When a small team of hackers aligning themselves with Anonymous raided digital security firms HBGary Federal and HBGary Inc. last month, there followed the mother of all legal clean-up jobs. More than 70,000 company emails had been posted online for the world to see, and some included non-disclosure agreements with clients. HBGary Inc.'s chief executive Greg Hoglund picked Zwillinger & Genetski, a specialist law firm in Internet security, for the job. Senior partner Marc Zwillinger is now leading the case along with, to the surprise of some in the hacker community, Jennifer Granick.
For anyone who has followed the cyber security industry for the last decade, Granick's is a familiar and respected name. Back in 2000 Forbes.com profiled her as The Lawyer Hackers Call, the attorney hackers contacted if their day had begun with a raid on their home or office by the FBI.
Granick, at that time, had combined her interest in computers and criminal law to become a defence lawyers for hackers who'd got on the wrong side of the law. She had taken on seven hacker cases and was regularly attracting huge crowds when she spoke at hacker conventions. (Note the word "hacker" covers a broad spectrum of legal and illegal activities.) You can listen to audio of her Def Con 8 speech in 2000 here. She also advised one of America's most well-known hackers, Kevin Poulsen, who is now senior editor at Wired.com.
Things are different now that Granick is defending HBGary Inc., itself targeted by the kind of people she might have defended a while ago. She ceased acting as a criminal defence lawyer in 2001, and opted to pursue the more lucrative world of corporate law with Zwillinger & Genetski last December.
But working with HBGary Inc. has come as a shock to those who dabble in the illegal side of hacking. Says one who falls into this category and who contacted me by email: "Her reputation among hackers was someone who could be counted on. She was known as 'the hackers lawyer.' I mean its extremely disheartening, I guess."
The person adds that others in the hacker community who had recommended Granick as "someone [they] could trust," did not believe it when this person told them that Granick now represented HBGary Inc. "They had me repeat her information multiple times, and then provide them even more specific proof," the anonymous hacker says. "Even then they were in utter disbelief."
Granick, who was also Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation before joining her new firm, says she has always given advice to people in the computer security field. "My advice has been for people who are criminal defendants, researchers who want to give talks at conferences people who want to report findings to companies," she says. Later in October she'll be giving a keynote speech at the Hack in the Box conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, she points out.
She also emphasises that she has not been a criminal defence lawyer since she taught at Stanford in 2001. "I left being a criminal defence lawyer and [became] more of an academic and a teacher and civil liberties lawyer," she says. "I was still a hacker lawyer. To me it's a computer security person. People can benefit from some knowledgable legal advice and guidance when they're practicing their craft."
Does Granick see any irony in representing hacker-target HBGary Inc.? "I don't think that's ironic," she says. "I have long been interested in data privacy and data security and in basically the practice of computer security, and HBGary is a computer security company."
"She’s a great lawyer,” says Marc Zwillinger, who hired Granick late last year and had asked her to help him with the HBGary Inc. case. “We hired her because she’s been a great expert on this for a long time. If we were to sue people who hacked into our client systems base, on her experience she’d be great at that.”
Granick has "transitioned," he adds. "She represents corporate America, like the rest of us do here.”
