Legal Question in Securities Law in California

Re: firewalls

Depends upon what you mean by "firewall."

Literally, it means a wall designed to resist fire, so as to protect part of a building from, say, the boiler room.

In computerspeak, it is an electronic barrier to keep unwanted communications from flowing into (or out of) a server.

In law, a "firewall" is sometimes a system within a firm to prevent client X's confidential information from becoming available to attorneys of that firm who are working for client Y where X and Y have conflicting interests in litigation.

Finally, I believe the term is used in securities regulation to refer to amy system used to isolate a firm's employees who study and recommend securities to clients from those who buy, sell and trade the same securities for the firm's account.

I cannot imagine that any of these uses of a "firewall" would be unlawful per se. This is not to say that the firewall itself is an adequate safeguard to "sanitize" the activity for which the safeguard is provided.

So, I guess the answer is, I don't get the question.