Cloud forecasting: Legal visibility issues in saturated environments

The advent of cloud computing has brought the computing power of corporate data processing and storage centers to lightweight devices. Software-as-a-service cloud subscribers enjoy the convenience of personal devices along with the power and capability of a service. Using logical as opposed to physical partitions across cloud servers, providers supply flexible and scalable resources. Furthermore, the possibility for multitenant accounts promises considerable freedom when establishing access controls for cloud content. For forensic analysts conducting data acquisition, cloud resources present unique challenges. Inherent properties such as dynamic content, multiple sources, and nonlocal content make it difficult for a standard to be developed for evidence gathering in satisfaction of United States federal evidentiary standards in criminal litigation. Development of such standards, while essential for reliable production of evidence at trial, may not be entirely possible given the guarantees to privacy granted by the Fourth Amendment and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Privacy of information on a cloud is complicated because the data is stored on resources owned by a third-party provider, accessible by users of an account group, and monitored according to a service level agreement. This research constructs a balancing test for competing considerations of a forensic investigator acquiring information from a cloud.     

犯罪人刑事档案封存制度设想

刑罚执行完毕的犯罪人回归社会后普遍存在难以融入社会的情况,有就业难、生活难等问题。造成这个问题的原因主要是载明罪行记录的犯罪人刑事档案在社会生产、生活中被广泛运用,相关法律法规对曾经犯过罪的人的权利有所排除和限制,社会观念也对有罪行记录的人心存戒备和歧视。这不但违背宪法理念,而且与刑法的谦抑性原则和公平、正义不相容。前科消灭也不具备现实可操作性,应尝试建立犯罪人刑事档案封存制度。     

Singapore's Personal Data Protection legislation: Business perspectives

As global digitalisation of information and interconnecting technologies along with new marketing practices and business processes vastly increase the opportunities for data collection, storage, usage and delivery, there is a corresponding increase in consumer expectations of data privacy. These expectations must be met if business organisations are to promote consumer trust and confidence and maintain their overall competitiveness in a global market. It goes without saying that information is the most valuable business asset and “privacy is good business and information can be the basis of bigger business”. The need to protect data privacy has long been recognised and implemented by major trading nations. Surprisingly, Singapore as a financial centre and nation aspiring to be a trusted data hosting hub has been slow in enacting specific data protection laws. The first piece of legislation that has emerged is a light-touch baseline framework applicable to all organisations except the public sector. This article considers the new legislation from the business perspective and the implications for private sector business organisations facing the challenges of compliance.     

Time- and Temperature-Dependent Changes in Cytochrome c Oxidase Activity and Cyanide Concentration in Excised Mice Organs and Mice Cadavers

Postmortem stability of cyanide biomarkers is often disputed. We assessed the time and temperature-dependent changes in cytochrome c oxidase (CCO) activity and cyanide concentration in various organs of mice succumbing to cyanide. Immediately after death, excised mice organs and mice cadavers were stored at room temperature (35°C ± 5°C) or in frozen storage (−20°C ± 2°C). At various times after death, CCO activity and cyanide concentrations were measured in excised mice organs or organs removed from mice cadavers. The study revealed that (i) measuring both the biomarkers in mice cadavers was more reliable compared to excised mice organs, (ii) measuring temporal CCO activity and cyanide concentration in vital organs from mice cadavers (room temperature) was reliable up to 24 h, and (iii) CCO activity in the brain and lungs and cyanide concentration in organs from mice cadavers (frozen) were measurable beyond 21 days. This study will be helpful in postmortem determination of cyanide poisoning.     

浅谈基本会计等式的形式与内涵

这是一个古老而现代、重要而普遍的会计学问题。它已有五百多年的历史，却至今尚未圆满解决；它是会计基础理论的一个基本问题，在日常被无数次普通运用，却因习以为常而对其有所忽视。本文首先讨论对名胜两侧面平衡理论，即静态、动态两种状态下的会计平衡。在此基础上提出确立存量基本会计等式和变量基本会计等式，两者并列，完善财务会计基础理论体系的理论见解。     

“Cloud bursts”: Emerging trends in contracting for Cloud services

Contracting for cloud based services might be said to be in its relative infancy, but such contracts as have been promulgated by the major providers have uniformly tended to be extremely restrictive in terms of the rights and means of recourse offered to customers. As contract values and service complexity “in the cloud” increase, however, more and more of such contracts are subject to review and challenge. This article accordingly considers some of the key points of common contention, and offers thoughts as to the direction of travel for such contracts in the months to come.     

Legislative genesis and judicial death of a directive: The European Court of Justice invalidated the data retention directive (2006/24/EC) thereby creating a sustained period of legal uncertainty about the validity of national laws which enacted it

The Grand Chamber has ruled that the data retention directive was invalid ex tunc since it seriously interfered with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and protection of personal data and exceeded the limits of the principle of proportionality which are provided for in the Charter. The scope and temporal effects of this ruling should be clarified, especially its legal impacts on national laws of Member States which enacted the directive. In addition, the findings of the Grand Chamber on geographical safeguards have far-reaching implications on the retention and storage of personal data in the EU.     

Ambient temperature storage of tissue samples (bovine) in readily available media during mass fatality incidents

The possibility of using readily available media such as salt and alcohol to preserve tissue samples in non-tropical climates has been previously reported. This present study is a proof of concept trial to investigate the efficacy of salt, alcohol and FTA card for the preservation of soft tissue samples in a tropical hot and humid environment. Using bovine flesh as proxy, salt and commercial liquors such as whiskey and vodka were found to be effective in preserving the tissue samples at ambient temperatures over a 3 month period.     

Privacy and consumer risks in cloud computing

While vaguely defined, and wide in scope, so-called ‘cloud computing’ has gained considerable attention in recent times. Put simply, it refers to an arrangement under which a user relies on another party to provide access to remote computers and software, whose whereabouts, including their jurisdictional location, are not known nor controllable by the user. In this article, we examine the privacy and consumer risks that are associated with cloud computing.