CFAA: The imperfect criminal law and order of the digital land

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) of 1986 is a controversial US law addressing computer crime – not only seeking to establish behavioral norms online, but also contributing to enforcement misuse/overreach with unintended consequences offline...

1. History of CFAA legislation
2. US v Matthew Keys (2012)
3. US v Derrick Lostutter (2017)
4. HiQ Labs v LinkedIn (2019)
5. US v Aaron Swartz (2011)
6. "Unauthorized access" (web scraping and who owns data?)
7. Safe harbor for ethical/white hat security researchers
8. Terms of service (ToS) violations
9. "Demonstrable harm" (proportionality of crime vs punishment)
10. Aaron's Law
11. Tradeoffs of CFAA and reform thereof (free speech/privacy/AI/ML/etc)

This podcast is Al-generated with NotebookLM, using the following sources, research, and analysis:

• California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (Wikipedia, 2024.12.12)
• Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (Wikipedia, 2024.12.12)
• Critical Fixes for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (EFF, 2013.01.29)
• Department of Justice Announces New Policy for Charging Cases under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (DOJ, 2022.05.19)
• Explanation of effects of Aaron’s Law with EFF proposed amendments to “access without authorization” (EFF public discussion draft, 2013.01.23)
• Is It Time to Rethink the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act? (GovTech, 2023.02.15)
• Justice Manual 9-48.000: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (DOJ, 2022.05)
• Legal Risks of Adversarial Machine Learning Research (Kumar/Penney/Schneier/Albert, 2020.06.29)
• Rebooting Computer Crime Law Part 1: No Prison Time For Violating Terms of Service (EFF, 2013.02.04)
• Rebooting Computer Crime Law Part 2: Protect Tinkerers, Security Researchers, Innovators, and Privacy Seekers (EFF, 2013.02.04)
• Rebooting Computer Crime Part 3: The Punishment Should Fit the Crime (EFF, 2013.02.08)
• The Case to Update the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (GW Law, 2021.04.03)
• The Mirage of Artificial Intelligence Terms of Use Restrictions (Henderson/Lemley, 2024.12.10)
• Why the Government Went After Matthew Keys (Vice, 2015.10.09)

Not investment advice; do your own due diligence!

# cybersecurity cybercrime hackers hacktivism felony legal regulation social media networking internet IRL 1A