Today’s New York Times has a remarkable story identifying the Shanghai office building that is the source of hundreds of hacking attacks on US computer networks. And Mandiant has released an even more detailed report on the Chinese hackers responsible for the attacks.
Archive | February, 2013
Epstein on Dworkin
Richard Epstein comments on the passing of Ronald Dworkin “from the other side of the political spectrum.” A taste: Dworkin must rate as one of the most distinguished and successful academics in the post-World War II era. He and I could never be described as close friends, let alone intellectual allies. But none of those […]
Republican Party Doing Surprisingly Well, from at Least One Perspective
Imagine in 1983, if you had told a Republican political operative that in 30 years: (1) Crime will no longer be an important political issue; (2) The USSR will have dissolved, and a Republican president will so botch a foreign war that the Democrats will have a clear public opinion advantage on foreign policy; (3) […]
Hypercard Redux
[NOTE: This brief essay comes from my friend and colleague David Johnson [from whom I first learned about Hypercard on our old Mac SE, many years ago)/DP] Why we need an Open Source Hypercard By: David R. Johnson Livecode has launched a kickstarter campaign to raise the funds needed to allow it to re-engineer their […]
No, Aaron Swartz Was Not Charged With Violating JSTOR’s Terms of Service
Writing in Slate, Justin Peters has a puzzling article on the CFAA charges brought against Aaron Swartz. Peters appears to think that the basis of the Swartz prosecution was violating the Terms of Service at JSTOR, the service that hosted the database that Swartz tried to copy. Peters then discusses whether Swartz should be held […]
Upcoming antitrust case, FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health System — Part 2
On Friday, I posted about FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health System, the interesting upcoming case about the “state action” exception to antitrust law. Today, I’ll discuss an interesting amicus brief in the case, that of a bunch of economists; among the names that caught my eye (because I know something of their work from having […]
A Few Personal Notes on Pope Benedict’s Resignation
Jody Bottum has a particularly interesting essay assessing Pope Benedict’s term. I have little to add as a formal or institutional to much of the chatter assessing Benedict’s record, the various scandals that occurred or emerged on his watch, or why or if he should have resigned. I just want to add two very simple […]
When Everyone Wins … With a Zero
Inside Higher Ed has an amusing story of the unanticipated consequences of a professor’s grading system. (“Dangerous Curves,” Zack Budryk, 12 February 2013.) Johns Hopkins computer science professor Peter Frohlich used the following rule for his grading curve: [E]ach class’s highest grade on the final counts as an A, with all other scores adjusted […]
Upcoming Talks in Ohio & Florida
By Eugene Kontorovich on February 17, 2013 10:45 am in Federalist Society, International Law, Israel, Uncategorized
I will be speaking at several law schools and universities in Ohio and Florida the week of March 18th (our spring break). All events are free and open to the public. Always happy to meet readers of the Conspiracy. Additional information at the links. March 18th, Case Western Reserve University Law School (noon), “Piracy and […]
Haymarket Revisited
On May 4, 1886, a peaceful labor protest turned violent after a bomb exploded and police fired on the protesters. Eight activists were subsequently indicted and, according to the conventional account, railroaded at trial. All were convicted and four were subsequently executed. What if the conventional account of the Haymarket protest and trial are wrong? The February […]
Attribution: the PLA’s University of Hacking
Bloomberg Businessweek has a remarkable story about the identification of another Chinese hacker. It’s a long, tangled, and fascinating tale of good sleuthing by several researchers, but the trail ends with Zhang Changhe, a digital entrepreneur and teacher — at a People’s Liberation Army school that is suspected of training PLA hackers. In the denouement, […]
Federal Judge Says Westlaw and Lexis Don’t Infringe Copyright by Posting Briefs
The order is at White v. West Publishing Corp. (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 11, 2013); the judge says there will be an opinion explaining the decision, but it hasn’t yet been released. (For my earlier discussion of the issue, see this post.) Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer.
State v. Brewington and Figurative Speech
Here’s the last portion of our State v. Brewington amicus brief: II. The Court of Appeals Erred in Concluding that Brewington’s Speech Was Knowingly False, an Error That Will Work Mischief in Future Defamation Cases To the extent that the Court of Appeals defended its decision by casting Brewington’s speech as a knowingly false statement […]
State v. Brewington and the Blackmail Analogy
Here’s the second part of our amicus brief, which deals with the Court of Appeals’ analogy between general threats to harshly criticize someone and blackmail: B. The Court of Appeals’ Blackmail Analogy Is Unsound The Court of Appeals defended its reasoning by analogy to blackmail. 2013 WL 177923, *8. But, while properly crafted blackmail bans […]
Harshly Criticizing Judges (or Others) for Their Past Conduct = Crime?
Last months I blogged about State v. Brewington, an Indiana Court of Appeals decisions that I thought was inconsistent with the First Amendment. I’m pleased to say that today (with the help of local counsel Jim Bopp and Justin McAdam) I filed a pro bono amicus brief urging the Indiana Supreme Court to consider the […]