Raison d’etre
Back when I was in college I took a course on the “Sociology of Law.” The lesson of this course, which now seems obvious in retrospect, is that law does not come from a vacuum. There is no universal,...
View ArticleGround rules – bias and voice
What would a tech policy blog be without policies of its own? Like all sensible policies these are subject to change as the project grows and evolves, but it’s good to have some starting points. The...
View ArticleGround rules – topic eligibility
Another aspect to establish at the outset of this project is what topics it includes. I have generally defined relevant topics to cover wherever there is a state sanction attached to a technology use....
View ArticleWater hack wasn’t
Recently it appeared the fear of a foreign hacker penetrating the online systems of American infrastructure had been realized with news that a Russian hacker had attacked and disabled a pump in an...
View ArticleLessons from an early example of technology hacking
Paul Marks has a fascinating article at The New Scientist about an old example of hacking. LATE one June afternoon in 1903 a hush fell across an expectant audience in the Royal Institution’s celebrated...
View ArticleGlobalchokepoints.org
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a new project, Global Censorship Chokepoints, whose mission is to track instances of censorship caused by allegations of copyright infringement. Global...
View ArticleDeath by chocolate cupcakes
Yes, I do have other relevant things to blog about than more TSA antics. This isn’t supposed to be a TSA-only blog. But (a) some recent news is too outrageous/tempting to skip, and (b) there are...
View ArticleCracking v. hacking
A word about “hacking.” Hacking is a word often colloquially misused to describe the unauthorized access of a computer system. Among self-described hackers, however, the correct term to describe such...
View ArticleWelcome (again)
Welcome new readers, whom I’ve now announced this blog to. It seems to be chugging along nicely, although like any new project it is still subject to modifications and tweaks. But the core of it...
View ArticleJolt into action
This weekend’s news about the death of Aaron Swartz is a cogent reminder of what this project is about. Aaron was a gifted contributor to the tools and values that make the Internet the extraordinary...
View ArticleThe Knowledge Gap
This article on TechDirt summarizes a recent brouhaha that recently broke out in a corner of the Internet I tend to haunt with other lawyers and cyberlaw professionals and has started to percolate into...
View ArticleFollow, not lead
At an event on CFAA reform last night I heard Brewster Kahle say what to my ears sounded like, “Law that follows technology tends to be ok. Law that tries to lead it is not.” His comment came after an...
View ArticleRIP Doug Engelbart
I was saddened to hear the news about Doug Engelbart’s passing. Although most famous for having invented the mouse (I once had the privilege of holding the original – in some ways it was even better...
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