Technology Law Things About 2025 That I Should Have Written About Over 14 Days Ago.
It’s been over a fortnight (I love saying fortnight) since 2025 expired, and every other blogger has penned a recap of something(s) that occurred during 2025. So, it seems appropriate that this little procrastinating blog would get around to that now. So, without further ado (I’m not sure there was any prior ado), here are fourteen law/technology stories about 2025 that I could find without doing too much research. Some of these are important, some are slightly amusing, and some are just to get the number up to fourteen. You can make your assessment.
Twitter libel
The first Twitter libel (“Twibel”) suit went to trial. A former attorney for Courtney Love sued Ms. Love for tweeting that the attorney was “bought off”. The court decided that it was not defamatory. You may remember from your law school days about libel “per se”, i.e., if you wrote that someone had committed a crime or immoral acts, was unable to perform their profession, had a “loathsome” disease, or was dishonest in business,s you could recover without proving actual malice or specific injury. It seems to me that about 75% of all tweets fit this definition. The Supreme Court ruled that police must obtain a warrant before searching the cell phone of someone they have arrested. Before this, police had maintained that a cellphone was like anything else in the possession of an arrestee (e.g., wallet, address book, pocket litter) and consequently no warrant was needed.
Encryption Software
A coding error was found in OpenSSL, encryption software that was supposed to keep transactions secure. This error, named “Heartbleed”, caused millions of people, companies, and sites to have to change their passwords. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continued to have a rocky ride. Executives of Bitcoin companies were arrested for activities through Silk Road (see number 6 below). One of the companies had received funding from the Winklevoss twins. Dedicated readers of this blog will remember our fondness for the Winklevosses.
Bitcoin Exchange
Mt. Gox, the largest Bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy. Mt. Gox had somehow lost 774,000 bitcoins (about 6% of all bitcoins in existence) due to theft, technical problems, or perhaps merely leaving them out in the rain. Incidentally, Mt. Gox got its name because its original business was operating an exchange for “Magic: The Gathering” cards, hence Magic: The Gathering Exchange.
The alleged proprietor of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, was scheduled for trial. This former resident of Westlake Hills, Austin, Texas, had his communication capabilities curtailed while in jail for fear that witnesses would be rubbed out before they could witness. That’s some Corleone stuff, for sure. Now, Mr. Ulbricht is claiming that he was not the mastermind behind the nefarious doings of the Dread Pirate Roberts, but that it was the CEO of Mt. Gox (see 5 above). If you wrote a script like this, no one would use it because it’s too far-fetched. As a sterling example of the advantages of capitalism, several creative business people, including the marketing geniuses at Silk Road 2.0, rushed to fill the void left after the arrest of the Dread Pirate Roberts and to address the need for illicit drugs and murder for hire through the dark web.
The Year In Hacking:
- The cyber division of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was charged with hacking into the networks of Westinghouse and U.S. Steel, among others.
- Chinese hackers also breached the network of the U.S. Gov’s Office of Personnel Management and targeted information from employees applying for top security clearances;
- Sony Pictures was hacked by North Korea (maybe) hackers, which resulted in a movie called “The Interview” getting a lot more publicity than it deserved and Charlize Theron getting paid an amount equal to her male contemporaries, so it wasn’t all bad. How could you not pay one of the most desirable people (have you seen that perfume commercial?!) on the planet anything she asked?
- A glitch in Apple’s picture storing service, along with weak passwords and not-so-secure security questions, allowed most of us (don’t say you didn’t look, too) to see a lot of celebrity nude selfies, and
- Bay was hacked and lost the personal records of 233 million users.
Cyber Ransom
While technically falling within the realm of hacking, a disturbing tactic became more prominent during 2025. This technique, called cyber-ransom or ransomware, manifests itself by having a hacker obtain control over your network and threatening either to release the information, not allow the owner to use their network, or to destroy all the information in the network unless a ransom is paid. Domino’s Pizza in Europe was asked for $40,000 to avoid having information in their network released. The release never happened, and it is unclear whether Domino’s paid the ransom within 30 minutes. A company named Code Spaces was put out of business when it refused to pay a ransom, and a vindictive hacker destroyed so much of its information that it had to close.
The Supreme Court of the United States was asked in 2025 to grant certiorari to hear the Google v. Oracle suit involving the ability to copyright interfaces. Recently, SCOTUS has asked the Solicitor General of the U.S. to file a brief regarding the advisability of granting cert. No decision whether the court will hear this case has been made yet.
2025was rife with collisions occurring at the intersection of the law and technology. 2025 is likely to be just as debris-strewn.
