Getting back from winter break, this episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast covers quite a lot of floor. The story I believe we’ll hear essentially the most about in 2024 is the outstanding exploit used to compromise a number of generations of Apple iPhone. The query we’ll be asking is straightforward: How might an assault like this be launched with out Apple’s information and help? We do not get to this query till close to the tip of the episode, and I do not declare nice experience in exploit design, nevertheless it’s very laborious to see how such an elaborate compromise may very well be slipped previous Apple’s safety group. The second query is which authorities created the exploit. It could be a scandal if it had been accomplished by the U.S. However it will be much more of a scandal if accomplished by another nation.
Jeffery Atik and I lead off the episode by masking latest AI authorized developments that merely underscore the apparent: AI engines cannot get patents as “inventors.” What’s extra attention-grabbing is the chance that they will make an entire lot of know-how “obvious” and thus unpatentable. Talking of apparent, claiming that corporations violate copyright after they prepare AI fashions on New York Occasions content material requires a mixture of conceitedness and cluelessness that may solely be discovered at, nicely, the New York Occasions.
Paul Stephan joins us to notice that the Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Expertise (NIST) has give you some good questions on requirements for AI security.
Jeffery notes that U.S. lawmakers have lastly woken as much as the EU’s misuse of tech regulation to guard the continent’s failing tech sector. Even the continent’s tech sector appears sad with the EU’s AI Act, which was rushed to market with a purpose to beat the competitors and is due to this fact flawed and prone to yield unintended and disastrous penalties, a downside that conjures up this week’s Cybertoon.
Paul covers a lawsuit blaming AI for the wrongful denial of medical insurance coverage claims. As he factors out, insurers have been capable of wrongfully deny claims for many years while not having AI. Justin Sherman and I dig deep right into a New York Occasions article claiming to have discovered a privateness downside in AI. We conclude that AI could have a privateness downside, however extracting a number of e mail addresses from ChatGPT would not show the case.
Lastly, Jeffery notes an SEC “sweep” analyzing the trade’s AI use.
Paul explains the competitors legislation points raised by app shops – and the inconsistent consequence of app retailer litigation in opposition to Apple and Google. Apple’s app retailer skated free in a case tried earlier than a choose, however Google misplaced earlier than a jury and has now entered into an costly settlement with different app makers. But it is laborious to say that Google’s dealing with of its app retailer monopoly is extra egregiously anticompetitive than Apple’s.
We do our personal analysis in actual time to deal with an FTC grievance in opposition to Ceremony Help for utilizing facial recognition to establish repeat shoplifters. The FTC has clearly adopted Paul’s dictum, “The best time to kick someone is when they’re down.” And its grievance exhibits a scarcity of care in step with that posture. I criticize the FTC for claiming with out quotation that Ceremony Help ignored “false positive” racial bias in its facial recognition software program. Digging into the analysis, I conclude that, if the FTC itself was topic to penalties for unfair and misleading advertising and marketing, this submitting would result in sanctions.
The FTC fares a bit of higher in our assessment of its effort to toughen the web guidelines on little one privateness, although Paul is not on board with the entire bundle.
We transfer from tales concerning the authorities regulating Silicon Valley to tales about Silicon Valley regulating the federal government. Apple has determined that it’s going to now require a judicial order to offer authorities’s entry to clients’ “push notifications.” And, giving the again of its hand to crime victims, Google decides to make geofence warrants not possible by blinding itself to the required location knowledge. Lastly, Apple decides to manage India’s hacking of opposition politicians and runs right into a Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) buzzsaw.
Paul and Jeffery decode the EU’s determination to open a DSA content material moderation investigation into X. We additionally have fun the welcome failure of X’s lawsuit to dam California’s content material moderation legislation.
Justin takes us by the most recent developments in Chilly Warfare 2.0. China is hacking our ports and utilities with intent to disrupt (versus spy on) them. And the U.S. is discovering that derisking our semiconductor provide chain goes to take laborious, grinding work. Justin appears to be like at a latest report presenting precise proof on the query of TikTok’s requirements for reinforcing content material of curiosity to the Chinese language authorities.
And in fast takes,
Obtain 486th Episode (mp3)
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