Nasty New Malware Waits Until You Visit A Porn Site, Then Starts Recording Forbes
At the end of last week, ESET’s security researchers disclosed the discovery of a new strain of malware that takes the trend for sextortion to a new level.
Erection your honour! Lawyers find themselves behind bars after they make porn movies in an attempt to scam internet users, boffins in Israel detail a way to steal data from an air-gapped computer, and Instagram coughs up $ 30,000 after a researcher finds a simple way to hack into anybody’s account.
All this and much more is discussed in the latest edition of the award-winning “Smashing Security” podcast.
Former revenge porn extortionist and current pro se litigant, Craig Brittain, is one severely-narrowed complaint away from having his lawsuit against Twitter tossed. Brittain sued Twitter over the deletion of several accounts, including those he had whipped up for his Senate run.
The court’s first pass at the lawsuit moved it to California, a venue shift Brittain explicitly agreed to each time he created another alt account. Terms of service say suing Twitter means suing in California, even if you’re an Arizonan Senate hopeful with a closet that contains nothing but skeletons.
Contrary to Brittain’s fervent and litigious belief, there’s nothing illegal about deleting Craig Brittain’s multiple Twitter accounts. Brittain’s lawsuit tried to make it possible by treating Twitter as both a provider and a publisher, depending of which description worked out better for his arguments. The court decides to let Brittain have it both ways — and lose both ways. (h/t Adam Steinbaugh)
As a service provider, Twitter cannot be held liable for third party content. It can also remove accounts without losing this immunity. Since this isn’t about the removal of content, but rather the removal of accounts, Brittain tried to argue Section 230 immunity can’t protect Twitter from this lawsuit because removing accounts (and their content) is an editorial activity. The court points out this has zero effect on Section 230 protections. From the decision [PDF]:
Under the CDA, a publisher’s activity generally “involves reviewing, editing, and deciding whether to publish or to withdraw from publication third-party content.” Id. at 1102. “[R]emoving content is something publishers do, and to impose liability on the basis of such conduct necessarily involves treating the liable party as a publisher of the content it failed to remove.” Id. at 1103. In other words, “any activity that can be boiled down to deciding whether to exclude material that third parties seek to post online is perforce immune under [CDA] section 230.” Fair Hous. Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157, 1170–71 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc).
Publisher or provider, it doesn’t matter. Suing a social media site for deleting accounts is a non-starter.
The Brittain Accounts qualify as “information provided by another information content provider.” Brittain expressly acknowledges that he, not Twitter, created and operated the accounts See Barnes, 570 F.3d at 1102 & n.6 (“The statute also tells us that this term ‘means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service.’”) (quoting 47 U.S.C. § 230(f)(3)). Accordingly, the Court finds that all but Brittain’s antitrust claim are barred by Section 230(c)(1) of the CDA. Because plaintiff cannot cure this defect, the Court DISMISSES these claims with prejudice.
All Brittain can do now is file a complaint limited to the anti-trust violations he alleges. But the court’s brief analysis of the single surviving claim suggests this will be a waste of everyone’s time. The court says it’s unlikely Brittain can even prove standing, since his claim is pretty much limited to him losing followers when his accounts were suspended or deleted. Brittain’s lawsuit doesn’t actually allege Twitter did anything illegal in terms of competitive practices.
Although Brittain’s complaint does not suggest that plaintiffs could allege an antitrust cause of action, out of an abundance of caution, the Court affords Brittain leave to amend with respect to this claim and DISMISSES Brittain’s antitrust claim without prejudice.
[…]
While the Court can understand the frustration which may occur if a person’s Twitter account is suspended, unless a legal cause of action can be articulated, a lawsuit cannot be sustained. Nor is the person entitled to discovery on the general issues upon which the complaint is based, unless a legal claim can be stated. Here, the complaint is fundamentally flawed.
The court also points out Brittain can’t sue on behalf of his Brittain For Senate campaign committee. This committee of one must seek its own legal representation, which cannot be a pro se litigant named Craig Brittain. This seems unlikely to happen, so this additional will be removed from a lawsuit the only plaintiff remaining (Craig Brittain) is destined to lose.
Yeah, it sucks when a platform decides it no longer wants your free business. But it’s not illegal, no matter how many of your hastily-erected Senate campaign committee Twitter accounts are removed by a private company.
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Virginia has a mixed history when it comes to handling teens and sexting. For the most part, these cases have been handled with maximum vindictiveness, resulting in teens being charged with child porn production and possession. In rare cases, prosecutors have exercised more discretion, allowing these experiences to be educational rather than punitive. But default mode is still to use the law like a weapon, rather than a tool, as if justice were somehow achieved by ruining teens’ lives forever for some stupid indiscretions.
A parent’s firsthand experience with this has resulted in him calling out Theo Stamos, Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney, for her attempt to portray herself as a reformer in her run for reelection. Jeff Edmeades’ son was railroaded by Stamos for possessing intimate photos of a teen sent to him by fellow students. Exercising her vaunted discretion, Stamos decided to force his son into a plea bargain by hitting him with the harshest charges she could.
As she does in adult cases it seems, she essentially forced a plea deal by threatening to charge him with the maximum possible charges – one felony for possession of child pornography per image. That took defending him in court off the table
The resulting plea agreement was far from ideal. His son was sentenced to supervised probation and does not have the option to have his record expunged after he’s done his time. Edmeades’ letter to the editor points out it’s actions like these that undermine Stamos’ claims that she is fixing a broken justice system from the inside.
In many places, these issues are left to the parents and/or schools to resolve. Notwithstanding this recommendation, Stamos has, on multiple occasions, chosen to prosecute these cases – not because she had to, but rather because she chose to.
Once we were in the juvenile-justice system, which is in theory oriented towards education and rehabilitation rather than punishment, we found that Stamos was very comfortable using the full power of the legal system and the ambiguity around the law in this case to pressure us into accepting a plea deal.
If this is how Ms. Stamos treats children, is it any wonder that she uses the legal system as a blunt-force instrument of punishment with adults? She can say whatever she wants about how her goal is to improve communities and be fair, but her actions speak louder than her words.
It’s not just the opinion of a parent who saw his son treated like a child pornographer for possessing photos of someone roughly his own age. It’s also the state’s defense lawyers, who have witnessed Stamos interpret “discretion” the same way she did in Edmeades’ case: maximum charges brought to ensure a steady flow of plea deals. Their letter says Stamos’ tactics make a mockery of a process that is supposed to recognize defendants’ right to a fair trial.
We are concerned that nearly 98% of felony convictions in Arlington are the result of the defendant pleading guilty, exceeding the rate in all local jurisdictions (Alexandria: 91%; Fairfax/Loudoun: 93%) and even in the federal courts (97%). We are concerned that the low incidence of trials in Arlington is mainly due to overcharging and the fear of harsh consequences if a defendant does not accept a plea bargain.
We are concerned that Arlington convicts defendants of felonies at more than twice the rate of neighboring jurisdictions, despite its very low crime rate. We are worried that this reflects a culture of overcriminalization.
That’s only one of the ways Stamos puts her finger on the scales of justice. The letter also notes she’s hampering defense efforts by making it as difficult as possible to obtain documents via discovery.
We are concerned that the Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s discovery policy, which prohibits the use of technology to obtain copies of police reports and other documents, places unique and arbitrary restrictions on the discovery process, making it needlessly difficult for defense attorneys to be prepared for trial. We believe that real open file discovery would make the process more fair for defendants and make the criminal process much more reliable and efficient.
Currently, defense lawyers must head to the court during courtroom hours and manually copy files handed over during discovery. Stamos claims this process protects the privacy of crime victims, but it’s difficult to believe details about crime victims are somehow more protected by a process that pretends it’s not actually 2019.
Theo Stamos is the only one who believes these are the practices of a criminal justice system reformer. It starts with screwing teens who made mistakes and ends with screwing their lawyers when they try to mount a defense against these trumped-up charges.
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