Giving Up On Cybersecurity
Kristen E. Eichensehr
ABSTRACT
Recent years have witnessed a dramatic increase in digital information and connected
devices, but constant revelations about hacks make painfully clear that security has not
kept pace. Societies today network first, and ask questions later.
This Essay argues that while digitization and networking will continue to accelerate,
cybersecurity concerns will also prompt some strategic retreats from digital
dependence. Individuals, businesses, and governments will “give up” on cybersecurity
by either (1) adopting low-tech redundancies for high-tech capabilities or digital
information, or (2) engaging in technological regression or arrest, foregoing capabilities
that technology could provide because of concerns about cybersecurity risks. After
cataloguing scattered examples of low-tech redundancy and technological regression or
arrest that have occurred to date, the Essay critically evaluates how laws and regulations
have fostered situations where giving up on cybersecurity is necessary. The Essay
concludes by proposing ways that law can help to guide consideration of when to engage
in low-tech redundancy or technological regression moving forward.
AUTHOR
Assistant Professor, UCLA School of Law. For helpful comments, I am grateful to
participants in the Program on Understanding Law, Science, and Evidence (PULSE)
conference on “Imagining the Legal Landscape: Technology and the Law in 2030.”
Thanks to Andrew Brown for excellent research assistance.
UCLA LAW REVIEW DISCOURSE
64 UCLA L. Rev. DisC. 320 (2016)
PULSE SYMPOSIUM
Imagining the Legal Landscape: Technology and the Law in 2030
