Recent seminars and media

  • Article published on cyber crime and in “Penetration Testing Magazine”, an industry journal regarding ethical hacking.
  • Quoted in two separate articles in LexisNexis news regarding cyber crime issues – “Can the Law Keep Pace with Social Media Trolls? – LNB News 20/06/2012 73” and “Communications Data Bill: Real Criminals Will Still Hide Online Activities – LNB News 14/06/2012 88”.
  • Gave a seminar on the history of cyber crime at the University of Derby school of law and criminology.
  • Quoted in an article on the Channel 4 news website regarding the Richard O’Dwyer cyber crime extradition case that David was involved with.
  • Quoted in The Drum magazine as a cyber crime expert in an article regarding changes to legislation regarding the use of cookies by websites.
  • Interviewed by BBC Radio Manchester regarding the legal implications of opening mail addressed to a third party and police ability to seize such material.
  • Quoted in an Ars Technica article regarding the conviction of Anton Vickerman for copyright infringement through online file-sharing.
  • Gave the keynote presentation at the 2012 Cyber Crime Conference, which was jointly organised by Lancaster University and GCHQ.  The presentation, titled, “How data losses may arise and the subsequent effect on a business”, was well received by the 80 members of SMEs who had attended, who also heard presentations by Dell, IBM and cyber law academics.
  • Invited by the Director of Public Prosecutions to a roundtable meeting with him and other high profile lawyers, in order to discuss and draft guidelines for prosecutors dealing with alleged offences committed via social media, prior to public consultation.  DPP then invited David to respond as part of the public consultation on the matter.
  • Interviewed live on BBC News as a “cyber crime expert” in relation to the case of Gary McKinnon who faced extradition to the US for what was described as “the biggest military computer hack of all time”.
  • Invited by a Manchester based internet service provider, UKFast, to take part in a roundtable meeting discussing cyber security issues relating to BYOD (“Bring Your Own Device”) policies, alongside the Global Head of Remote Access & Mobile Services at Barclays Bank and a security analyst from Cisco.
  • Three published articles on Lexology website regarding cyber crime, titled, “How are botnets used?”, “After Anonymous attack MI5 and MI6 it has to be wondered, what is next?” and, “As Joshua Schichtel is jailed for hijacking home computers, the battle against the botnets continues”.
  • Two separate articles on cyber crime published on the Lexology website – “What is the history of the botnet” and “Botnet case study – stuxnet”.
  • Two separate articles on cyber crime published on the Lexology website, titled, “Man jailed for posting “despicable” comments about April Jones and Madeleine McCann” and “The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and the implications on cyber crime”.
  • Quoted  in two separate articles on SNL, a US-based news provider with over 60,000 readers in the US, Canada and the UK: (i) relating to the recently announced EC cyber crime strategy and directive; and, (ii) in relation to a report by the National Audit Office regarding the ability of the UK to cope with cyber attack.
  • Invited by the GCHQ funded Lancaster University cyber crime study centre of excellence to take part in a workshop seeking to bring together experts in the field, including government agencies (i.e. Home Office, SOCA, NCA), legal practitioners, and academics from multi-disciplinary areas (such as computer scientists, criminologists and statisticians) to explore the current situation and to widen the knowledge of cyber criminals and develop innovative approaches to obtain information on cyber criminals.  A report was then published as a result of the workshop, which garnered national media attention.
  • Filmed by the University of Law Media, (the eLearning arm of this institution, formerly called the College of Law) giving a seminar on developments in cyber crime to be rolled out as part of CPD training for in-house lawyers and LPC students.
  • Article published in e-Commerce Law and Policy journal titled, “The necessity of prosecution guidelines for social media”.
  • Provided training to officers of a local council – including the Chief Executive and the full legal team – regarding data privacy matters relating to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.  This was the second such instruction by this council, with the notes from the first having been considered “accurate, comprehensive and practical” by the Assistant Surveillance Commissioner during his annual audit.
  • Gave a seminar at Manchester Business School on data security and cyber crime.
  • Quoted in The Scotsman regarding changes to the evidential burden of corroboration that is unique to Scottish law, which, it is proposed, is removed with regard to cyber crime matters.
  • Appeared on the national BBC News with regard to recent concerns regarding cyber crime and vulnerabilities that individual users face.
  • Had lengthy quotes used as part of a Lexis Nexis study on the regulation of an electronic currency called BitCoin.
  • Gave a seminar to senior police officers of, separately, the North West, South Wales and Yorkshire and Humber divisions in order to establish a “best practice” model for the prosecution of cyber crime offences as part of the National Cyber Crime Unit capability.
  • Quoted in a CNBC article regarding corporate vulnerability to data loss.