Good Articles to Read

There’s not much going on with respect to cybersecurity, other than the usual stuff. There have been several bugs found recently in Chrome, iOS/macOS, Office 365, Microsoft Teams… you name it. But the response to each of these is the same: update the software. So keep on top of your software updates!

I’ve been reading a ton of articles on COVID-19-related privacy concerns around our efforts to contain the actual virus. I thought I would just share with you a few hand-picked articles that you might want to read.

  • Bruce Schneier’s blog on why the contact tracing solutions being discussed will simply not be effective, and may do more harm than good. All the arguing about privacy-protecting contact tracing is moot if the system doesn’t do what we need it to do.
  • Law360’s discussion of the threat to our civil liberties from all the proposed surveillance regimes. “If Big Tech moves forward with their network of surveillance, and in the absence of state action, the Fourth Amendment might not apply to the unreasonable uses of such surveillance.”
  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s article on the questions we must ask and have good answers to before deploying any new surveillance technology or policy. Once these are in place, they’re very hard to remove. Look at all the “temporary” changes we made after 9/11.
  • A thoughtful (if sobering) discussion of what comes next in this crisis. It’s got some political tones, but the questions it raises are important ones.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay home!

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