I expected to read about tens of thousands of submissions. Instead, the California Bar has received 420 comments — 379 against. California has 170,117 lawyers according to the ABA. Whoever wrote that headline needs a math lesson.
And California lawyers need to wake up because your monopoly rights are at stake.
Whenever you're fortunate enough to have monopoly rights (if not an outright monopoly), you should try to hold onto them.
The article concerns the Orwellian sounding Taskforce on Access Through Innovation of Legal Services, which is exploring 16 changes to law practice in California that essentially boil down to letting non-lawyers offer legal services and own law firms.
Why do legal industry regulators often seem more focused on punishing lawyers than helping them? Well, at least TechnoLawyer has your back.
You've got until September 23, 2019 to submit a comment.
2. Neil Squillante, Review of Satechi Dual Smart Outlet
I'm late to the smart home party though the party is likely still just getting started. But I'm now officially a fan of at least smart outlets, which make existing "dumb" electronics "smart." I recently bought Satechi's new $60 Dual Smart Outlet.
Satechi has a reputation as the Apple of computer accessories. No surprise then that the Dual Smart Outlet is compatible with Apple's HomeKit platform. (Look elsewhere if you're in the Amazon or Google smart home ecosystem.) The device itself has a clever horizontal design that doesn't block the second wall outlet and even allows for doubling up with two units for four smart outlets per standard wall socket.
I've shied away from smart home technology in part because of security concerns. Apple's HomeKit has experienced one zero-day exploit to date so there's no doubt I've increased my exposure but at least I don't need to use my living room lamps' foot switch anymore. All kidding aside, relatively few companies support HomeKit because of Apple's security requirements. Even better, the forthcoming HomeKit protocol for routers looks like a winner as it will wall off your smart devices from the rest of your network. I'm still rocking a 2009 Airport Extreme so I'm due and will get one of these new routers when they hit the market.
I wasn't kidding about those foot switches though. I have two Nelson Bubble floor lamps on either side of a sofa. If you want the foot switch easily accessible, you need to expose the wire. If you want to hide the wire, you need to contort your leg. These lamps seemed like a good candidate for automation.
Setup took less than five minutes. Plug the Dual Smart Outlet into the wall socket, plug in the two lamps, download the Satechi app onto my iPhone, and scan the bar code on the Dual Smart Outlet with the app. I have a HomePod (read my review here), which serves as my HomeKit hub (you can also use an iPad or Apple TV as a hub). The HomePod automatically found the Dual Smart Outlet and added it to my network. I could then control the lamps and set up automations from either the Satechi or Home app.
But I hardly use the apps. One automation turns on one of the lamps at a set time each night. Otherwise, I use Siri Shortcuts to run the automations I created. I bark at the HomePod after which Siri relays the instructions to the Home app which relays the instructions to the Dual Smart Outlet. It all works flawlessly. Saying "Hey Siri let there be light" turns on both lamps (a little apotheosis never hurts). Saying "Hey Siri Sandy" turns off both lamps (some dark humor from my Superstorm Sandy saga). You get the idea.
I'm sufficiently impressed that I plan to add more Dual Smart Outlets. Good job Satechi. Here's the Amazon link.
The Satechi Dual Smart Outlet integrates with Apple's Home app shown here on my iPad Pro.
3. Brooks Miller, How Our Small Firm Protects Itself From Ransomware Plus Thanks BlawgWorld
TechnoLawyer member Denis Jodis asks:
Having been hacked a few times the last few years, my new fear is ransomware. I am a sole practitioner with a legal assistant and part time secretary. We use Comcast for internet and email with Vonage business VoIP for phone. We use a peer to peer network with one of the 3 computers being used to store all the data which is backed up to a 1tb. hard drive which is maintained on premises.
Currently use Windows 10 Pro on all 3 computers for OS and Defender for security. Also use CCleaner and Malwarebytes.
Is there a reasonable cost way to protect our system from a ransomware attack? If so, please advise what equipment we need as well as software. Also need step by directions to install it. Thanks in advance.
Denis,
Your set up is very similar to mine. I cannot stress enough that you need to get a paid software suite. This is mission critical stuff, and while nothing is foolproof, I believe you need to =93up your game=94. All the well-known big security suites offer options that fit what you are looking for. Personally I'm using Trend Micro at work, and ESET at home.
You'll have to sort through the options of any software to pick which best fits your needs (make sure it has a firewall).
I occasionally spot run Malwarebytes as well. You can also have Defender run weekly checks as a backup to a paid suite, but I don't believe it currently has enough teeth for your needs. As far as hardware, check with your internet folks to make sure you have changed the router default password (my installer was just going to leave=85) and that the router has some form of firewall in it. Check with your staff, they might already know.
You also need to have have multiple backup systems in place, right now I'm running three:
1. Full backup on rotating portable hard drives that get swapped every day to bring one home with me.
2. Full Image backups on a large drive in the office — WD Book and Acronis True Image.
3. Mission critical data to a cloud backup service — Jungle Disk.
Security on the system is BitLocker encryption all drives; the large drive has its own software for encryption; very long passwords in a password keeper (LastPass). Also, for every account you can, turn on two-factor authentication. It helps thwart any attempt to steal your credentials.
As far as the reasonable cost for protection that starts with the humans. That is the number one source of an attack. Being aware of phishing schemes and malware is an ongoing training issue for me and my solo.
TechnoLawyer's BlawgWorld newsletter does a great job of giving us the best articles from the security blogs, and if you have data breach/cyber security insurance (it's a thing now), our provider sends monthly email updates as well. This is no longer something even us small fish can ignore.
I'm not a security person by any means, just a paralegal responsible for keeping things running. And I recognize that nothing is foolproof. It mighttake a bit to figure all this stuff out, but it's just another thing we have to learn nowadays. Good Luck!
4. Mark Olberding, Review of Bitdefender and Malwarebytes Plus Ransomware Tip
TechnoLawyer member Denis Jodis asks:
Having been hacked a few times the last few years, my new fear is ransomware. I am a sole practitioner with a legal assistant and part time secretary. We use Comcast for internet and email with Vonage business VoIP for phone. We use a peer to peer network with one of the 3 computers being used to store all the data which is backed up to a 1tb. hard drive which is maintained on premises.
Currently use Windows 10 Pro on all 3 computers for OS and Defender for security. Also use CCleaner and Malwarebytes.
Is there a reasonable cost way to protect our system from a ransomware attack? If so, please advise what equipment we need as well as software. Also need step by directions to install it. Thanks in advance.
Add another backup system that allows for sequential backups, in other words, you have several different backups from various dates that you can so you can go to one from before the attack. I would probably use a cloud based system. My personal backup system is obsessive but I back up daily to Acronis, do a weekly mirror back up to a removable hard drive, back up weekly to a removable RDX system and use 2nd copy to save document and time and billing data to Dropbox hourly.
For what it is worth, I am also a solo practitioner, we keep our programs and data in house, not software as a service in the cloud. Also, we keep a paper calendar just in case.
I also use Bitdefender and Malwarebytes. Bitdefender has a module that specifically deals with Ransomware Remediation but whether it does anything more than Windows Defender, I cannot say.
Mark J. Olberding
Olberding Law Office
1129 5th Street
Nevada, Iowa 50201
(515) 382-6955
ialaw@midiowa.net
5. Bruce Eichman, Review of Cisco Open Dns Plus Ransomware Tip
TechnoLawyer member Denis Jodis asks:
Having been hacked a few times the last few years, my new fear is ransomware. I am a sole practitioner with a legal assistant and part time secretary. We use Comcast for internet and email with Vonage business VoIP for phone. We use a peer to peer network with one of the 3 computers being used to store all the data which is backed up to a 1tb. hard drive which is maintained on premises.
Currently use Windows 10 Pro on all 3 computers for OS and Defender for security. Also use CCleaner and Malwarebytes.
Is there a reasonable cost way to protect our system from a ransomware attack? If so, please advise what equipment we need as well as software. Also need step by directions to install it. Thanks in advance.
Denis,
You have the bare basics covered, however, you need firewall protection as a minimum addition. The firewall provides security to mitigate risks of intrusion to the network. We deploy the SonicWall firewall and in your case, the SOHO model will work well for your practice size. Also strongly recommend DNS filtering to control the web browsing locations - stops connections to websites with known malicious software.
We use Cisco Open DNS with our law firms. Security training is strongly encouraged. The majority of data breaches and virus infections are directly related to users. It is challenging these days to recognize phishing emails and social media hacks. You can google "cyber security user training online" and review the many offerings. The training is well worth the small investment!
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