass the company's technical protections; this would unlock the work phone of Syed Farook, one of the two San Bernardino terrorists. Apple appealed the order.
European news and sensibilities dominate episode 112. I indulge in some unseemly gloating about Europe’s newfound enthusiasm for the PNR data it wasted years of my life trying to negotiate out of the US counterterrorism toolbox. I pester our guest, Eric Jensen, about his work on the Tallinn 2.0 manual covering the law of cyberwar; the manual seems to offer an ever-more-European take on cyberweapons and the law of armed conflict.
In episode 109, we interview Perianne Boring of the Chamber of Digital Commerce on the regulatory challenges of bitcoin and the blockchain. In the news roundup, we bring back Apple v.
As readers know, the FBI has accessed the phone of Sayed Farook and the government has withdrawn its motion to compel Apple’s assistance. Paul Rosenzweig and Jason Healy have a wager as to whether or not the FBI tells Apple how it accessed the device within one calendar year. Paul says it won’t disclose, Jason says under a fair application of the Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP), it must. Now that there’s a proven method, I want in on the bet.
The attacks in Brussels on Tuesday morning are a harrowing reminder that global threats to liberal democracy are born domestically as well as abroad. It is incumbent upon lawmakers in Europe and in the United States to respond to concerns about public safety and to put forth a viable strategy to combat violent extremism over the long-term.
Bloomberg Business is reporting that now that the FBI may have a way into the San Bernadino shooter’s iPhone, Apple wants it to disclose what it’s doing. “Apple lawyers on Monday said that if the case proceeds, the company would want the government to share the nature of the vulnerability it found in the iPhone,” the story reads.
What kind of internet world order does China want, and will it succeed? That’s the question we ask Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation and author of The Hacked World Order.
Yesterday, the Department of Justice filed a motion to vacate a hearing previously scheduled for today on whether Apple can be compelled to unlock the iPhone of Syed Farook, one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attacks.
Last week, General Michael Hayden—the only person to be both the director of the CIA and the NSA—joined Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes at the Hoover Book Soiree for a discussion of his new book, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror.
I recently appeared on the Brown University Cybersecurity News Podcast to discuss bridging the lawyer and technology divide in the debate between Apple and the FBI. Interested Lawfare readers can listen to the full audio.