May 2010 Archives

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

We now live in an online world where words like "tweeting" and "defriending" are the new coin of the vocabulary realm. How about sexy texts also known as "sexting"? What is the importance of personal sexy texts and privacy?

Indeed, sexting, the practice of people texting nude photos of themselves, has raised recent legal privacy concerns. The primary question at stake is whether high school students have a privacy right to nude images that have been sexted and are located on their cell phones.

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

If press reports are to be believed, personal data on 207,000 army reservists potentially have been compromised as a result of laptops that were stolen recently from the offices of Serco Inc., a government contractor. Apparently, the data was contained on a CD-Rom that was inside of one of the laptops that were stolen. That disc is said to contain information such as the reservists' names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and probably information relating to the spouses and dependents of the reservists.

The U.S. Army Reserve Command reportedly has begun sending letters to the reservists that explain the security breach, apologize, and state that measures will be taken to prevent this type of occurrence from happening again. The letters are said to assure that going forward there will be additional training provided to personnel to make sure that they comprehend that personally identifiable information always must be safeguarded to protect the confidentiality of the data. 

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

The Internet crosses geographic boundaries, right? Correct. So, online risks are the same no matter where you are located, right? Wrong! According to a recent study, Internet risks indeed vary depending on where you go online, and ten U.S. cities have been deemed the riskiest. They are, risky online places to be.

The survey, by Norton from Symantec, considered various risk factors in coming up with its results, including cybercrimes such malicious attacks, malware infections, spam zombies, and bot infected computers, as well as additional factors like wireless hotspots, broadband connectivity and online purchases.

Interestingly, the top four risky cities to be online in the U.S., Seattle, Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, are some of the most advanced technological areas in our country.

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

It is common knowledge now that employees have relatively low expectations of privacy when it comes to engaging in electronic communications such as emailing when using employer computers and other equipment. It also is possible, however, at least as a matter of technology, that employee social networking might become fair game for employer monitoring as well.