Stanford CIS

Federal shutdown deals blow to already hobbled cybersecurity agency The triple whammy of deep staff cuts, shutdown furloughs and the expiration of an information-sharing law leaves national cybersecurity in a perilous state.

Richard Forno at @us.theconversation.com: The Oct 1 shutdown furloughed 2/3 of CISA staff as a key cyber threat-sharing law expired. The agency lready lost ~1,000 employees in 2025, facing big 2026 cuts—amid active attacks like Salt Typhoon theconversation.com/federal-shut...

Newly unsealed warrant shows search of fired IU professor's homes part of federal funding fraud investigation The records show that U.S. agents searching Wang's homes were looking for funding applications, including drafts, and submissions to the National Science Foundation. An inventory of 42 seized items li...

After 6 months, an Indiana federal court granted @riana.bsky.social's motion to unseal the search warrants for fired Indiana University cybersecurity professor XiaoFeng Wang homes. The unsealed warrants reveal new details about this strange and perplexing situation www.ipm.org/news/2025-10...

Is Trust & Safety Dead, or Just Evolving? | TechPolicy.Press Tech Policy Press contributing editor Dean Jackson considers the conclusions of a new paper by Danielle Keats Citron and Ari Ezra Waldman.

New research from @daniellecitron.bsky.social @ariezra.bsky.social examines growing concerns around content moderators — people tasked with keeping social media free of explicit content. Their upcoming paper adds to mounting warnings about this challenging job www.techpolicy.press/is-trust-saf...

How Congress Could Stifle The Onslaught of AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material | TechPolicy.Press Cleaning training data might not be enough to hinder a model from creating CSAM, writes Jasmine Mithani.

Generative AI models offered by major AI companies are used by tens of millions of people every day, and we should encourage them to make their models as safe as they possibly can” says @stanfordhai.bsky.social Tech Policy Fellow @riana.bsky.social via @techpolicypress.bsky.social bit.ly/46E9oRn

@hartzog.bsky.social and @markpmckenna.bsky.social argue for more precision in their references to “scale” in regards to technology. Differentiating between “scale as more” and “scale as different” H & M suggest they have different implications for regulation papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The 'dark patterns' at the center of FTC's lawsuit against Amazon This week, the trial starts in a consequential FTC lawsuit against Amazon. The suit alleges that Amazon for years "tricked" people into buying Prime memberships that were purposefully hard to cancel.

FTC vs Amazon opens this week over dark patterns - design tricks that make you accidentally subscribe and struggle to cancel. "The question is when design crosses the line where a reasonable consumer doesn't have a fair shot of understanding what's going on" says @andreamm.bsky.social bit.ly/4mvJV2f

Promote the Progress, Legalize Learning | The Foundation for American Innovation The Foundation for American Innovation.

CIS Affiliate Alex Feerst argues that learning - by humans or AI - isn't a copyright-relevant act in his latest Foundation for American Innovation paper. "Regulate outputs, not inputs; legalize learning." www.thefai.org/posts/promot...

Techdirt Podcast Episode 431: The Many Problems With The FTC’s Pornhub Settlement Support us on Patreon » Last week, we published three separate posts that looked at the FTC’s recent settlement with Aylo, the parent company of multiple adult websites including, …

@stanfordhai.bsky.social fellow @riana.bsky.social joins the @techdirt.com podcast to go even deeper into the legal weeds and explain how the recent FTC settlement with Aylo, the parent company of multiple adult websites, could doom criminal CSAM cases www.techdirt.com/2025/09/23/t...

Behind Grok's 'sexy' settings, workers review explicit and disturbing content Workers say they've faced sexually explicit content while xAI has marketed Grok to be deliberately provocative. Experts say the company should be cautious.

xAI workers training Grok report encountering CSAM requests due to the company's approach allowing explicit content, unlike other AI companies that block such requests. "If you don't draw a hard line at anything unpleasant, you have a more complex problem" says @riana.bsky.social bit.ly/4gyVbcK

The World’s Most Popular Porn Site Is a Government Agent Now. Does It Matter? On Monday, I published a two-part blog post about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settlement with Aylo, parent company of Pornhub. The FTC’s complaint alleged that Aylo violated federal consumer…

The title of this post from @riana.bsky.social says it all. This is a blazing big deal for the 4th Amendment.

Then again, it's a blazing big deal for like ten other reasons.

Mostly because lets the FTC decide if platforms enforced their speech rules correctly.

www.techdirt.com/2025/09/18/t...

Multistate Privacy Enforcement Sweep Puts Global Privacy Control in the Spotlight | Insights & Resources | Goodwin State AGs and CPPA crack down on weak opt-out tools and push for stricter data risk assessments in online advertising. Read more in Goodwin's alert.

A recent article from CIS Affiliate Omer Tene highlights the increasing enforcement of privacy regulation from the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) and state Attorneys-General (AGs) and the requirement for businesses to honor consumer opt-out requests www.goodwinlaw.com/en/insights/...

When people first hear about "jawboning" -- meaning government pressure to suppress speech through threats and other extra-legal measures, like what the FCC is doing now -- they always want to talk about "coercion" by the govt.

I've always thought this is a red herring. Current events show why. 1/

The Trump FTC’s War On Porn Just Ensured That Accused CSAM Offenders Will Walk Free Well, they finally did it. A federal agency finally shattered the precarious base that upholds the edifice of prosecutions for child sex abuse material (CSAM) in America. That agency is the Federal…

In her latest @techdirt.com post @stanfordhai.bsky.social Policy Fellow @riana.bsky.social discusses the recent FTC settlement and how it does "little to block" child sex abuse material (CSAM) www.techdirt.com/2025/09/15/t...

Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach [Calo, Ryan] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach

CIS Affiliate @rcalo.bsky.social's new book Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach explores why law finds technology so difficult to regulate, and what to do about it. Book is now available on pre-order here www.amazon.com/Law-Technolo... and here www.riversendbookstore.com/book/9780197...

How to Keep Your Private Messages Truly Private - Terms of Service with Clare Duffy - Podcast on CNN Podcasts DMs and text messages can feel like private forms of communication — but it’s not always that simple. There are scenarios where third parties might be able to access your messaging data, whether it's ...

"The best time to start using end-to-end encryption for your calls or for your messages was yesterday and the second best time is today" says @stanfordhai.bsky.social Policy Fellow @riana.bsky.social in her Terms of Service with @claresduffy.bsky.social interview
www.cnn.com/audio/podcas...

How Do We Protect Children in the Age of AI? | Stanford HAI Tools that enable teens to create deepfake nude images of each other are compromising child safety, and parents must get involved.

"...most schools are not yet addressing the risks of AI-generated child sexual abuse materials with their students. When schools do experience an incident, their responses often make it worse for the victims"says @stanfordhai.bsky.social fellow @riana.bsky.social hai.stanford.edu/news/how-do-...

CIS Affiliate @hartzog.bsky.social argues that facial recognition technology is the most dangerous surveillance tool ever invented & given the unique threats this tool poses to privacy, civil liberties .. and democracy, the only appropriate response is a ban papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Another Look At The STOP CSAM Act Amidst the current batch of child safety bills in Congress, a familiar name appears: the STOP CSAM Act. It was previously introduced in 2023, when I wrote about the threat the bill posed to the ava…

Stanford HAI Policy Fellow @riana.bsky.social takes Another Look at the STOP CSAM Act in her recent @techdirt.com post www.techdirt.com/2025/08/12/a...

"Nothing about the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) requires platforms to change the speech that American users can see and share online" says @daphnek.bsky.social in her lateset post A Primer on Cross-Border Speech Regulation and the EU’s Digital Services Act cyberlaw.stanford.edu/a-primer-on-...

If you're in Boston September 8, I'll be speaking about my new book at MIT Media Lab (11:00 AM) and Boston University School of Law (4:00 PM). global.oup.com/academic/pro...

My new book Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach is available for pre-order ($40) over at Oxford University Press. The book explores what scholars and society can do about emerging technology. global.oup.com/academic/pro... (new link)

Turquoise lamps on cars that cannot drive themselves Back in 2011, as Nevada was developing regulations for automated driving, there was debate about whether vehicles should have a special external signal to indicate that they are in automated driving m...

"To at least preserve the option of using this color in connection with automated driving, safety regulators around the world should be on the lookout for turquoise—in new vehicles, in imported vehicles, and in retrofitted vehicles," says CIS Affiliate BW Smith cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2025/08...

YouTube video by TEDx Talks Re-Engineering Humanity in the 21st Century | Brett Frischmann | TEDxVillanovaU

From 5 years ago ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgbC...

The Ongoing Fight to Keep Evidence Intact in the Face of AI Deception | TechPolicy.Press There are many contexts, from private interactions between individuals to the financial markets, where “truthiness” won’t do, writes Riana Pfefferkorn.

There are many contexts where “truthiness” won’t do, writes Riana Pfefferkorn. “From human rights activists to camera manufacturers, from academics to public servants, a lot of people are working very hard to keep it possible for society to tell what’s real from what’s fake.” It's an uphill battle.

Last year, a federal court upheld that law & the Supreme Court denied ISPs' petition to review the case in December. Today's decision denies ISPs' attempt to get the justices to reconsider that decision.
New York state has been enforcing the law since January: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20

Here's how we got here: In 2021, New York state adopted a broadband affordability law that requires ISPs to offer broadband plans to low-income consumers at low cost.

They can create their own #netneutrality protections, like California and others do, require affordable broadband options like New York, and institute broadband privacy protections like Maine. All of these laws have been upheld in court.

Today's decision means that when the FCC is powerless to protect consumers online (as it is after a federal court struck down the FCC's net neutrality protections in January), states can step in to protect their residents.

Important #netneutrality news: Today, the Supreme Court (again) rejected Internet Service Providers' attempt to undo New York's broadband affordability law.
The decision has important implications for states' ability to protect consumers against misbehavior by the companies they pay to get online.

Law Prof van Schewick Calls Net Neutrality Ruling 'a Radical Decision’ What if the FAA lost oversight of Delta and American Airlines? she asks.

"The FCC can still protect you when you make a regular phone call but not when you use the Internet," said SLS Professor
@vanschewick.bsky.social for Broadband Breakfast in "Law Prof van Schewick Calls Net Neutrality Ruling 'a Radical Decision.'" broadbandbreakfast.com/law-prof-van...