On The Wire

Trial Tactics: Is There a Rule Against Second Guessing?

What is the result on appeal when trial counsel did not object to the judge's instructions to the jury? An opinion released today by the British Columbia Court of Appeal in a tragic manslaughter case highlights the broad rule that a failure to object by trial counsel is a non-controlling ...
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The Ability to Control Data Is a Protected Privacy Interest

The British Columbia Court of Appeal has upheld the ruling of a trial judge excluding a critical pocket-dial recording from evidence at the trial of Samandeep Singh Gill that resulted in his acquittal for the murder of Manbir Singh Kajla. The recording of the alleged shooting was seized by the ...
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From the Hands of Third Parties: Privacy and Internet Protocol Addresses

The Supreme Court of Canada has held that internet protocol addresses attract a reasonable expectation of privacy in a ruling that will have wider implications for the private sector including internet service providers, search engines and artificial intelligence generators. The concentration of personal data in the hands of private corporations ...
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Law Enforcement Disrupts LockBit and Taunts Administrator

A sprawling operation by an international consortium of law enforcement agencies has seized the infrastructure and website of the notorious LockBit ransomware group. Over the last five years the seemingly untouchable purveyor of ransomware-as-a-service rapidly grew into one of the most prolific hacking enterprises in the dark web ecosystem infiltrating ...
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On the Cybersecurity Front: Volt Typhoon and Warzone RAT

The disruption of a botnet and the seizure of internet domains selling a remote access trojan have recently turned the cybersecurity focus on the detection of stealth methods deployed by state sponsored and financially motivated actors. Described as the defining threat of our generation a botnet known as Volt Typhoon ...
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Search Warrants and the Doctrine of Severance

The right of all Canadians to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure protects the right to privacy from unjustified state intrusion. The purpose of the right requires that unjustified searches be prevented before they happen and not merely condemned after the fact. This can only be accomplished by a ...
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Purpose and Prejudice in Charter Litigation

The meaning of a constitutional right is ascertained by an analysis of the purpose underpinning the right. Purpose is understood in light of the interests a right is meant to protect. In a case winding its way through the Court of King's Bench of Alberta at Calgary, Alberta, an application ...
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The Spy Hunter and a Russian Oligarch

A former counterspy has been sentenced to prison by a New York court for his unlawful work for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. When he entered the guilty plea to violating U.S. sanctions against Russia stemming from its aggression in Ukraine he told the court he knew his investigative work for ...
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The Dangers of QR Codes

A jumble of squares in a grid is what the consumer sees when looking at QR codes. The simplicity makes them attractive to scammers who embed them with URLs containing custom malware or direct the user to a phishing site. But QR codes serve another purpose beyond facilitating consumer transactions ...
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Canadian Crypto King Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering Violations

The founder of crypto giant Binance has pleaded guilty to money laundering violations following an investigation spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Changpeng Zhao, a Canadian national, agreed to pay a fine of $50 million and to ...
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