Re: Digital Citizens Alliance

["Mertz, Brian E" <bmertz () ILLINOIS EDU>]

I’ve been doing some light research into them the last few days. Here are some relevant links going back to their days 
as an astroturf lobbying front for the copyright industry:


https://www.recode.net/2015/7/31/11615256/group-accusing-youtube-of-helping-hackers-has-ties-to-film-lobby

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160724/08181035052/mpaa-front-group-pretending-to-represent-consumer-interests-slams-cloudflare-not-censoring-internet.shtml

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/technology/googles-critics-enlist-state-attorneys-general-in-their-fight.html?_r=0


Now that copyright isn’t the money maker it used to be, it looks like they’re trying to find other revenue streams in 
the security realm.


To me, the key line from an article in the Detroit Free Press article from today 
(http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/03/29/university-michigan-email-hackers/99769892/ ) was this one:

“So what can society do? Universities can continue to spend money on IT departments, even in tough times, to make sure 
data is well protected.”  Translation: buy our software.


It’s a vendor pitch via fear mongering relying on some pretty shoddy data in a report that is in desperate need of a 
copy editor.


--
Brian Mertz
Manager - Media, Information, and Communications
Technology Services at Illinois
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

bmertz () illinois edu
techservices.illinois.edu
twitter.com/TechServicesIL

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> on behalf of "Hudson, 
Edward" <ehudson () CALSTATE EDU>
Reply-To: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Date: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 at 11:29 AM
To: "SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU" <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Subject: [SECURITY] Digital Citizens Alliance


Has anyone received/have info on the "Digital Citizens Alliance" and the validity of their "reports" regarding 
purported compromised accounts? Seems vendor sales oriented.

TIA

Ed Hudson

Director, System wide Information Security

California State University

Office of the Chancellor