Briefs: Uninstall QuickTime ASAP, Apple Trolls the DOJ, Etc.

Get Rid of QuickTime Now if You Are a Windows User

You probably have not even been paying attention as to whether you still have QuickTime on your Windows machine, because Apple hasn’t issued a major Windows QuickTime release since 2005, which is one million years ago in internet time. In January, Apple stopped supporting QuickTime entirely, which is more of a problem then you might think. In fact, it’s enough of a problem that the Department of Homeland Security wants you to get it off your computer.

The company decided this week not to issue any more security updates for QuickTime on Windows, despite two major vulnerabilities in the software that can allow hackers into people’s computers. […]

QuickTime for Windows will continue to work, and is curiously still available for download. But Apple and DHS urged Windows customers to uninstall the program.

“Using unsupported software may increase the risks from viruses and other security threats,” DHS said in its alert. “The only mitigation available is to uninstall QuickTime for Windows.”

Grammar-Obsessed People Are Mean

Are you the kind of person that wants to crawl out of your skin when you receive an email where someone misused their/there/they’re? Turns out you are maybe not as nice as people who are not bothered by such things.

According to Boland and Queen’s research, more agreeable participants (as determined by the results of the Big Five Personality index) tended to rate grammar errors less harshly than less agreeable participants, who showed more sensitivity to “grammos” — homophonous grammar errors like to/too, it’s/its. […]

Introversion/extroversion and conscientiousness also had some correlation with how grammar errors were perceived.

“More extroverted people were likely to overlook written errors that would cause introverted people to judge the person who makes such errors more negatively,” the study says. “Less agreeable people were more sensitive to grammos, while more conscientious and less open people were sensitive to typos.”

Don’t Use Stolen Privileged Information (Even If You’re Not The One That Stole It)

An attorney in Missouri just got suspended for using privileged information that his client, not he, had obtained illicitly.

In the case of [Joel] Eisenstein, his client in a divorce case obtained the client’s wife’s payroll information by guessing the wife’s email password, according to St. Louis Today. Another nice little treat was a list of the direct examination questions prepared by opposing counsel. The client passed this information on to Eisenstein in 2013.

You may be wondering how this ever came to light and became a sanctionable offense?

Eisenstein blundered and included this pilfered information in a stack of exhibits that Eisenstein gave the opposing lawyer during trial. 

Pro-tip: if you are going to be unethical and privileged information, at least don’t be monumentally stupid about it. Better yet, don’t be unethical in the first place. 

Now Apple Is Just Openly Mocking The DOJ

Though the DOJ was eventually able to get into the phone of the San Bernardino shooter without Apple’s help, they have continued to request Apple’s assistance to break into other iPhones. Most recently, the government has insisted that Apple help them break into the phone of a New York meth trafficker. Last Friday, Apple filed a brief indicating how utterly uninterested they were in providing such assistance. The most hilarious part of the brief? Apple telling the government that perhaps they could just call the people that hacked the San Bernardino iPhone.

Google Can Digitize And Upload All The Book Excerpts It Wants

Google and the Authors Guild have been fighting for 12 years over whether Google had the right to scan and digitize twenty million books in their entirety and then upload snippets of copyrighted materials for the Google Books project. At the heart of the case was the Guild’s argument that the wholesale scanning of books wasn’t fair use and wasn’t transformative. Last year, the Second Circuit held that Google making piles of material available for everyone to access, even in snippets, was transformative and tossed the authors’ case. Today, SCOTUS denied the Guild’s request to hear the case, which means you can continue to Google book excerpts to your heart’s content.

Forum Shopping Might Get You Sanctioned

Attorneys on both sides of a class action case agreed to change forums, which is not uncommon, but in this instance, the federal judge did not like it one bit.

Chief U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III announced that he intends to impose nonmonetary sanctions on all but one of the counsel of record for both sides in a class-action insurance coverage case, for using settlement tactics intended to benefit the attorneys at the expense of the plaintiffs. […]

Holmes found that the 16 lawyers violated Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by agreeing to dismiss their Fort Smith, Arkansas, federal case and then immediately refiling it in state court with a stipulated settlement. Doing so, he says, was intended to avoid the greater scrutiny that a federal court would have given the purported $3.4 million settlement—which potentially could have provided monetary relief to nearly 15,000 homeowners with a USAA insurance policy but, due to onerous requirements, had actually seen claims filed by about 650 as of February. Meanwhile, the lawyers involved got an immediate payout of more than $1.8 million in attorney’s fees.

Featured image: “ Online reading news. Flat line contour illustration concept” from Shutterstock.

Briefs: Uninstall QuickTime ASAP, Apple Trolls the DOJ, Etc. was originally published on Lawyerist.com.