By: Matthew Hooker, Summer Blogger

On May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect. Although the GDPR is a regulation established by the European Union (EU), its impact extends far beyond the EU. The regulation applies not only to entities within the EU but also to any entity that handles the personal data of “data subjects” residing in the EU. As the New York Times puts it, “the borderless nature of the online world has virtually every commercial entity that touches the web making changes to its sites and apps to comply.” Continue reading »

By: Patrick Wilson

On October 19^th, 2017, a bipartisan group of Senators including Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John McCain (R-AZ), and Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced legislation that would require more transparency and disclosure of the groups funding online advertising during election season. The purpose of proposed Senate Bill 1989, ‘The Honest Ads Act’, would hold online advertising platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to the same standards as traditional media, such as television and radio.

The Bill requires that platforms with more than fifty million unique monthly visitors keep a public record of the parties that purchase more than $500 in advertising and disclose the purchaser of those ads, which included the ad’s target audience is, the ad rate, the name of the candidate the ad supported, and contact information of the ad. The Bill’s stated goal is preventing foreign nationals from purchasing political ads and potentially influencing the perception of American citizens during election season with false or misleading information.  Continue reading »

By: Christopher Lewis *| Staff Writer

With the advent of new technology, privacy concerns are becoming an increasingly hot topic of debate in many different forms. People across the globe are becoming more cognizant of the personal right to privacy and are working to protect it; however, other factions believe that technological advances and the integration of life and technology are worth the loss in privacy rights. Some believe that it is only a matter of time before we fall into the dystopian worlds that George Orwell and Ray Bradbury, respectfully, espoused in 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Continue reading »

By: Whitney Hosey *| Staff Writer

American Express is partnering with Ripple, a fintech startup, to introduce the option of instant blockchain secured payments between U.S. based businesses and U.K. businesses who bank with Santander UK.

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By: Emily Marcum *| Staff Writer

What do a consulting firm, a regulatory agency, and a consumer credit reporting bureau have in common? They are all members of the financial industry who recently fell victim to hacking. In the past month, hackers have successfully stolen sensitive information from the SEC, Equifax, and Deloitte. Although these three hacks varied in scope and severity, together they illuminate the “Achilles’ heel” of the financial industry, cybersecurity! Targeting the financial industry is an obvious choice. When asked why he robbed banks, the infamous American bank robber, Willie Sutton, said it best, “Because that’s where the money is.”

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By: Emily Marcum *| Staff Writer

Cybersecurity is not the next frontier for most businesses; in fact, it’s more or less the only game in town. Over the last decade, the phrase “cybersecurity” has echoed in boardrooms, courtrooms, and living rooms like never before. What was once intellectual chatter, has become a “fact of life for corporations and governments.” According to U.S. President, Donald Trump, “Cyber theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States by far.”  So, it is no surprise that consumers were recently greeted with yet another disappointing headline concerning Equifax’s massive data breach.

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By: Evan Reid*| Guest Writer

The latest in a string of government cyberhackings targeted the CIA. The trove of hacked files, code-named “Vault 7,” details how the CIA can hack into Apple and Android devices to gather text and voice messages before they are encrypted. The files also reveal the CIA’s capabilities to hack into Smart TVs and vehicle control systems, including models from Jeep. The hackers subsequently released the compromised content to WikiLeaks, which published the highly sensitive material on March 7th. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called the hacking “a major concern.”

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By: Maria Pigna*| Staff Writer 

It goes without saying that the new age of evolving technology has presented the world with a fast treadmill of development, with no choice but to hop on or be left behind in the dark past.  This has left modern businesses and the legal market in a frenzy, with outdated policies and unsettled issues.  For decades, great customer service has been about delighting your customers with friendly staff and business policies, but in this digital global economy, the game has changed.

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By: Thomas Gaffney*| Staff Writer

By Dllu (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Imagine yourself on your morning commute to work, but instead of sitting behind the wheel you are comfortably reclined in your bucket seat reading the newspaper and eating waffles for breakfast.  Does this sound too far-fetched?  Maybe not. No one is surprised that autonomous vehicles are currently a super-hot topic in the tech and auto industries.  Every big name in the tech industry (UBER, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Telsa, etc.) is working on its own version of autonomous driving software; and why would they not?  The first company to develop an autonomous car with driving capabilities better than that of a human will get an enormous upper hand in a market that is projected to be worth at least 42 billion dollars by 2025. No one is going to purchase an autonomous car if it is not safe, however, and some of the threats facing these vehicles are not coming from the road but from the internet.

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By: Katherine Escalante*| Staff Writer

At its core, CloudPets’s new toy brings a personal touch to a stuffed animal. A parent can send a recorded message through an app, which transmits through the stuffed animal, allowing your loved one to hear your voice.  However, this personal touch may come at the cost of your personal information, passwords, and access to your voice.  Like other toys that connect to the internet, this toy stores all that information in the cloud.  With scammers developing new ways of attaining personal information, this purchase is surely something parents will have to think about twice before buying.

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