Readers of the North Carolina JOLT Blog may recall that back in October, I published a piece on the Russian use of Kaspersky—a Russian antivirus program—to search for sensitive American cybersecurity programs and methods from a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor. Despite the known risk posed by Kaspersky (the NSA did not allow the program …

A recent piece in WIRED articulated a growing sentiment about big tech companies and antitrust. It depicts tech companies as rocketing to the top of the economy in a free-wheeling environment free of regulation. But today, two companies, Google and Facebook control 90% of advertising spending. Antitrust concerns targeting large internet companies are growing. Last …

Much of the focus of climate change in California has revolved around the impacts of drought and the probability of water shortages affecting the agriculture industry. Such hysteria has led to mandated water curtailment by private citizens as well as large-scale regulatory overhaul of groundwater in California under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Conversely, climate …

Ford has filed a patent application with the federal government in which it proposes plans for autonomous police squad cars that can monitor traffic and issue tickets and warnings for traffic violations. The autonomous squad cars could add an interesting facet to the legal gray area regarding the legality of tickets issued by red light …

Nearly half of Americans favor “more restrictions on the current process of purchasing a gun.” Ironically, the United States has approximately 5 percent of the world’s population, but owns somewhere in between 35-50% of the civilian-owned firearms in the world. This can largely be attributed to the protection provided by the Second Amendment. But what …

Tomorrow, 10 a.m. EST, the SEC will hold a formal meeting: Virtual Currencies: The Oversight Role of The SEC and CFTC. “Chairman Jay Clayton will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. The hearing is titled, ‘Virtual Currencies: The Oversight Role of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the …

Earlier today, 5 February 2018, in a San Francisco courtroom, lawyers began to lay their arguments for a case that will have big repercussions in the future of self-driving vehicles. In a market that is valued in the multiple trillions of dollars, the case between Waymo (formerly a Google self-driving project that’s now it’s own …

Companies are taking advantage of the new cryptocurrency trend to raise capital through a new kind of investment. Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs, have allowed companies to raise almost $3.7 billion through investors, some at a breakneck pace such as the Useless Ethereum Token Project that raised more than $40,000 in just three days. The …

Intellectual property—a degree of ownership of knowledge or ideas—is, foremost, property. Patents are a kind of intellectual property where creators of new inventions receive a temporary monopoly over the use of those inventions. This may sound simple on its face, but lawmakers often struggle to define the scope of “new inventions.” Drawing out the boundaries …

The European Union is implementing a new law that is being heralded as “the biggest shake-up of personal data privacy rules since the birth of the internet.” The new law is titled the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and it is slated to take effect in May. The GDPR comes as companies in the United States …