We begin by asking Rihanna to sum up the latest US-EU agreement:
That’s when you need me there
With you I’ll always share …
You can stand under my umbrella
RiRi’s got the theory right: The Umbrella Agreement was supposed to make sure the US and EU would always share law enforcement data. But when the Eurocrats were done piling on the caveats, it was clear what concessions that US had made but it wasn’t clear if the EU had made any at all. So if you're keeping score, that's US=Rihanna, EU=Chris Brown. But we're sure that down deep they really love us, and we'll be moving in together again soon.
Meanwhile, the Investigatory Powers Act has gained royal assent, Maury Shenk walks us through both developments.
The Trump administration is hinting at a change in responsibility for protecting critical infrastructure from cyberattack, and it’s consistent with the President-elect’s enthusiasm for turning hard jobs over to generals. Congress is doing its bit, elevating Cyber Command to full combatant command status.
In good news, DOJ and a boatload of other countries have sinkholed the Avalanche botnet. Michael Vatis has the details.
Kudos to Sen. Cornyn, who held off a series of left/lib attacks on the changes to Rule 41 that are needed to catch even moderately sophisticated child abusers and hackers.
Tom Donilon’s Commission on what the next administration should do about cybersecurity has delivered its recommendations. The response: crickets.
Lastly, Saudi Arabia suffers a major Iranian attack. The US response to this attack on an ally of sorts? Cue the crickets again.
We next turn to an interview with Scott Charney, Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft. I’ve known Scott for 25 years and he’s an acute observer of the international cybersecurity scene. We discuss international pressures on technology companies including the conflicted roles of governments dealing with encryption.
As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback. Send an email to [email protected] or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.
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