Florida vs OpenAI.

Dave Bittner: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Caveat," N2K CyberWire's privacy, surveillance, law and policy podcast. I am Dave Bittner. And joining me is my co-host Ben Yelin from the University of Maryland Center for Health and Hazard Strategies. Hey there, Ben.

Ben Yelin: Hello, Dave.

Dave Bittner: On today's show, Ben has the story of a new Florida lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, I've got the story of a powerful ad-based surveillance network. While this show covers legal topics and Ben is a lawyer, the views expressed do not constitute legal advice. For official legal advice on any of the topics we cover, please contact your attorney. [ Music ] All right, Ben, let's jump right into our stories here this week. What do you got for us?

Ben Yelin: So we have a groundbreaking lawsuit in the great state of Florida, "Florida Man Files Lawsuit." And, this time, Florida man is James Uthmeier, who is the attorney general of the state of Florida, appointed to his position, I believe, by Governor Ron DeSantis.

Dave Bittner: Okay.

Ben Yelin: So this is a civil lawsuit against OpenAI, the company, and its CEO, Sam Altman. So they have included him in the lawsuit. It is a broadside against OpenAI and its practices, accusing them of putting profit ahead of user safety and misleading the public about the risks of AI tools, like ChatGPT. The allegation really stems from the fact that they think there's evidence that OpenAI was aware of the various risks of its service, it was aware of the risk that ChatGPT has - is it sycophancy? I always don't know how to pronounce that word. It's a sycophant.

Dave Bittner: It's a - yes, there you go.

Ben Yelin: So it just affirms whatever the person is trying to discern from it.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: And that has caused significant harms that we've talked about.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: So ideation for self-harm, it's been used in school shootings, including one within the state of Florida, which I think is mentioned extensively in this lawsuit. So the claims are that they practice deceptive and unfair trade practices, which is a violation of Florida law; that these practices can contribute to serious harms, so things like addiction, mental health issues, violence, and, at the extreme end, self-harm and suicide. And they are seeking to not only extract money from OpenAI, the company, but to hold Sam Altman himself personally liable saying that he, as the CEO of the company, has displayed reckless conduct and disregard for human safety.

Dave Bittner: Help me understand that how - so I get - my response is, "Can they do that?"

Ben Yelin: They can try. I mean -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - usually, you start a corporation to shield yourself from liability.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: So the limited liability company. Right?

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: Something something, LLC.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: There are ways to get around that. And I think - I'm not sure if the actual purpose of this lawsuit is really to get Sam Altman to be personally liable. I think maybe this would be some type of motivation for him to negotiate a settlement -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: - with the state of Florida. But, yes, it's generally you can't hold a CEO himself personally liable. Some of the exceptions, though, are about like gross misconduct -

Dave Bittner: Okay.

Ben Yelin: - gross negligence, the types of things that go beyond the standard duties of a chief executive officer. But it's certainly going to be something that's hard to prove in court. So there are a bunch of different allegations in the lawsuits. OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as safe while failing to fully disclose the risks. They provide dangerous or incorrect advice. They encourage excessive use or psychological dependence. I can confirm that one given that I spent a lot of time on the platform. And they cite some real-world incidents. So I mentioned the mass shooting. It took place at Florida State University. There was one double homicide involving a student user. They mentioned instances where ChatGPT gives advice about forming chemical compounds that could be used as like Molotov cocktails. And so, yeah, that's all bad.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: This has been filed in state court in Florida. And it is the first of its kind in the entire country. And so I think this is going to have at least persuasive value on other states to see if you can extract damages from Sam Altman and ChatGPT. Now, of course, ChatGPT is going to have a very robust defense here. They can afford good lawyers. I think their best defense really is, "If you're holding us liable, what you're actually doing is exposing every single creator on the internet to liability."

Dave Bittner: "We're not corrupt. The whole system's" -

Ben Yelin: The whole system's -

Dave Bittner: - "corrupt."

Ben Yelin: Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, they're basically the same saying like, "Okay, fine, you can ask our chatbot how to develop a chemical compound. But you know where we got that? The internet."

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: "So why isn't the person who originally put that" - whatever, I don't want to say recipe -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: "Who put that chemical solution up there? Why aren't they liable?"

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: "We are merely the conduit. We are making these conversations simpler. We are making it conversational in the first place. And that's what a large language model is."

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: And then the other defense is that they have improved their safety practices. So, in their mind, and this is something that's mentioned frequently in news articles, they have improved safety features since many of them mentioned incidents here. They now design their systems with, quote, "safety at every step," so safeguards to handle sensitive conversations, some type of trigger where if a word or phrase is mentioned they go into, "We're not your sycophant anymore" mode.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: And will say like, "You should call 988," -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - for example. And then they claim now they do not promote harmful activity and they will work on continuing to improve these protections, particularly for mental health situations. This is one we're going to have to follow closely -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: - just because it is the first one and it could change the entire industry if there's even a whiff that liability could be imposed here. From big tech's perspective, it would be terrifying because the administration has made it clear that their priority is competitiveness, "We're not going to overregulate this stuff."

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: But if you have an indication that you could be held liable based on the outputs of your chatbot, I think that could be the end of LLMs as we know it because they would want to avoid that liability. So keep an eye on this case.

Dave Bittner: I have many questions.

Ben Yelin: Okay, let's do it. I was talking for way too long. I apologize.

Dave Bittner: Oh, no, no, it's good. So, first, I guess I'm a little surprised that this is coming out of Florida, being that Florida is very friendly with the federal administration. And, as we know, this White House wants unfettered access. They don't want to regulate AI companies. So are you surprised that this would come out of Florida?

Ben Yelin: In some ways, yes; in some ways, no based on really what I think is admirable work from Governor Ron DeSantis, who, as you can expect, I don't generally have many political agreements with him.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: But he's been at the forefront of this. He's talked about these issues before they became sexy political issues. He came out against the White House when they were trying to preempt state regulation of artificial intelligence. And so I think this is something that he actually cares passionately about. And then you add on the fact that there is evidence for the 2025 Florida State University school shooting that the suspect was querying ChatGPT prior to committing the shooting looking for things like logistical help. And I think when you have such a traumatic event happen within that state, it can inspire the state to do something like this. When you see those real-world harms, even if maybe that wasn't your ideological predisposition, I think it changes when you have these real-world incidents. So I think - I am not shocked that it's Florida. In some ways, I am - it's more interesting that it's Florida. Like, if this was California suing these big tech companies, the CEOs would be like, "All right, here we go again, like California." They have a -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - well-worn path in -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - California State courts. Like, they'll figure out -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: - either how to settle or do their motion to dismiss and everything's fine. Like, "We can do this in our sleep."

Dave Bittner: Right. How much -

Ben Yelin: Right, exactly. But, given the fact that this is a red state that is generally not a bastion of consumer protection, I think this carries more weight than it otherwise would have.

Dave Bittner: Well, my second question here is, "Why not a criminal investigation? Why go civil?" But then, in reading this article, I see that they have a simultaneous criminal investigation into OpenAI.

Ben Yelin: Yeah. So that's going to be more difficult. I mean, just for starters, the standard in a criminal case is higher than the standard in a civil case. So -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - civil case, you just need 50% plus 1 that the company and Altman himself are liable. So not easy, but certainly a lower standard than beyond a reasonable doubt. And, yeah, I mean, they could pursue criminal charges. It is weird that - just if you step back for a second, that in our criminal law system you can impose criminal charges against companies. Like, I just imagine them locking up the Articles of Incorporation in prison. But then, of course, here you have Altman himself who is named.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: So they really could impose criminal penalties. I think a civil case at least for now is safer because of that lower standard. And these theories are completely untested and the laws that they're using - the specific Florida State statutes that they're lo - that they're using are consumer protection statutes that allow for civil remedies. So you're leveraging the fact that you have those statutes to support your claims.

Dave Bittner: If a company is found guilty of something criminal, do they lose their ability to vote?

Ben Yelin: Yeah. You know, they - the "we can rehabilitate that company and, in 10 years, they'll get felon voting rights." Although not in Florida. They - well, did - they voted for felon voting rights in Florida, and then DeSantis was like, "Eh, I'm just not going to enforce that."

Dave Bittner: Oh, okay.

Ben Yelin: And there was, you know, a long story. There was litigation around that. But -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: Yeah.

Dave Bittner: So, here - so I guess, going to a higher level with this, and the cynical pursuit of money, right, let's say Florida is just seeing dollar signs, potential dollar signs here. I've seen folks like Bernie Sanders say, "We should have these AI companies" - "it should be set up kind of like" - what's the profit sharing that Alaska has with the oil companies?

Ben Yelin: Right, exactly, where the state itself has a stake in the companies and -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - so they own 50% or whatever of the stock. It was - Bernie's idea was very interesting.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. So just could - do you know it well enough to sort of flesh it out quickly here for our listeners?

Ben Yelin: I mean, basically, it's just he thinks that, because AI is just going to have such a profound impact, that society should take some stake in these companies so that the profits don't go exclusively to the small class of oligarchs, as he would say -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - and can be spread among the people.

Dave Bittner: Yeah,

Ben Yelin: You know, this is socialism/communism, I guess. But it's not unprecedented because Donald Trump has done this with computer chip companies in the last couple of years, has taken -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - the government has taken a stake in these companies. Fifty percent I think is a much larger share than we've seen in the current administration. But -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: - certainly not beyond the ideation of Bernie Sanders. This fits well with his ideological predisposition.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: And he believes, and I think there's certainly a lot of evidence to back this up, that the potential path we're headed on now is AI - the benefits of AI accrue to a tiny class of Sam Altmans, and the rest of us face things like mass job displacement and overuse of natural resources because of data centers. So the thinking behind this is this is not just a private concern where private entities should take all of the risks and reap all the rewards. Because of how big this is, if the country itself is going to be absorbing the risks, they should also be able to get some rewards. And I think there's some logic to that.

Dave Bittner: Well, and Alaskans love their oil dividends.

Ben Yelin: Oh, yeah.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. I mean, it's super popular. And, of course - and Alaska, of course, a very conservative state. So, you know, they're willing to cash those checks. Right?

Ben Yelin: Yeah. I mean, some of that it's just like it's been a legacy for the state of Alaska. It's -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: - a way they get a significant portion of their state revenue, which means they don't have to raise other taxes.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, exactly.

Ben Yelin: But it's just easier to do as a legacy program that's already the status quo than a full-on government takeover of these companies.

Dave Bittner: Right, right, yeah.

Ben Yelin: Not that I think it's a completely wackadoodle idea. I mean, I was very interested when Bernie Sanders proposed this. And, at the very least, it's going to start a conversation about if we're spreading the risks of AI society-wide, then there should be some mechanism for us to reap those rewards.

Dave Bittner: Right, right. What's the old chestnut about big - you know, too big to fail companies that you privatize the profits and socialize the risk?

Ben Yelin: And socialize the risk.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: Exactly.

Dave Bittner: Right, right.

Ben Yelin: This is the - this is turning potentially, you know - and I don't know if I fully 100% buy into this, but that's potentially what's happening with AI where Sam Altman and his friends get all the money and power and everybody else loses their job and their humanity. That's kind of the - that's the dystopian vision that I think Bernie is trying to wrestle with.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. I did se someone just in the past couple of days wondering if - you know, because not all of these AI companies are going to survive. It seems mathematically impossible with the rate that they're throwing shovelfuls of money into the furnace.

Ben Yelin: I mean, what were all those companies in the early - very early 2000s where it was like, "Yeah, this isn't going to last." You're seeing their commercials on the Super Bowl and they were all internet -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - startups.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, pets.com and all the -

Ben Yelin: Pets.com.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: Exactly.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. So, if we are confident that not all of these companies are going to survive, then should - however it shakes out, and it's still requiring massive resources and it possibly not being - it might be possible that profitability is not achievable, does it then make sense to at least partially nationalize this for the good of the citizens?

Ben Yelin: I think there's absolutely a theoretical case to do that.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: It really is something like our late 2000s financial system where, yes, these are private companies, but the downstream effects on society are so profound that, as you said, like, we should socialize the rewards as well as the risks. Like, I think there's a strong theoretical foundation for that. Obviously, what Altman would say, not to pick on him, what any other CEO would say is, "Well, I'm not going to have enough incentive to innovate and to vault past not only my competitors, but Chinese companies if I have to give up 50% of my shares" -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: - "or 50% of the public shares," because OpenAI is going public for the first time.

Dave Bittner: But, Ben, these entrepreneurs, they just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

Ben Yelin: They sure did, yeah.

Dave Bittner: They don't need money as a motivator. They are - they just - they -

Ben Yelin: They do it for humanity, except when -

Dave Bittner: That's right.

Ben Yelin: - something like this is threatened and then it's like, "Eh, maybe I won't do it for humanity"

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: -"if I don't get 100% of the profits."

Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah.

Ben Yelin: I - how - honestly, maybe I'm being naive. Couldn't we, like, bipartisan do something where, sure, it's not 50%, but, as part of some regulation, like the government - the government - the federal government takes some type of equity stake or state governments, as it relates to data centers specifically, take some type of dividend as part of the licensing process to get that data center built? Like, I think there are potential models that could aid us in socializing the rewards here.

Dave Bittner: Could it just be as simple as some sort of special tax?

Ben Yelin: Yeah. Although it's not something you necessarily want to use the tax code for because -

Dave Bittner: Okay.

Ben Yelin: - you could always reappropriate that tax money -

Dave Bittner: Oh, I see.

Ben Yelin: - unless you made it, like, to - sort of direct pipeline the way Social Security and Medicare are. But I -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: - they - we just haven't seen that done in these types of circumstances. Equity stakes, it's a rising tide lifts all boats. So I think it would be a better investment to do it through that route rather than through the taxation route.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, I mean, it's such a weird time. I mean, you know, the - like you mentioned earlier, how President Trump took a stake in some of these tech companies. I - who - you know, that's - who would have thought? Right? Like, -

Ben Yelin: Right. I mean, there are -

Dave Bittner: It's just against type, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And yet - but yet here we are, so anything's possible, I suppose.

Ben Yelin: He - yeah, I mean, if you talk to the traditional Reagan conservatives of the '80s and '90s, they've been pretty appalled by government ownership in these companies.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: I can think of justifications, specifically when we're talking about computer chips, that the United States has a vested national security interest. Obviously, it's a slippery slope. If we get too involved in private industry, then we have ceased to be a capitalist society. Right? So we did take a stake in some financial companies temporarily in the aftermath of the financial crisis, so it's not like it's completely unprecedented. But it's something that we generally try to avoid.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah. All right, well, interesting stuff. And, as you said, this is one we'll have to keep our eye on because this is going to be interesting to see how it plays out.

Ben Yelin: Absolutely. And there's going to be a lot of developments in this case. I know, when you ask about timeline, I always give you disappointing answers and, ohh, this one's going to be a long one. Like, if they actually go through litigation, you know, this is going to take years.

Dave Bittner: Okay.

Ben Yelin: If this is a threat to get OpenAI to settle and there's some like AI settlement funds that goes into the Florida coffers so that they can make up for the property losses that they've accrued due to massive hurricanes or whatever -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - the various issues are in -

Dave Bittner: Sure.

Ben Yelin: - Florida, then maybe that's what their real angle is. But, if we actually see litigation, it could take years.

Dave Bittner: Oh. Florida's al -

Ben Yelin: So much discovery -

Dave Bittner: Florida's already got all that Disney money, what do they need, you know -

Ben Yelin: I know, I know.

Dave Bittner: All those retirees down there.

Ben Yelin: Yeah.

Dave Bittner: All right, we will have a link to that story in the show notes. [ Music ] My story this week I have to say a bit of a banger. This is -

Ben Yelin: And he doesn't say that lightly. He -

Dave Bittner: No.

Ben Yelin: - doesn't say that every week.

Dave Bittner: I do not. This is - well, and the partial - partially because this is something of personal interest to me. This is from the folks at Citizen Lab and the - it's a research report titled "Uncovering Webloc: An Analysis of Penlink's Ad-based Geolocation Surveillance Tech." So right up our alley. Something we love to talk about. But this may be the most detailed investigation of this sort of commercially available geolocation system that I've ever seen. Basically, Citizen Lab looked at this system called Webloc, which is a global surveillance system, it tracks the movements of hundreds of millions of mobile devices using location data. And this is the location data that we, I'll use air quotes, "have approved" for companies to gather on us, right, when we agree to that flashlight app or whatever it is. You know, Facebook certainly does it. You know, lots of companies do it. They gather our location data and then they sell it.

Ben Yelin: Potbelly sandwiches, they're like, "Would you like to order from the nearest Potbelly's?"

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: "Please put in your" - you know, "Please allow us to view your location and then" -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - "it'll be much easier."

Dave Bittner: So, I mean, you know, taking advantage of genuine functional usefulness, right, it's helpful to be able to find your local sandwich shop automatically. But the flip side is they get to sell that information, and they say it's legal because you and me and everyone else's users have clicked through the EULA and said, "Yes, you can have that information." But what Citizen Lab is looking at here is who's buying this information. They have identified users around the world. They point out the U.S., Hungary, and El Salvador among the countries that use this. Perhaps more concerning, our federal agencies, government customers, reportedly include federal, state, and local agencies such as ICE, military organizations, law enforcement departments.

Ben Yelin: So some noncontroversial agencies, in other words.

Dave Bittner: Right, right. But, you know, the concerns are things you and I have touched on many times. We - if you know where someone lives and works, you can track their routines, their associations, their interests, their religious practices, their political activities, all kinds of sensitive personal information. These companies say that they have kind of geofenced some of those locations out, like religious locations, for example. But - I don't know. We - as we've said time and time again, it's so easy to deanonymize these sorts of things.

Ben Yelin: Right. Especially with AI. I mean, that has been a massive revolution. And deanonymization is - it might take an analyst several hours to deanonymize the data when AI can do it instantly.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah. So, again, you know, we don't have time to go into all the details here on this report, but it is deep and really lays it all out along with some of the history of this, the legal battles that have already happened. For example, you know, I mentioned Facebook earlier, but, in reading this report, I learned that Facebook has actually resisted these kinds of companies from trying to vacuum up or scrape data from Facebook itself. Cynically, you could say Facebook wants to keep that information for their own use.

Ben Yelin: Oh, no, it's all - it's all for the right reasons, Dave.

Dave Bittner: Right, right. But the bottom line here is that these ad-based surveillance systems, they are now powerful intelligence tools. And tools like this platform Webloc, they gather this data, they integrate the data, and they make it easy to use so that governments, law enforcement, basically, they have global tracking capabilities for many, many people. And, so far, don't necessarily need a warrant to do so.

Ben Yelin: This is going to change the face of government surveillance and warrantless electronic data mining. And, if we don't respond to it, it's going to subsume the already fragile protections that we all have in our private information. There is this giant loophole right now because, if a third-party is - owns your data and the government wants access to it, but it's not something that they have purchased, they, at the very least, have to get some sort of subpoena. Depending on the context, it might require a warrant. What we have now is, through the use of these types of tools, the data is ubiquitous and it's available for purchase. And our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has not caught up to how easy it is for government agencies to peruse this data and to use it for whatever they want, criminal investigations, national security investigations, et cetera. There is a proposal in Congress aptly named "The Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act" -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - which would require the government to obtain a warrant - when they are attempting to collect this data from private companies or when they are attempting to use it in some sort of investigation, a warrant is required if a warrant would be required in the old-world circumstance. Right? So you're trying to apply traditional Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to this type of purchased data that's been obtained through the use of something like Webloc. And that proposal has bipartisan support. There's a chance to push it forward because Section 702 has only been renewed temporarily, and that's kind of your legislative vehicle for changes to surveillance law. And that's probably the only train leaving the station on surveillance in this Congress, and so I think there might be a push, especially the more you see stories like this, to include some type of protection for individuals from these private data brokers as part of a broad FISA reauthorization bill.

Dave Bittner: Well, that's - that - yeah, so that's interesting in that looking to protect the Fourth Amendment through the requirement of a warrant. But that doesn't change - or doesn't address these companies' ability to gather this information to begin with. And so it seems to me like, so far, as you say, in this - in this Congress, we have not seen an appetite to shut off the flow of that data.

Ben Yelin: No, because I think we all benefit from it, and we're so used to agreeing to the EULAs that, you know, it's just become kind of mindless for us. And, 99.999% of the time, we have no reason to think about or consider the fact that the data is being used for advertising purposes or, in some circumstances, to give to ICE or other controversial government agencies. Like, it's just not something that we tend to think about because we don't have to. If there's some type of criminal investigation and they reveal evidence at trial, like, I'm sure I'd really care about the fact that, "Oh, they found me because I wanted to find the nearest, you know, Smoothie King."

Dave Bittner: Right, right.

Ben Yelin: I mean, that's how they knew I was in this geographic area at this time.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: People, though, really do - if you are sufficiently concerned about this, you have options on your devices to avoid this type of collection. It might make your life temporarily more tedious because you're going to have to enter in your address instead of letting apps track your location. It might add a couple of minutes to your sandwich order. But, if this is something that you're concerned about, there is a remedy for individuals on their own devices. And I think that can give us some comfort that, for people who legitimately care about this stuff, and there are a lot of reasons you should legitimately care about it, you have that level of control on your own device.

Dave Bittner: Do you think that reports like this from an organization like Citizen Lab can move the needle? You know, would Ron Wyden pay attention to something like this?

Ben Yelin: Yes. But, at this point, who pays attention to Ron Wyden's letters besides us? I mean -

Dave Bittner: Fair.

Ben Yelin: - I have a - I have a Google alert set up for Ron Wyden letters.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: But I suspect I'm in the minority -

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: - of people who have set that up. No, I mean, I think there is a level of complacency and it's just really hard to get around. There are a lot of very serious problems in the world and people only have a bandwidth to care about a certain percentage of those problems.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: And so, like, to be frank, I haven't seen mass outrage at the revelation of a surveillance scheme or a program since the Snowden disclosures. And that was now 13 years ago. I think there are a number of reasons for that. But I just don't think it's gotten into the zeitgeist. So I guess on that narrow question, I am pessimistic. I don't think this is going to be something that's going to be the lead story in The New York Times or on Fox News because it's not quite salacious enough and it's not the type of thing that's going to immediately grab eyeballs, even though it's obviously a very serious and well-reported story.

Dave Bittner: Right, right. For most people, it's background noise.

Ben Yelin: Right, exactly, exactly.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Ben Yelin: Unless you're in our world. You know? So -

Dave Bittner: Right. If you're wonky, you love this kind of stuff.

Ben Yelin: And, if you're listeners to this podcast, you have the obligation to spread the word -

Dave Bittner: Right.

Ben Yelin: - that these are very important live issues, and you should pay attention to data brokers and the data broker loophole.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. All right, well, we will have a link to that report in the show notes. As I said, it is quite comprehensive. It's a long read, but, if this is your jam, do check it out because, as I said, it digs into this particular issue to a degree that I don't think I've seen anything dig into it before. So interesting work from the folks at Citizen Lab. [ Music ] That is "Caveat" brought to you by N2K CyberWire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to caveat@n2k.com. This episode is produced by Liz Stokes. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. The show is mixed by Tré Hester. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. I am Dave Bittner.

Ben Yelin: And I'm Ben Yelin.

Dave Bittner: Thanks for listening.