“Our data is only safe within our borders!” “(The US|China|New Zealand|Vanuatu) is spying on our citizens!” “Don’t ship our citizens’ data overseas!” These rallying cries are calling for the same solution: forced data localization laws, where a country requires that all its citizens’ and corporations’ data be kept within the territory of that country. What’s so bad about data localization? Is it good for security? Is it good for business? Is it good for protecting your data from Three- or Four-Letter Agencies? We’ll answer these questions and more as we discuss forced localization, international education policy, unlikely anchor placement, catastrophic dripping, and how it affects your business’ goals in the short and long term.
Described by coworkers as “not the lawyer we need, but the lawyer we deserve,” Brendan O’Connor is a security researcher and Senior Security Consultant at Leviathan Security Group in Seattle, WA. To his own deep distress, as well as the horror of those who know him, he graduated cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2014, and now serves on the ABA’s Information Security Committee; while he is a lawyer, he is not your lawyer. He was awarded two DARPA Cyber Fast Track contracts for his security research, which focuses primarily on enabling access to security and privacy through development of disposable computing and sensing tools. He has taught at an information warfare school, played the violin, transmitted on amateur radio (K3QB), and tried to convince his cat not to eat him when he dies.
James is Leviathan Security’s Director of Risk and Advisory Services. Over the past twenty years, James has been delivering information security solutions to Fortune 500, TSE 100, and major public-sector organizations. James is involved in information security policy, process, and procedure improvements for internationally known manufacturing and financial organizations. James is a frequent Speaker at industry conferences and is a prolific contributor to standards bodies and media. James is also a contributing analyst with Securosis, founder of the think|haus hackerspace and has a recurring column on Liquidmatrix Security Digest. Best described as: “Infosec geek, hacker, social activist, author, speaker, and parent.”