Ride The Lightning

Top iPad and iPhone Apps for Lawyers

So if you're wondering how to organize and present your electronic evidence at trial, our friends at Attorney at Work had a great post about some of the top iPad and iPhone apps for lawyers. There's also a free download of even more legal-related apps.

If you're a lawyer and an iPad and or iPhone user, you don't want to miss this excellent list of well-vetted legal and productivity apps. An excellent job by our friend Joan Feldman.

While you're on the site, consider signing up for the Daily Dispatch - I get some of my best law practice management tips that way.

E-mail: snelson@senseient.com Phone: 703-359-0700

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Can Sex With a Robot be Adultery? Ask Roxxxy.

Ok, sex with a robot or an inflatable doll, is not adultery - not today. But perhaps someday. Family law has some interesting issues to consider in the future. And the not too distant future at that.

Lest you think I've lost my mind (and you would not be alone), consider this. At 2010's Adult Entertainment Expo (no, I was not there), an inventor by the name of Douglas Hines introduced an anatomically correct, customizable, touch-responsive, personality-changing sexbot named Roxxxy.

Roxxxy costs $7000 and folks were pretty snarky about her chances for economic success. But a year later, it was reported that Hines, the founder of TrueCompanion (do not click on that link from your work computer), now has 4,000 pre-orders. The snarkiness has receded.

David Levy, the artificial intelligence expert and author of Love and Sex with Robots (did you know there was such a book?), believes that human-robot sex, love and marriage is inevitable within the next couple of decades. To my enormous amusement, he says that robots may be more emotionally available than the "typical American male." Is that because they set such a low bar?

Robots can be programmed to be faithful of course, and to utter silly statements of adoration and admiration to the most Homer Simpson of males. The gender absurdity will cut both ways, though my prediction is that men will outbuy these robots by an enormous margin.

Even today, if a robot becomes the obsession of one's spouse and that spouse leaves home for the robot, can you sue for alienation of affections? Not the robot of course, but the inventor? The manufacturer? San Francisco Attorney Sonya Ziaja has speculated that the law will one day have to face regulating the relations between humans and machines.

One day, the law may indeed construe making love to a robot adultery and our job may include the analysis of solid state hard drives, EPROMs and volatile RAM - and who knows what else?

So if a husband says to his wife, "Honey, you watch Dancing With the Stars- I'm going to shag Roxxxy for a bit and then I'll be back," is the wife supposed to be pleased? It wouldn't play well in my house.

Robotics and artificial intelligence are sure to give the law a lot of challenges.  From my foxhole, take a hike Roxxxy - I'm still the Queen. And it's good to be the Queen.

E-mail: snelson@senseient.com Phone: 703-359-0700

www.senseient.com

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How Do You Use Social Media Effectively?

That's a question we hear a lot, from our colleagues in the computer forensics field, from law firm clients and from companies. Most small to mid-size companies are overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the effort - there are so many sites with so many possible functions. It makes your head hurt - and the usual consequence is inertia because it seems so hard to figure it all out.

Sensei has garnered quite a reputation for our use of social media - and we've been very successful in using it to attract reporters and to get prospective clients to our website - or simply to call or e-mail regarding their IT, computer forensics or information security issue.

We've taught "The Effective Use of Social Media" several times locally to rave reviews so we thought we'd announce a "Pub Night" here at Sensei and offer that seminar to local firms. Rest assured that after a few intro slides, we will go straight to practical tips. I never invest more than two hours a week in my social media efforts, but the rewards have been rich indeed.

The date is January 25th (Weds) and the time is 5-6:30. The beer, wine and food are on us.

If you'd like to attend, please call 703-359-0700 and RSVP. Space is limited. If you're not in this area but know someone who is who might be interested, feel free to pass the information along.

Here's to toasting your ability to conquer the social media mysteries!

E-mail: snelson@senseient.com Phone: 703-359-0700

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http://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq

Upchuck Hour: Stratfor's Data Breach

It doesn't get much worse. Stratfor, a security company based in Texas, was famously hacked over the Christmas weekend. Though always a disaster, Strator has a lot of high profile clients, including Goldman Sachs, the Defense Department, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the United Nations. It can't have been easy for a data security company to notify those clients of the breach.

Kevin Mandia, who is not involved in the Stratfor case, has investigated and cleaned up many data breaches on behalf of his company, Mandiant. He was the one who inspired the title of this post. Mr. Mandia was quoted in a New York Times article calling the first hour that he spends with a breached company "upchuck hour." The image is no doubt both apt and accurate.

Hackers claiming to be members of the hackivist group Anonymous have published tens of thousands of Stratfor clients' credit card numbers after the successful hack and they have also dumped names, e-mail addresses and passwords for hundreds of thousands of Stratfor users.

The hackers have claimed they were able to get to a lot of the data because it was (you get three guesses and the first two don't count) unencrypted. Stratfor has not confirmed whether this is true and did not respond to press requests for comment. Its website is still down but comments on its Facebook page indicate that some clients are not at all happy that they did not hear of the breach from Stratfor, but from their banks, notifying them of unauthorized charges.

There is rarely a happy ending in a situation like this. A lot of prayer and hope. Undoubtedly, Stratfor has hired a great team of experts and they'll change all the passwords, look for all the back doors, plug all security holes, trying to determine what data was compromised, yada, yada, yada. The trouble is, if you miss one significant thing, you're right back where you started. The intruders are inside again.

It was a lousy Christmas for Stratfor execs. I hope their 2012 is better - and that all their data is in fact encrypted.

Hat tip to friend and colleague Dave Ries for sending me several articles on the breach.

E-mail: snelson@senseient.com Phone: 703-359-0700

www.senseient.com

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QR Code Malware: A New Frontier for the Bad Guys

I have never been a fan of QR codes. Most of them seem to take you to what is effectively an advertisement. Most of the destinations are boring and a waste of time - some are downright annoying for their high pressure selling.

But as they have become nearly ubiquitous, it is only recently that security experts have begun to see QR malware. It was inevitable - the beautiful simplicity of the QR code is that you can't tell where it is taking you. Your phone scans it and off you go, perhaps to an infected website. The bad guys seem to have cottoned on to the fact that folks are curious - stick a QR code on a plain white wall and they are apt to scan it just to see where it goes.

In this case, curiosity might be your undoing. While QR malware is by no means widespread, experts are predicting that things will get worse. Now that there are QR based payment systems, malware writers are sure to be interested in taking a direct path to your money.

If you want to be more secure, use only QR code reader software that permits you to confirm the action to be taken, such as visiting a website link. If you don't know and trust the link, you can cancel the action.

E-mail: snelson@senseient.com Phone: 703-359-0700

www.senseient.com

http://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq