Chris Hoofnagle | UC Berkeley School of Law

Author: chris

  • Cybersecurity Courses @ Cal

    Cybersecurity Courses @ Cal

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    A growing number of faculty are offering cybersecurity courses at Cal. Consider taking: The Center for Security in Politics offers a graduate certificate in security policy. Many of the electives are open to undergraduates. They include GSPP PP 155/255 Introduction to Security Policy (Professors Janet Napolitano and Daniel Sargent) PPC285 and NUCENG 285C Nuclear Security: The…

  • Computer Programming for Lawyers

    Computer Programming for Lawyers

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    Most recent syllabus: Spring 2023. Clients increasingly want their lawyers to understand their products and services on a technical level. Regulators need to understand how their rules will be implemented in code. Lawyers increasingly need tools to automate the process of collecting, organizing, and making sense of impossibly large troves of information. Computer Programming for…

  • Torts (1L)

    Torts (1L)

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    Welcome to your first year of law school and to torts, a topic as rich as it is traditional in legal education. Torts provides an expansive lens to learn about the American legal system. This course will cover the basics of torts and in the process, the fundamental reasons and principles underlying doctrine. Learning Goals:…

  • Cybersecurity Working Group

    Cybersecurity Working Group

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    We will discuss cybersecurity policy among a group of graduate, professional, and undergraduate students. The FCWG will be led by Andrew Reddie in Fall 2023 and Spring 2024. Chris Hoofnagle will lead it in Spring 2025 Previous syllabi (Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017)

  • Technology for Lawyers Workshop (TLW)

    Technology for Lawyers Workshop (TLW)

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    Technology for Lawyers Workshop (TLW) is a self-paced, two-session workshop covering the computer skills most important to success in law school. By working along and doing the exercises, you’ll become a more efficient user of your computer, and in the process, develop Microsoft Word templates you can use for law school assignments. Anyone in the…

  • What is consumer privacy?

    What is consumer privacy?

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    In this essay for a lecture at Stanford University, I attempt to explain consumer privacy as a deterrence theory strategy. I argue that privacy does have methods of analysis, based in fair information practices, while popular use of the term “privacy” is loose, a shibboleth representing uncertain values. This wide-ranging essay then goes on to…

  • The Quantum Age

    The Quantum Age

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    Quantum technologies use quantum effects to provide some utility. These capabilities are so different from our conventional intuition that quantum technologies seem to ride the fine border between science fiction and fantasy—yet many quantum technologies can be commercially purchased today, and more are just around the corner. With Simson Garfinkel, I recently completed Law and Technology for…

  • Digital Consumer Protection

    Digital Consumer Protection

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    As products and services merge, we need new kinds of marketplace signals and rules to ensure that consumers understand the exchange, and so that competition is fair and vigorous. In a series of works with Case Western University Professor Aaron Perzanowski and Berkeley JSD/Yale JD candidate Aniket Kesari, we have used legal/empirical analyses to elucidate…

  • “Zero Price” != Free: How “Free” Can be Anti-Competitive

    “Zero Price” != Free: How “Free” Can be Anti-Competitive

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    In articles with University of Washington Professor Jan Whittington (Ph.D., UC Berkeley 2008), we explore consumer-oriented internet services through the lens of transaction cost economics. This work shows how personal information transactions—“free” exchanges—can be uneconomical: consumers cannot exit these arrangements; they create lock-in; and ultimately this is a deep moat against competition. Free transactions enable companies to…

  • Internet Tracking & Cybercrime

    Internet Tracking & Cybercrime

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    We have performed terabyte-scale studies of internet tracking and of cybercrime networks, using a series of tools including Palantir Gotham, Palantir Contour, mitmproxy, STATA (Here is my STATA Cheat Sheet), Python, and a custom-built crawler. This has led to several insights, including new forms of consumer tracking in the wild (flash cookies, cache cookies), the demonstration…

  • Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law & Policy

    Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law & Policy

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    This book is a historical account, an institutional study, and a discussion of policy choices made by the U.S. FTC. The FTC’s creation in 1914 represented a turning point in American history where skepticism of expertise and central regulatory authority was overcome by the need to address contemporary market conditions. My book connects today’s tussles over privacy…

  • Inactive Courses

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    Privacy Law for Technologists Information privacy law profoundly shapes how internet-enabled services may work. Privacy Law for Technologists will translate the regulatory demands flowing from the growing field of privacy, information security, and consumer law to those who are creating interesting and transformative internet-enabled services. The course will meet twice a week, with the first…