The next scheduled Pwn2Own hacking competition has lost Hewlett-Packard as its longstanding sponsor amid legal concerns that the company could run afoul of recent changes to an international treaty that governs software exploits.
Dragos Ruiu, organizer of both Pwn2Own and the PacSec West security conference in Japan, said HP lawyers spent more than $1 million researching the recent changes to the so-called Wassenaar Arrangement. He said they ultimately concluded that the legal uncertainty and compliance hurdles were too high for them to move forward.
Category: Ignorant or unreasonable
Feds accuse X-Art/Malibu Media’s attorney Jason Aaron Kotzker of a $7,000,000 payday loan fraud | Fight Copyright Trolls
From at least 2011 to at least 2013, Defendants operated as data brokers, collecting and selling sensitive consumer information from consumer payday loan applications to non-lenders.
In particular, Defendants sold this information to at least one non-lender, Ideal Financial Solutions, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively, “Ideal Financial”), knowing or having reason to know that Ideal Financial used the information to make unauthorized debits from the consumers’ bank accounts.
How Secure Channels Attempted to Intimidate a Critic and Failed Spectacularly | Popehat
We’re now averaging more than one mass shooting per day in 2015 – The Washington Post
238 days, 247 mass shootings.
Source: We’re now averaging more than one mass shooting per day in 2015 – The Washington Post
Alleged Hypno-Lawyer Disbarred – Lowering the Bar
Both women claim that after they hired the lawyer and began meeting with him, they began to suspect something other than privileged conversation was going on. They couldn’t remember large parts of the meetings, and one said she also started to notice certain physical symptoms and disheveled clothing afterward. That one went to the police, and also started recording her conversations with the lawyer. (It may seem odd that she kept interacting with him, but he was handling a child-custody case for her and so it’s plausible that she may have been reluctant to change lawyers in mid-stream.) She recorded one phone call that “began with a discussion about normal legal matters and then turned into questions about where [she] was and whether she was alone.”
Well … maybe he was just worried about preserving the attorney-client privilege?
Apparently not. “[He] then began to use ‘code’ words that induced [her] to enter a trance-like stage [sic].” He then made 12 transcript pages worth of highly explicit suggestions, which seems like a lot, and finally told her not to remember anything but the legal matters they discussed. “The conversation ends with a few pages of legitimate conversation about [the woman’s] case,” so I guess he could bill her for that part, at least.
FBI probed SciFi author Ray Bradbury for plot to glum-down America • The Register
Ten-year investigation into whether commies used SciFi to put nation into bad mood
Source: FBI probed SciFi author Ray Bradbury for plot to glum-down America • The Register
I’m Flattered … – Imgur
Once Again, Megaupload User Asks Court for His Files Back | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Three years ago now, EFF’s client Kyle Goodwin, a sports videographer, asked the court to allow him to retrieve the files he stored in an account on the cloud storage site Megaupload. When the government seized Megaupload’s assets and servers in January 2012, Mr. Goodwin lost access to video files containing months of his professional work.
Source: Once Again, Megaupload User Asks Court for His Files Back | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Google ordered to remove links to stories about Google removing links to stories
Google faces fines if it does not comply with ridiculous recursion.
Source: Google ordered to remove links to stories about Google removing links to stories
Ninth Circuit Harshly Scrutinizes Law Enforcement Leak, Threatens Sanctions Against Department of Justice
Last week, the Ninth Circuit followed up with an order to show cause — an order telling the government to explain why the court should not issue sanctions based on the oral argument. The order does not openly accuse the government of leaking information to influence the court, but notes that “federal authorities” provided information and that the Department of Justice then cited the information a few days later. The court also demanded copies of transcripts and documents about Dean’s bond hearings. The court wants to know why the government cited an article not in the record sourced to an anonymous federal employee, and wants to know why the government’s own employee made the terrible bail decision that the government is now trying to blame on the court. This does not bode well for the government.