How John Deere Hijacked Copyright Law To Keep You From Tinkering With Your Tractor; Reason, January 8, 2024

 LUKE HOGG , Reason; How John Deere Hijacked Copyright Law To Keep You From Tinkering With Your Tractor

"For nearly 25 years, Section 1201 has been hanging over the developers and distributors of tools that give users more control over the products they own. The ways in which John Deere and other corporations have used the copyright system is a glaring example of regulatory capture in action, highlighting the absurdity of a system where owning a product doesn't necessarily convey the right to fully control it. There are certainly circumstances where the manufacturers are justified in protecting their products from tampering, but such cases should be handled through warranty nullification and contract law, not through exorbitant fines and lengthy prison sentences."

Apple Was Slow to Act on FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying on iPhones; The New York Times, January 29, 2019

Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times; Apple Was Slow to Act on FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying on iPhones


"A bug this easy to exploit is every company’s worst security nightmare and every spy agency, cybercriminal and stalker’s dream. In emails to Apple’s product security team, Ms. Thompson noted that she and her son were just everyday citizens who believed they had uncovered a flaw that could undermine national security." 

“My fear is that this flaw could be used for nefarious purposes,” she wrote in a letter provided to The New York Times. “Although this certainly raises privacy and security issues for private individuals, there is the potential that this could impact national security if, for example, government members were to fall victim to this eavesdropping flaw."

Hackers Are Breaking into Medical Databases to Protect Patient Data; The Scientist, October 1, 2018

Catherine Offord, The Scientist; Hackers Are Breaking into Medical Databases to Protect Patient Data

"The first few times Ben Sadeghipour hacked into a computer, it was to access the video games on his older brother’s desktop. “He would usually have a password on his computer, and I would try and guess his password,” Sadeghipour tells The Scientist. Sometimes he’d guess right. Other times, he wouldn’t. “So I got into learning about how to get into computers that were password protected,” he says. “At the time, I had no clue that what I was doing was considered hacking.”

The skills he picked up back then would become unexpectedly useful later in life. Sadeghipour now breaks into other people’s computer systems as a profession. He is one of thousands of so-called ethical hackers working for HackerOne, a company that provides services to institutions and businesses looking to test the security of their systems and identify vulnerabilities before criminals do."

Lessons from zombie warfare can help us beat hackers at their own game; Quartz, 9/26/16

Patrick Lin, Quartz; Lessons from zombie warfare can help us beat hackers at their own game:

"The current lack of respect for the power and vulnerabilities of our computing devices has helped create the debate over hacking back and other security issues. To be fair, the internet wasn’t designed for security when it was created decades ago, but only for a small group of researchers who trusted one another. That circle of trust has long been breached. We now need more vigilant and prepared users to help prevent cyberattacks from landing in the first place, making moot the decision to hack back.

Therefore, to truly address cybersecurity, we may need to seriously consider requiring computer users to have special training and licensing, or at the very least to keep up with basic hygiene requirements. Firearms and automobiles also have a high potential for misuse, so they require proper training and licensing. The US Federal Aviation Administration just required aerial drones to be registered, similarly recognizing that drone operation can be both recreational and dangerous.

Perhaps this solution is too radical to work. A new report on the ethics of hacking back, released today (Sept. 26) by the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group based at Cal Poly, explores other possibilities. But a radical change of perspective may be what’s needed to solve such a relentless problem, and the right metaphor may be able to inspire that paradigm shift."