Death Metal and Dr. Seuss: A Discussion with Jason Wool, Privacy and Cybersecurity Expert

Entering the Bar, with Liz Lash

I had the great pleasure of speaking with Jason Wool, an erudite and witty cybersecurity and privacy lawyer at ZwillGen, a boutique Internet and technology law firm. In this episode, we talk about Jason’s 2018 article on cryptographic hashing, what the heck that is, and how it relates to data breach notification laws. We also chat about his propensity for Disney songs and death metal, and the twist of fate that took Jason from his role in reviewing rate regulation as a “NERC-FERC lawyer” (oh-so-Seussian!) to a cybersecurity and privacy advisor.

And, as always, what we talk about when we talk about lawyers: Jason and I chat about his favorite bar in Adams Morgan, DC (sadly, now closed) and his propensity for putting Steely Dan on the jukebox....

You can find Jason’s article, “Does the Cryptographic Hashing of Passwords Qualify for Statutory Breach Notification Safe Harbor?” published by the Journal of Cyber Law and Warfare, here, and his bio and additional (32 or so!) publications here, and here. (Although he does claim to sing a cappella, I can’t guarantee you can find a recording of him anywhere!)

To read up on some of the other sources Jason references as reading material, you can read up on Steven Levy’s history of cryptography, here, and the article by his friend Andy Greenberg, about scary jeep hacking, here.