Internet

Anti-Cyberbullying State Statutes Should Prompt a Revisiting of the Communications Decency Act

Nia Chung, MJLST Staff

Cyberbullying comes in varying forms. Online outlets with user identification features such as Facebook and MySpace give third party attackers a platform to target individuals but remain identifiable to the victim. The transparency of identification provided on these websites allows victims the ability of possible redress without involving the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

In February 2014, Bryan Morben published an article on cyberbullying in volume 15.1 of the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology. In that article Mr. Morben wrote that Minnesota’s new anti-cyberbullying statute, the “Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act” H.F. 826 would “reconstruct the Minnesota bullying statute and would provide much more guidance and instruction to local schools that want to create a safer learning environment for all.” Mr. Morben’s article analyzes the culture of cyberbullying and the importance of finding a solution to such actions.

Another form of cyberbullying has been emerging, however, and state initiatives such as the Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act may prompt Congress to revisit current, outdated, federal law. This form of cyberbullying occurs on websites that provide third parties the ability to hide behind the cloak of anonymity to escape liability for improper actions, like 4chan and AOL.

On September 22, 2014, British actress Emma Watson delivered a powerful U.N. speech about women’s rights. Less than 24 hours later, a webpage titled “Emma You Are Next” appeared, displaying the actress’s face next to a countdown, suggesting that Ms. Watson would be targeted this Friday. The webpage was stamped with the 4chan logo, the same entity that is said to have recently leaked celebrity photos of actresses including Jennifer Lawrence, this past summer. On the same website, one anonymous member responded to Ms. Watson’s speech by stating “[s]he makes stupid feminist speeches at UN, and now her nudes will be online.” Problematically, the law provides no incentive for such ISPs to remove such defamatory content because they are barred from liability by a federal statute. The Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, provides, “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Essentially, this provision provides ISPs immunity from tort liability for content or information generated on a user-generated website. Codified in 1996, initially to regulate pornographic material, the statute added sweeping protection for ISPs. However, 20 years ago, the internet was relatively untouched and had yet to realize its full potential.

Courts historically have applied Section 230 broadly and have prevented ISPs from being held liable for cyberbullying actions brought from victims of cyberbullying on its forum. For example, the Ninth Circuit upheld CDA immunity for an ISP for distributing an email to a listserv who posted an allegedly defamatory email authored by a third party. The Fourth Circuit immunized ISPs even when they acknowledged that the content was tortious. The Third Circuit upheld immunity for AOL against allegations of negligence because punishing the ISP for its third party’s role would be “actions quintessentially related to a publisher’s role.” Understandably, the First Amendment provides the right to free exchange of information and ideas, which gives private individuals the right to anonymous speech. We must ask, however, where the line must be drawn when anonymity serves not as a tool to communicate with others in a public forum but merely as a tool to bring harm to individuals, their reputations and their images.

In early April of this year, the “Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act was approved and officially went into effect. Currently, http://www.cyberbullying.us/Bullying_and_Cyberbullying_Laws.pdf have anti-cyberbullying statutes in place, demonstrating positive reform in keeping our users safe in a rapidly changing and hostile online environment. Opinions from both critics and advocates of the bill were voiced through the course of the bill’s passing, and how effectively Minnesota will apply its cyberbullying statute remains to be seen. A closer look at the culture of cyberbullying, as is discussed in Mr. Morben’s article, and the increasing numbers of anti-cyberbullying state statutes, however, may prompt Congress to revisit Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, to at least modestly reform ISP immunity and give cyber-attacks victims some form of meaningful redress.


Minnesota’s ‘Safe and Supportive Schools Act’ Passes (and a Brief Response to Mr. Fleury’s Counterpoint)

Bryan Morben, MJLST Managing Editor

On April 9, many students, parents, teachers, and school administrators rejoiced as Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed the Safe and Supportive Schools Act (the 7th engrossment of House Bill 826) into law. Senator Dibble, author of the bill in the Senate, recognized that “[n]o young person should be forced to choose between going to school or being safe. But today, far too many are put in that position.” At the same time, however, many others disapprove of the Act as a solution to the bullying and cyberbullying crisis in Minnesota.

Without offering any recommendation to address the problem themselves, opponents of the Act continue to shoot it down on, what seems to me, to be mostly baseless grounds. I address a number of these in my article “The Fight Against Oppression in the Digital Age: Restructuring Minnesota’s Cyberbullying Law to Get with the Battle,” which can be found here. In that article, I recommended that the Minnesota adopt HF 826 (6th engrossment) to drastically improve Minnesota’s antibullying law at the time. Since publication of the article, the bill went through one more engrossment before becoming law.

In a recent blog post, a fellow member of MJLST, Erin Fleury, made a couple counterpoints against adoption of the bill as recommended in my article. Specifically, Mr. Fleury argues that the definition of “bullying” was still overly broad and could encompass behavior not intended by the legislature. The definition Mr. Fleury quotes, however, is not found in the text of the 6th engrossment that I recommended. In fact, the Senate’s amended version of the bill, which Mr. Fleury says “remedies these defects by requiring that all bullying conduct be ‘objectively offensive,'” is the same in the prior version of the bill that I suggested (with a small change from “harassing conduct” to “harming conduct”).

Mr. Fleury also contends that the prior bill could include “class clown” behavior as bullying because it would routinely interrupt and interfere with the learning environment. Again, I think this argument is without merit. First, it is unlikely that this conduct would arise to the “material and substantial” level of interference required by the bill (and interpreted by student-speech case law). And second, both the 6th engrossment and the amended version signed into law specifically state that the school bullying policy, including what constitutes bullying, “applies to bullying by a student against another student . . . .” (See Section 3, Subdiv. 1, emphasis added). Therefore, a class clown not directing his conduct towards any other specific student would not fall under the bullying definition.

As noted in my article, antibullying legislation like the Safe and Supportive Schools Act has been thoroughly reviewed and recommended by experts like the U.S. Department of Education and the MN Task Force on the Prevention of School Bullying. The MN Task Force was composed of parents, community members, health care professionals, education experts, school administrators, and policymakers. I believe that they have crafted a well-balanced law that should help curtail the bullying problems occurring in Minnesota schools without infringing on students’ rights.


ABC v. Aereo: Television on the Internet!?

Elliot Ferrell, MJLST Staff

American Broadcasting Companies v. Aereo, Inc. has seen a surge in the news as the parties head in for arguments next Tuesday, and Justice Alito has no longer recused himself. The case involves copyright issues in streaming television over the internet, specifically asking “Whether a company ‘publicly performs’ a copyrighted television program when it retransmits a broadcast of that program to thousands of paid subscribers over the internet.”

Some of the arguments revolve around the technology used. Aereo maintains that their streaming service is not a “public performance” in violation of copyright law because the DVR’d copy of customer’s television content, saved to the cloud, comes from an “individual antenna” accessing “free-to-air broadcasts.” However, others counter that Aereo’s technology does not save them from violating the law because, when it comes to down to it, they are simply taking a signal, repackaging it, and selling it to their customers without compensating those who produce the content.

Personally, I can see the appeal of such a service. I catch my Game of Thrones on HBOGO, and whatever else I feel like watching on Netflix or the free section on Hulu. A few years ago, if there were a way to watch Lost immediately on the internet, then I may have questioned whether it was worth owning a television at all. However, none of this makes for a particularly compelling legal argument.

Perhaps the most relevant issue that will come out of this for the average person is what will happen to the consumer experience. If Aereo is successful than it could lead to cheaper prices cable bills, as Aereo’s service costs a mere $8 per month while the average cable bill is over $100. However, this argument is complicated by the fact that a typical cable package includes a bit more than just the free-to-air broadcasts (but how much of that does the consumer really care about/want to pay for?), and Aereo’s service is available in only a few regions. Additionally, one option broadcasters have in the event of an Aereo victory is to remove free-to-air content and sell it instead, perhaps with a streaming service of their own.

The consumer experience has been enriched by the options presented by television streaming services, and Aereo’s service seems to supplement the current trend nicely. However, with the proliferation of sites like Netflix and Hulu and individual content producers providing their own similar services, access to free-to-air broadcasts over the internet seems kind of like an inevitability.


Worldwide Canned Precooked Meat Product: The Legal Challenges of Combating International Spam

by Nathan Peske, UMN Law Student, MJLST Staff

On May 1, 1978 Gary Thuerk sent the first unsolicited mass e-mail on ARPANET, the predecessor to today’s Internet. Thuerk, a marketing manager for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), sent information about DEC’s new line of microcomputers to all 400 users of the ARPANET. Since ARPANET was still run by the government and subject to rules prohibiting commercial use, Thuerk received a stern tongue lashing from an ARPANET representative. Unfortunately this failed to deter future senders of unsolicited e-mails, or spam, and it has been a growing problem ever since.

From a single moderately annoying but legitimate advertisement sent by a lone individual in 1978, spam has exploded into a malicious, hydra-headed juggernaut. Trillions of spam e-mails are sent every year, up to 90% of all e-mail sent. Most spam e-mails are false ads for adult devices or health, IT, finance, or education products. The e-mails routinely harm the recipient through attempts to scam money like the famous Nigerian scam, phishing attacks to steal the recipient’s credentials, or distribution of malware either directly or through linked websites. It is estimated that spammers cost the global economy $20 billion a year in everything from lost productivity to the additional network equipment required to transmit the massive increase in e-mail traffic due to spam.

While spam is clearly a major problem, legal steps to combat it are confronted by a number of identification and jurisdictional issues. Gone are the Gary Thuerk days when the sender’s e-mail could be simply read off the spam e-mail. Spam today is typically distributed through large networks of malware-infected computers. These networks, or botnets, are controlled by botmasters who send out spam without the infected user’s knowledge, often for another party. Spam may be created in one jurisdiction, transmitted by a botmaster in another jurisdiction, distributed by bots in the botnet somewhere else, and received by recipients all over in the world.

Anti-spam laws generally share several provisions. They usually include one or all of the following: OPT-IN policies prohibiting sending bulk e-mails to users that have not subscribed to them, OPT-OUT policies requiring that a user must be able to unsubscribe at any time, clear and accurate indication of the sender’s identity and the advertising nature of the message, and a prohibition on e-mail address harvesting. While effective against spammers that can be found within that entity’s jurisdiction, these laws cannot touch other members in the spam chain outside of its borders. There is also a lack of laws penalizing legitimate companies, often more easily identified and prosecuted, that pay for spamming services. Only the spammers themselves are prosecuted.

Effectively reducing spam will require a more effective international framework to mirror the international nature of spam networks. Increased international cooperation will help identify and prosecute members throughout the spam chain. Changes in the law, such as penalizing those who use spamming services to advertise, will help reduce the demand for spam.

Efforts to reduce spam cannot include just legal efforts against spammers and their patrons. Much like the international drug trade, as long as spam continues to be a lucrative market, it will attract participants. Technical and educational efforts must be made to reduce the profit in spam. IT companies and industry groups are working to develop anti-spam techniques. These range from blocking IP address and domains at the network level to analyzing and filtering individual messages, and a host of other techniques. Spam experts are also experimenting with techniques like spamming the spammers with false responses to reduce their profit margins. Efforts to educate users on proper e-mail security and simple behaviors like “if you don’t know the sender, don’t open the attachment” will also help bring down spammers’ profit margins by decreasing the number of responses they get.

Like many issues facing society today, e-mail spam requires a response at all levels of society. National governments must work individually and cooperatively to pass effective anti-spam laws and prosecute spammers. Industry groups must develop ways to detect and destroy spam and the botnets that distribute them. And individual users must be educated on the techniques to defend themselves from the efforts of spammers. Only with a combined, multi-level effort can the battle against international e-mail spam be truly won.


All Signs Point Toward New Speed Limits on the Information Superhighway

by Matt Mason, UMN Law Student, MJLST Staff

The net neutrality debate, potentially the greatest hot-button issue surrounding the Internet, may be coming to a (temporary) close. After years of failed attempts to pass net neutrality legislation, the D.C. Circuit will soon rule as to whether the FCC possesses the regulatory authority to impose a non-discrimination principle against large corporate ISP providers such as Verizon. Verizon, the plaintiff in the case, alleges that the FCC exceeded its regulatory authority by promulgating a non-discrimination net neutrality principle. In 2010, the FCC adopted a number of net neutrality provisions, including the non-discrimination principle, in order to prevent ISPs like Verizon from establishing “the equivalents of tollbooths, fast lanes, and dirt roads” on the Internet. Marvin Ammori, an Internet policy expert, believes that based on the court’s questions and statements at oral argument, the judges plan to rule in favor of Verizon. Such a ruling would effectively end net neutrality, and perhaps the Internet, as we know it.

The D.C. Circuit Court is not expected to rule until late this year or early next year. If the D.C. Circuit rules that the FCC does not have the regulatory power to enforce this non-discrimination principle, companies such as AT&T and Verizon will have to freedom to deliver sites and services in a faster and more reliable fashion than others for any reason at all. As Ammori puts it, web companies (especially start-ups) will now survive based on the deals they are able to make with companies like Verizon, as opposed to based on the “merits of their technology and design.”

This would be terrible news for almost everyone who uses and enjoys the Internet. The Internet would no longer be neutral, which could significantly hamper online expression and creativity. Additional costs would be imposed on companies seeking to reach users, which would likely result in increased costs for users. Companies that lack the ability to pay the higher fees would end up with lower levels of service and reliability. The Internet would be held hostage and controlled by only a handful of large companies.

How the FCC will respond to the likely court ruling rejecting its non-discrimination principle is uncertain. Additionally, wireless carries such as Sprint, have begun to consider the possibility of granting certain apps or service providers preferential treatment or access to customers. Wireless phone carriers resist the application of net neutrality rules to their networks, and appear poised to continue to do so despite the fact that network speeds are beginning to equal those on traditional broadband services.

In light of the FCC potentially not having the regulatory authority to institute net neutrality principles, and because of the number of failed attempts by Congress to pass net neutrality legislation, the question of what can be done to protect net neutrality has no easy answers. This uncertainty makes the D.C. Circuit’s decision even more critical. Perhaps the consumer, media, and web company outcry will be loud enough to create policy change following to likely elimination of the non-discrimination rule. Maybe Congress will respond by making the passage of net neutrality legislation a priority. Regardless of what happens, it appears as though we will soon see the installation of speed limits on the information superhighway.


Cyber Security Investigation and Online Tracking

by Ude Lu, UMN Law Student, MJLST Staff.

Ude-Lue.jpgOn April 18th, 2013, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) was passed with wide spread controversies. CISPA aims to help national security agencies to investigate cyber threats by allowing private companies, such as Google and Facebook, to search users’ personal data to identify possible threats. Commentators argue that CISPA compromises the Fourth Amendment, because, under CISPA, agencies can get privacy data of suspects identified by the privacy companies without a judicial order. CISPA bridges the gap between crime investigations and the privacy data stored and analyzed by social media companies.

Google and Facebook regularly track their user’s online behaviors, such as websites they visited or products they purchased, to figure out their personal preferences to perform targeted advertisements. These personal behavior analyses raise serious privacy concerns. Omer Tene and Jules Polonetsky in their article published in Volume 13 Issue 1 of the Minnesota Journal of Law Science and Technology, To Track or “Do Not Track: Advancing Transparency and Individual Control in Online Behavioral Advertising discussed these privacy concerns.

Tene and Polonetsky described that while targeted advertisement provides many advantages, one particular criticism is that users are deprived from meaningful control of their data. This led to various administrative proposals in the US and EU. In the US, FTC proposed “Do Not Track”, a signal sent by users’ browser to internet content providers requesting them not to track cookies. In the EU, the e-Privacy Directive required an opt-in consent for cookie tracking. The authors argue that whether cookie tracking should be “opt-in” or “opt-out” depends on how tracking is valued by the society. If the society in general values tracking as a positive measure to provide valuable services, then opt-out should be applied. On the contrary, if tracking is viewed by the society as an invasion to privacy, then opt-in should be applied.


Cybersecurity: Serious threat or “technopanic”?

by Bryan Dooley, UMN Law Student, MJLST Staff

Thumbnail-Bryan-Dooley.jpgWhile most would likely agree that threats to cybersecurity pose sufficient risk to warrant some level of new regulation, opinions vary widely on the scope and nature of an appropriate response. FBIwebsite-sm-border.jpgThe Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, one of several proposed legislative measures intended to address the problem, has drawn widespread criticism. Concerns voiced by opponents have centered on privacy and the potential for misuse of shared information. Some fear the legislation creates the potential for additional harm by allowing or encouraging private parties to launch counterattacks against perceived security threats, with no guarantee they will always hit their intended targets.

In Technopanics, Threat Inflation, and the Danger of an Information Technology Precautionary Principle</strong>, published in Issue 14.1 of the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Adam Thierer discusses the danger of misguided regulation in response to new and potentially misunderstood technological developments. The discussion centers on what Thierer terms “technopanics”–hasty and often irrational pushes to address a problem in the face of uncertainty and misinformation, sometimes intentionally disseminated by parties who hope to benefit financially or advance a social agenda.

In the context of cyber security, Thierer argues that advocates of an aggressive regulatory response have exaggerated the potential for harm by using language such as “digital Pearl Harbor” and “cyber 9/11.” He argues technopanics have influenced public discourse about a number of other issues, including online pornography, privacy concerns associated with targeted advertising, and the effects of violent video games on young people. While these panics often pass with little or no real lasting effect, Thierer expresses concern that an underlying suspicion toward new technological developments could mature into a precautionary principal for information technology. This would entail a rush to regulate in response to any new development with a perceived potential for harm, which Thierer argues would slow social development and prevent or delay introduction of beneficial technologies.

It’s an interesting discussion. Whether or not cyber attacks pose the potential for widespread death and destruction, there is significant potential for economic damage and disruption, as well as theft or misuse of private or sensitive information. As in any case of regulation in the face of uncertainty, there is also clear potential that an overly hasty or inadequately informed response will go too far or carry unintended consequences.


Threats From North Korea: Switching Our Focus From Nuclear Weapons to Websites

by Bryan Morben, UMN Law Student, MJLST Staff

Thumbnail-Bryan-Morben.jpgThere has been a lot of attention on North Korea and the possibility of a nuclear war lately. In fact, as recently as April 4, 2013, news broke that the increasingly hostile country moved medium-range missiles to its east coastline. It is reported that the missiles do not have enough range to hit the U.S. mainland, but is well within range of the South Korean capital. Tensions have been running high for several months, especially when the North took the liberty to shred the sixty year old armistice that ended the Korean War, and warned the world that “the next step was an act of ‘merciless’ military retaliation against its enemies.”

But perhaps the use of physical force by leader Kim Jong Un is not the only, or even the most important threat, from North Korea that the United States and its allies should be worried about. Despite the popular impression that North Korea is technologically inept, the regime boasts a significant cyber arsenal. The country has jammed GPS signals and also reportedly conducted cyber terrorism operations against media and financial institutions in the South. North Korea employs a host of sophisticated computer hackers capable of producing anonymous attacks against a variety of targets including military, governmental, educational, and commercial institutions. This ability to vitiate identity is one of the most powerful and dangerous parts about cyber warfare that isn’t possible in the physical world.

Susan Brenner is an expert in the field cyberwar, cybercrime, and cyber terrorism. She has been writing about how and why the institutions modern nation-states rely on to fend off the threats of war, crime, and terrorism have become ineffective as threats have migrated into cyberspace for over half a decade. Her article, Cyber-threats and the Limits of Bureaucratic Control, in Issue 14.1 of the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology outlines why we need a new threat-control strategy and how such a strategy could be structured and implemented. A strategy like the one Brenner recommends could help protect us from losing a cyberbattle with North Korea that most people aren’t even aware could happen.


21st Century Problem: Authentication of Prisoner Facebook Status Updates

by Eric Maloney, UMN Law Student, MJLST Staff

Thumbnail-Eric-Maloney.jpgFacebook has become a part of everyday life for people around the world. According to Mark Zuckerberg and Co., over one billion people (yes, with a “B”) are active on Facebook every month, with an average of more than 600 million active users every day in December 2012. Disregarding bogus or duplicate accounts, that means roughly one-seventh of the entire human population is active on Facebook every month (with the world population currently sitting somewhere in the neighborhood of seven billion people).

Apparently, Facebook has become so commonplace and ingrained in the daily routine of some that they feel the need to use the social networking service from the privacy of their prison cells.

A Harlem gang member named Devin Parsons has decided to cooperate with the government against fellow members of his gang, and is currently incarcerated while trial is pending. Instead of having the usual prison contraband smuggled in, he obtained a mobile phone and used it to post Facebook status updates under an assumed name. According to Trial Judge William H. Pauley III:

In some posts, Parsons reflected on his life in jail:

“everybody wanna live but don’t wanna die”;
“Life is crazy thay only miss yu ifyu dead or in jail”; and
“G.o.n.e”

In others, Parsons posted about his cooperation:

“I’m not tellin on nobody from HARLEM but I can give up some bx n****s that got bodys”; and
“be home sooner then yaH hereing 101[.]”

While not exactly “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Parsons was surprisingly bold about disclosing the fact of his cooperation and about the risk of getting caught with a banned cell phone by the prison administration. The gang against which Parsons is testifying is charged with multiple counts of narcotics trafficking and murder, among other things.

One of the defendants in the case, Melvin Colon, sought to compel the disclosure of these postings under the Brady rule, which requires the government to release evidence to the defense before trial if the evidence is favorable to the defendant. Judge Pauley held that the government was not obligated to turn these postings over to Colon; for various reasons, the government was never in actual possession of the Facebook statuses and therefore had no duty to disclose under Brady.

This case highlights the continually growing relevance that Facebook and other social media data has in legal proceedings. In fact, this is not even the first ruling about Facebook in this case; the defendant Colon had earlier moved to suppress his own Facebook postings which the prosecution sought to introduce. Judge Pauley denied this motion as well, holding that Colon’s sharing of the postings with his Facebook “friends” meant he lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in them.

A background issue in this case was the idea of authenticity of the Facebook poster; because Parsons was posting under a fake name, both sides were unaware of his conduct until after the account had already been deactivated. While not contested here, ensuring that the Facebook information originated from the user is an increasingly important evidentiary consideration as more and more of this data is used in both civil and criminal contexts.

Professor Ira P. Robbins laid out a possible framework for authenticating social networking evidence in his Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology article “Writings on the Wall: The Need for an Authorship-Centric Approach to the Authentication of Social-Networking Evidence.” While voicing significant concerns about the current lack of a required nexus between the online content and its real-life poster, he proposed detailed admissions criteria for social network postings. He offered several factors to be examined by judges in making rulings about such data, including who owns the account, how secure the account is, and how / when the post in question was created.

As Facebook and other social networking information becomes increasingly important to the outcomes of legal cases, a framework like this is essential to bring our procedures in line with the nature of 21st century evidence and to ensure our system continues to meet Due Process standards. Digital evidence is largely unexplored territory for jurists and scholars alike, and it’s my hope that evidentiary standards like those proposed by Professor Robbins are seriously considered by the legal community.


Time for a New Approach to Cyber Security?

by Kenzie Johnson, UMN Law Student, MJLST Managing Editor

Kenzie Johnson The recent announcements by several large news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg News, and the Wall Street Journal reporting that they have been the victims of cyber-attacks have yet again brought cyber security into the news. These attacks reportedly all originated in China and were aimed at monitoring news reporting of Chinese issues. In particular, the New York Times announced that Chinese hackers persistently attacked their servers for a period of four months and obtained passwords for reporters and other Times employees. The Times reported that the commencement of the attack coincided with a story it published regarding mass amounts of wealth accumulated by the family of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

It is not only western news outlets that are the targets of recent cyber-attacks. Within the past weeks, the United States Department of Energy and Federal Reserve both announced that hackers had recently penetrated their servers and acquired sensitive information.

This string of high-profile cyber-attacks raises the need for an improved legal and response structure to deal with the growing threat of cyber-attacks. In the forthcoming Winter 2013 issue of Minnesota Journal of Law, Science, and Technology, Susan W. Brenner discusses these issues in an article entitled “Cyber-Threats and the Limits of Bureaucratic Control.” Brenner discusses the nature, causes, and consequences of cyber-threats if left unchecked. Brenner also analyzes alternative approaches to the United States’ current cyber-threat control regime, criticizes current proposals for improvements to the current regime, and proposes alternative approaches. As illustrated by these recent cyber-attacks, analysis of these issues is becoming more important to protect sensitive government data as well as private entities from cyber-threats.