November 23rd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 4)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 23, 2009 @ 10:51 AM

Categories: Antitrust, Blogs, Censorship, China, Commerce, Congress, Copyright, Courts, Cyber Security, Cybercrime, Cyberwar, Defense, Disaster recovery, E-government, Elections, European Parliament, European Union, FCC, FTC, Government 2.0, Government technology, Green Dam, Homeland security, Intellectual Property, Intelligence, International, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Open government, Regulations, Security, Senate, Social networks, Spam, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, UK, United Kingdom, United Nations, Web, politics

Tags: Law, Court, Counter Point, Internet, Government, Doug Hanchard

Justice systems around the world had their entire world turned upside down over the past several years because of the Internet. The basic sets of laws, often founded on a nation’s constitution are being used in ways that many forefathers never anticipated or envisioned. Republic, Dominion and Socialist government institutions around the world are all facing the same issues - often without any clear path of legal precedent.

One of the challenges facing courts is jurisdiction. Because of the very nature of the Internet, legal systems are now faced with new roadblocks that did not exist 10 years ago. Traditional methods of law enforcement and legal treaties do work and continue to be the basis of process and dealing with prosecution and trials. Interpretation of existing laws and applying them to Internet-related cases has not been a significant challenge in many cases. But there are some new aspects of what is admitted into court.

Evidence

What has shocked the system is how Internet-based materials are now used in the courts as evidence. Everything from ISP logs, website blogs, and social media sites (among others) are now being used in ways that prosecutors and jurists have never had to deal with in the past. It is also becoming a battle ground for several areas of law, particularly the integrity of evidence. This has many in the legal world concerned. It’s becoming clear that this will be an area of significant debate and will have far-reaching consequences. Internet evidence does not have look and feel of traditional evidence and, in many cases, has yet to be challenged as to its validity. Prosecutors are faced with a dilemma that impacts how and what they prosecute. This in turn has created a new source of political initiatives that are not only questionable, but in some parts of the world viewed as extreme.

Don’t have a Law yet? We’ll make one

The evolution of law and how it is created has traditionally been a slow and low priority part of the political system. No longer is that the case. Government ministers and cabinet officials appear to be fast-tracking new laws, specifically because of the Internet at a rapid pace of late. Politicians are practically tripping over themselves drafting new bills that claim that they know how to fix the problems of cybercrime and abuse. These ideas are moving at such a rapid pace that often few people actually have read the fine print. What concerns many is the advice politicians are getting on how Internet law should be created. Governments all over the world will have significant impact on such issues as free speech, Net neutrality, news, crime and governance of institutions.

Prosecution

There is not much sympathy for the courts in many parts of the world. That may soon change as news travels across the multimedia world of the Internet. Attorneys general throughout the United States are political and create their own priorities and thus control what is heard before the courts. This may have significant consequences as to the timing of how the Internet evolves and impact the economics of the service that potentially influences it’s usage for decades. In the United Kingdom, the courts will have to take into account European treaties and the European Parliament. Canada’s magistrates may strike down or uphold newly created laws that may wind up creating in-balance that could take years to reverse.

Rules await the Internet

Regulators such as the CRTC, FCC, OfCom are charting new territory in communication rules and regulations. Lawmakers are beginning to micro-manage this process. No one yet knows what the impact these new elements will have on the judicial system. It will take years before this is known and goes through several rigorous tests of the court system. Case law may take a decade or more before any true outcomes are known. By that time, a nation will have changed political administration and have new agendas that reset the cycle before some true outcomes are known. Net Neutrality will be debated and wind up before the courts in jurisdictions around the world. The results will vary like your bandwidth speed and access to content.

Global perspective

Laws of a nation are now being combined in many parts of the world. The very essence of a sovereign nation set of laws is slowly being merged into a single set by which it will adhere to. This is particularly true in Europe where the European Parliament is attempting to create laws specifically surrounding the Internet. This has the potential to create political and legal challenges for courts in how they make decisions. The consequences have significant long term impacts on how courts operate and what order of Appeals and jurisdiction as they enter cyber space with profound outcomes yet to be decided.

The Supreme Court

Supreme Court decisions have not had an impact on the Internet - but likely will. Major court decisions at local, state, and provincial levels are being appealed and many will eventually be argued before the Supreme Court. That draws concern because of how many governments nominate and select jurists to be a part of the Supreme Court framework. In general terms, the institution is politically driven and has the potential to create decisions that may in fact be contrary to the very principles that many of us take for granted. It also works in the other direction. Many a government has had policies and laws overturned by the courts. Key segments will be privacy, Internet access and tracking - along with content management tangled with identity security. It could be argued that elected government officials are not a threat to the Internet, the courts are. The counter point is that will force parliamentarians to change the law, a task far easier said than done. Compounding the problem is that the highest courts around the world have (almost) unlimited tenure until death.  Jurists that will have profound impacts on the stance of governments surrounding Internet issues are in China, Pakistan, India, Russia, and the Middle East. China is unique in that it will have to eventually deal with treaties in which it is a signatory to, but no one has yet to appeal any government policies. It may soon have to. If WTO treaties are before their court system, the Internet could be next.

The court system in most democratic nations has dynamics rarely resulting in quick decisions. It may take years before government’s leaders and the lawmakers truly understand what they are dealing with. Some will fail in creating new laws that are considered extreme by many; others may actually pass the litmus test of a Supreme Court decision. History awaits the outcome.

Epilogue - it will never have an ending

So here we are; some of the files are out in the open, more need further decryption, understanding and updating. The pace of the discussion is increasing and appears to be moving along with few delays. 2010 promises to be the start of a new decade that has a few fundamental issues to resolve. The debate has begun and could be a pivotal point in how society uses and government manages the Internet.

Go back to:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 in this series

November 10th, 2009

U.K. minister wants enhanced monitoring of Internet usage

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 10, 2009 @ 7:06 AM

Categories: Commerce, Courts, Cyber Security, Cybercrime, Databases, E-government, Government technology, Home Office, IT Management, Intelligence, International, Law enforcement, NSA, Network security, Networking, Open government, RIAA, Regulations, Security, Servers, Social networks, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, UK, VoIP, piracy

Tags: Internet Usage, Agency, British Broadcasting Corp., Monitoring, Internet Service Provider, Service Provider, U.K., Web Portal, U.K. Home Office Minister David Hanson, Minister Hanson

U.K. Home Office Minister David Hanson is pushing for further data archiving of information by Communications Service Providers, including such web portals as Facebook. In a BBC published article, the Minister responsible for Privacy, Christopher Graham, (along with several other un-named ministers) has some serious concerns  with the proposal.

Home Office Ministry - United Kingdom

Not only does Minister Hanson suggest that records be accessible at the source, but also tracked by internet service providers. Such a system would require immense capital and infrastructure. Based on what the Minister desires, it would appear that he wants investigative agencies to have broader mandates in observing people and creating dossiers on anyone in the world. This suggests that the British are gearing up to have a significant electronic intelligence community, similar to the U.S. variant, the National Security Agency. While most G-8 nations have extensive archives and records, it has never been required by local internet service providers or other telecommunications companies to maintain the records to the extent the Home office is suggesting. Such systems have never been within the budget of local police agencies. Minister Hanson is possibly suggesting that these costs should be passed on to the user of the internet services through cost sharing mechanisms of the communications provider and the government through direct subsidy, using tax dollars to implement the initial construction of the platforms required. Read the rest of this entry »

November 5th, 2009

Copyright associations want enforcement for free

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 5, 2009 @ 10:41 AM

Categories: Canada, Censorship, Congress, Copyright, Courts, Cyber Security, Cybercrime, Defense, E-government, European Union, Intellectual Property, International, Justice, Law enforcement, Privacy, RIAA, Regulations, Security, State & Local Govt, Telecom, UK

Tags: Monitor, Internet Service Provider, Deep Packet Inspection Technique, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Monitors & Displays, Internet, Hardware, Components, Doug Hanchard

The internet has opened the Pandora’s Box - that everything that can be duplicated - will be. This simple truth will drive up costs for you the consumer. You will pay one of three ways: through the government and the court system (taxes);through your monthly internet access fees paid to your ISP (network operations and infrastructure); or, finally, through higher product costs. More than likely, you will pay all three.

The first generation of technology, copyright protection was easy to target and manage. Organizations such as the MPAA, RIAA, and others lobbied and won governing laws and regulations that ‘taxed’ (in some countries it is defined as a levy) blank tape cassettes and eventually blank CD and DVD products to ‘pay’ for potential infringements of copyright materials. Products that were not taxed (so far) were hard drives, memory cards and Next Gen (NG) Personal Video Recorders (PVR’s) used to record television shows. The time has probably come in which artists and vendors will have to contribute funding for enforcement through sales of their products directly in each jurisdiction they wish to have copyright protection.  That cost would then be passed onto consumers through increases in prices. Read the rest of this entry »

November 4th, 2009

U.S. Ethics Committee staffer file-shares sensitive document

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 4, 2009 @ 3:52 AM

Categories: Congress, Cybercrime, Ethics, Journalism, Justice, Regulations, Security

Tags: File-sharing, Ethics, Computer, Post, Business Ethics, Productivity, Peer To Peer (P2P), Leadership, Management, Internet

Perhaps file sharing should be banned.  The Washington Post reports that a (now) ex-employee of the U.S. House Ethics Committee put a sensitive report detailing 30+ current investigations  on to a public accessible computer. Wired Magazine also reported on this story, saying it was put onto a personal computer, and then placed it into a file folder used for peer to peer file sharing to the Internet. No word on what file sharing application tool was used. If it was setup as anonymous FTP, it may have been from one specific computer or wound up on hundreds if not thousands of computers.

The Post reveals;

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

Washington Post staff reporters Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane indicate that they did not receive the document directly from the employee personal computer, but through other sources.

The website for the Ethics Committee issued a release immediately following the story by the Post and stated that regardless of how much cyber security was put into place, it was impossible to avoid ‘individual error’.

Ironically, prominently placed on their website is a direct link of employee training & responsibilities on Ethics. What astounds me is how an employee would even think it’s necessary to put such sensitive information onto a personal computer at home. Surely there must be more to this story than just a whole whack of rules that a staffer on the Ethics Committee chose to ignore. Sounds like somebody escaped a plethora of federal charges. If not, there may be one more investigation to add to the list.

November 2nd, 2009

Net Neutrality: You own the Internet - make sure it becomes Law

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 2, 2009 @ 6:23 AM

Categories: Censorship, Congress, Copyright, Courts, Cybercrime, E-government, FCC, International, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Net neutrality, Privacy, Regulations, Security, Social networks, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, Web services

Tags: Regulation, Net Neutrality, Law, News Organization, Changes, Internet, Doug Hanchard

Last week I wrote about how Net Neutrality could be blown to pieces in satire and followed up with another piece suggesting that the Internet is not free from government monopolies and corporate service providers. An advocate of an open system that has choice and no boundaries barring access needs some ammunition to fight back with. It has plenty if used appropriately.

For the first time in the world, there’s a service that has a unique platform, allowing all free people to interact, demonstrate, express and bind together to resolve issues. The internet is the vehicle which has and will continue to drive change, innovation, and create an entirely new political landscape that does not have limitations. Could turn out to be a bad or good thing. But internet users will be decision makers on this point, not corporations. Read the rest of this entry »

July 2nd, 2009

MySpace suicide conviction tentatively overturned

Posted by Richard Koman @ July 2, 2009 @ 10:27 PM

Categories: Courts, Cybercrime

Tags:

It looks like Lori Drew - the too-involved-in-her-daughter’s-social-problems mom whose MySpace fraud led 13-year-old Megan Meier to kill herself - will go free after all. A federal jury convicted Drew last year on three misdemeanor counts of computer fraud. But on Thursday, the judge in the case tentatively threw out the conviction, the L.A. Times reports. The dismissal isn’t final until the U.S. District Judge George H. Wu issues a final ruling.

U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien bemoaned the judge’s decision: “We call it cyber-bullying and we don’t have a law to address it,” he said at a news conference.

The original prosecution under computer fraud laws was based on the idea that by creating a fake MySpace persona - one “Josh” - Drew violated the site’s Terms of Service, and thus her misdeeds could be prosecuted as computer fraud. This worked on the jurors but the judge apparently felt that the prosecution failed to show that she created the account with the intent of harassing Meier.

“The implication was that anyone on the Internet would be a criminal if they filled out a website registration using a fake name or using the wrong age,” said Matt Zimmerman, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“And I think that was a path the judge was not terribly interested in going down.”

Missouri prosecutors declined to prosecute drew since there was no state law against cyberbullying. That’s when the U.S. Attorney picked it up under the computer fraud theory.

So how to deal with the problem? Congress might have to step in with new laws.

“Ultimately I think Congress has to deal with this issue,” said former Assistant U.S. Atty. Laurie Levenson, now a professor at Loyola Law School. “The challenge is to draft legislation that . . . isn’t so broad that it chills people’s 1st Amendment rights and is enforceable.”

November 19th, 2008

Witnesses set for MySpace suicide trial

Posted by Richard Koman @ November 19, 2008 @ 2:32 PM

Categories: Courts, Cybercrime

Tags: Juror, Suicide, MySpace, Internet, Security, Richard Koman

Well, it’s shaping up to be a juicy time at the trial of psycho-mom Lori Drew, the woman whose weirdo obsession with a neighbor girl led to the teen’s MySpace-driven suicide.

A long list of witnesses are poised to testify, Wired reports, including the parents of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old girl who committed suicide; Ashley Grills, who helped set up a phony MySpace account used to harass Meier; Jessica Mulford, a neighborhood teen who sent a message to Meier in the guise of “Josh,” a character Drew created to communicate with Meier; and Jessica’s mother, Michele Mulford, who said Drew called her daugher after the suicide to tell her to “keep her mouth shut.”

And there’s more: Drew’s hairdresser (Drew supposedly confided in her about the hoax as it unfolded) and a deputy sheriff who spoke with Drew after Meier’s suicide.

U.S. District Judge George Wu gave the defense extra time to review prospective jurors’ responses after it became clear there was pretty strong negative feeling towards Drew. Asked if they could be impartial in the case, several jurors said no, only to reverse themselves when asked to explain.

One woman indicated a bias based on personal history. Her daughter’s best friend had committed suicide and her husband’s nephew was accused of harassing someone through MySpace. She said, however, that she thought she could approach Drew’s case objectively.

Another woman told Wu, “I heard so many bad things about the internet and MySpace … I see in the news all the time how dangerous it is.”

A young male prospective juror said a female friend had been the victim of cyberbullying in high school. He also said he worked with youth groups through his church and had strong feelings about how people use the internet maliciously, and about people who abuse children. His answers seemed to betray a desire to stay off the jury. But then he, too, said he felt he could be impartial.

Nothing that happens in court can be odder than the basis of the charges against Drew: that she violated MySpace’s license agreement with intent to inflict harm on Megan. The basis of the charge is that she violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by lying about herself, soliciting personal information from a minor, and using information from MySpace to harm Megan.

The tort is not Megan’s suicide but the emotional distress she suffered. It’s a novel use of an anti-hacking law to punish a terrible but probably not criminal act. But if Drew can be punished within the law, I’m all for it.

November 6th, 2008

Obama-mania gives cybercriminals an opening

Posted by Richard Koman @ November 6, 2008 @ 9:24 AM

Categories: Cybercrime, Government technology, Obama

Tags: Malware, E-mail, Online Communications, Richard Koman

Here’s another implication of the Connected President: malware authors see a huge opportunity to infect computers. Ben Worthen blogs at the Wall Street Journal that millions of emails went out Wednesday inviting people to click on a link to watch an “amazing” Obama speech.

The email directs you to a site deemed America.gov, which apparently is meant to be a State Department site, and includes a message to download “Adobe Flash,” in reality a piece of malware, to view the speech. (Of course, the current State Department wouldn’t be hawking Obama speeches and any such PR would be the job of a White House site, not State.)

Tech-security company Cloudmark has seen more than 10 million of the fake Obama emails over the last few hours. Sophos, another tech-security company, says that the email accounted for 60% of all malicious junk messages Wednesday. Cyber criminals often peg their attacks to current events – the collapse of the stock market, for example, or anything Paris Hilton does. But the amount of Obama-themed messages has surprised even security researchers.

Exactly because Obama has used email so pervasively – towards the end it wasn’t uncommon to get five emails a day from the campaign – supporters are especially at risk of letting down their guard and clicking blithely away.

Perhaps because he will perceive safe communications with citizens as critical, Obama’s tech advisors will take the lead in moving the industry towards some form of secure email standards?