Duane Morris TechLaw

November 5, 2012September 12, 2014 by Sandra A. Jeskie

Displaced New Jersey Residents To Vote by E-mail or Fax

The New Jersey Department of State issued a directive to county elections officials to permit New Jersey registered voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy to vote electronically. Specifically, the directive permits voting by e-mail or fax. Of course, there are many security addresses that must be addressed to eliminate voter fraud. Of particular concern is how election officials plan to authenticate the e-mail and fax ballots they receive from displaced New Jersey residents.

This is the first time technology has been used in this way to vote and assuming that the security issues are adequately addressed, it will likely be studied to determine if it can used for the masses in future elections.

The release can be viewed on the New Jersey state website:
http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/552012/approved/20121103d.html.

October 18, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

Hackers Increasingly Target Colleges, Universities

All sorts of businesses and organizations are potentially vulnerable to hackers. Educational institutions are no exception, as highlighted by a recent example involving Northwest Florida State College.

One or more hackers accessed a folder on the school’s main server from May through September, according to a memo from the College’s President to all employees. The folder contained multiple files.

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October 9, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

Put Down Your Devices and Look Around, People

I believe that I have the world’s greatest commute. I board the ferry at Larkspur Landing in Marin County, California and travel thirty minutes across the water to the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco.

Friday morning was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining, the sky was crystal clear with the moon still hanging high, and the water was sparkling.

From the ferry ride, there were gorgeous views of Mount Tamalpais, Angel Island, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge, San Francisco, as well as Berkeley and a bit of Oakland.

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October 3, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

Switching to E-Books Would Save Our Children’s Backs

It is amazing that in this day and age we still see students hauling around backpacks full of heavy school textbooks. This is true not only for college and high schools students, but also for much younger students in middle school and elementary school.

With the technology available such that many voluminous books can be loaded electronically onto an electronic book reader, a laptop, an iPad, or even a PDA, there seems no reason why kids should have to shoulder the heavy weight of books.

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September 27, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

How Many Millions of Children are on Facebook?

Many web sites prohibit children under the age of 13. It’s not necessary out of altruism, but because the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) contains various provisions and requirements concerning special treatment that must be accorded to the children.

The statute is designed to protect young children from web sites that might seek to exert influence over them by obtaining personal data and marketing to them. Indeed, web sites are required to get verifiable parental consent before allowing such children to participate and they must follow certain rules to safeguard their privacy.

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September 19, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

The Cost of Cybercrime: 1.5 Million Victims Every Day

Make no mistake, Cybercrime is real and its impact is huge. Indeed, a recent Norton Cybercrime report by Symantec provides some fairly startling statistics.

For example, there are 1.5 million Cybercrime victims on a daily basis – that is 18 victims per second. There are 556 million such victims per year – in excess of the European Union total population.

Two-thirds of online adults already have been Cybercrime victims at some point in their lives, and 46% of online adults have been victims within the past year.

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September 11, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

Spam Email Costs Billions But Yields Far Less

Most of us hate unsolicited commercial email – aka spam. Notwithstanding spam filters and federal and state laws prohibiting spam under various circumstances, we nonetheless continue to receive these annoying emails in our in boxes.

One might think that the spammers are making fortunes as part of their predatory practices.

But a recent study indicates that while the societal cost of spam is phenomenally high, to the tune of $20 billion, the revenue derived from spam is a fraction of that, only $200 million.

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August 29, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

Prince Harry Learns A Las Vegas Lesson

Dude, where are my clothes? Those might have been the words of Prince Harry when he learned that photos of him naked, but covering his royal private parts, had gone viral worldwide.

How did this happen? Apparently, his royal nakedness was partying in Las Vegas when someone snapped cellphone shots of him in the aftermath of a strip billiards game that then ended up on TMZ.com.

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August 22, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

The London Olympics: A High-Tech Success

The London 2012 Olympics games were successful, and indeed spectacular, on many levels.

Of course, there were incredible performances by phenomenal athletes, including veterans like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, as well as new breakout stars such as Missy Franklin and Gabby Douglas.

Great Britain also served up wonderful musical acts for entertainment purposes. Not only were we regaled by Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, George Michael, and bits and pieces from Queen and Pink Floyd, but we also witnessed the reunion of the Spice Girls (oh my).

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August 15, 2012September 12, 2014 by Sandra A. Jeskie

FTC Imposes a Record $22.5 Million Civil Penalty on Google for Privacy Misrepresentations

On August 9, 2012, the FTC announced that Google agreed to pay a record $22.5 million civil penalty to settle charges that it made misrepresentations to users of the Safari Internet browser when Google represented that it would not place cookies or serve targeted ads to those users. In doing so, Google violated an earlier privacy settlement it had with the FTC.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said “[t]he record setting penalty in this matter sends a clear message to all companies under an FTC privacy order. . . “[n]o matter how big or small, all companies must abide by FTC orders against them and keep their privacy promises to consumers, or they will end up paying many times what it would have cost to comply in the first place.”

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