Legal Research

Human Rights, Google and Internet Explorer?

By David Bilinsky

? A moment of despair
That forces you to say that life’s unfair
It makes you scared of what tomorrow may bring
But don’t go giving into fear ..?

Lyrics and music by: Stone, Greenberg, Daniel Pierre, recorded by Joss Stone.

You may wonder what human rights has to do with Internet Explorer. Prior to the earthquake in Haiti, the news was filled with the cyber-attacks on Google. The latest attacks on Google’s network appear to have originated in China, reported ComputerWorld in a post dated Jan 12, 2010 and were directed at the Google accounts of human rights activists in China. ComputerWorld stated:

In a blog post Tuesday, David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said that attacks have forced the company to “review the feasibility of our business operations in China.” Google, continued Drummond, is “no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.”

IT World in an article dated Jan. 17, 2010 is advising users to dump Internet Explorer, as the latest attacks have outlined the security holes in Internet Explorer. The Financial Times in an article dated Jan. 19, 2010 entitled: Microsoft rivals gain after Europe browser warning stated:

The German and French governments have both warned citizens not to use Internet Explorer, at least until a security patch is released to fix a vulnerability in the software. Concerns were raised last week after it emerged that an apparently Chinese hacking attack against Google had 33 other companies had leveraged a flaw in Internet Explorer code.

As a result, downloads of Firefox, Safari and other web browser rivals have spiked.

I wonder how long it will be before IT departments start re-evaluating their attachment to the Microsoft operating systems and software and start looking at alternative systems such as Linux and Apple’s OS X that do not share these same vulnerabilities. For lawyers and law firms who must guard client confidentiality and confidences, knowing that there are security holes in their IT systems is enough to keep them up at night. At least moving to alternative systems no longer means you have to be scared of what tomorrow may bring and you don’t have to go giving into fear.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on January 19, 2010 (boomark / email).