PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

The Funniest Hacker Stock Photos

By Daniel J. Solove   I produce computer-based privacy and data security training, so I’m often in the hunt for stock photos. One of the hardest things in the world to do is to find a stock photo of a hacker that doesn’t look absolutely ridiculous. I’ve gone through hundreds of hacker stock photos, and […]

The Worst Password Ever Created

by Daniel J. Solove People create some very bad passwords. In the list of the most popular passwords of 2014, all of them are terrible. Just look at the top 10: 123456 password 12345 12345678 Qwerty 123456789 1234 baseball dragon football

Drones, Data Breaches, Cramming, and Other Privacy + Security Updates

by Daniel J. Solove This post is co-authored with Professor Paul M. Schwartz. This post is part of a post series where we round up some of the interesting news and resources we’re finding. For a PDF version of this post, and for archived issues of previous posts, click here. We became quite busy after […]

Why All Law Schools Should Teach Privacy Law — and Why Many Don’t

by Daniel J. Solove Since 2000, I have taught a law school course in information privacy law. When I started teaching, I could count the number of law schools that had such a course on one hand. Today, by my rough estimate, I believe that the course is offered in about 40-50 law schools.

Notable Privacy and Security Books 2014

There were quite a number of books published about privacy and security issues last year, and I would like to highlight a few notable ones. A few books came out in late 2014 and have an early 2015 publication date. I’m including them here. The books are in no particular order.

The Sony Data Breach: 3 Painful Lessons

  by Daniel J. Solove The Sony data breach is an exclamation mark on a year that is already known as the” Year of the Data Breach.” This data breach is the kind that makes even the least squeamish avert their eyes and wince. There are at least three things that this breach can teach […]

Privacy and Security Developments 2014 Issue 1

by Daniel J. Solove Issue 2014 No. 1 This post is co-authored with Professor Paul M. Schwartz. We spend a lot of time staying up to date so we can update our casebooks and reference books, so we thought we would share with you some of the interesting news and resources we’re finding. We plan […]

The $500,000 Value of Data Security Awareness Training

by Daniel J. Solove It has long been difficult to quantify the ROI of data security awareness training. But finally, I have been able to locate a number. According to a 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers study: “The financial value of employee awareness is even more compelling. Organizations that do not have security awareness programs—in particular, training for […]

Lawsuits for HIPAA Violations and Beyond: A Journey Down the Rabbit Hole

by Daniel J. Solove At first blush, it seems impossible for a person to sue for a HIPAA violation. HIPAA lacks a private cause of action. So do many other privacy and data security laws, such as FERPA, the FTC Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, among others. That means that these laws don’t provide people with […]