Cyberlaw

Extreme Blogging

Chrisrine Hurt & Tung Yin have written a paper intriguingly entitled â??Blogging While Untenured and Other Extreme Sportsâ?? for the Bloggership: How Blogs are Transforming Legal Scholarship Symposium at the Berkman Center. April 28, Agenda here. The papers are available via SSRN.

The extreme sport sort of blogging is something which this site keeps coming back to – last visited here.

Hurt & Yin Write in their conclusion:

â?¦we believe that the benefits of pretenured blogging outweigh the costs in our individual situationsâ?¦ Unfortunately, this analysis must be done with an unflinching look at oneâ??s own ability to self-monitor, self-discipline, and manage oneâ??s own time.

Considering the venue it is unsurprising that the authors come out on the side of the blogs but it is precisely this that concerns me. Are they preaching to the choir? The position of untenured (and to a lesser degree those with tenure) academics can be both enhanced and threatened by the blog so a degree of self-criticism and caution may be a good thing.

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Blogging in the private/public divide

Part of blogging is attempting to figure out why we blog? Not all blogs pose this question but it appears often enough* to be recognised as being a common question. This question becomes even more relevant when the blogger takes active risks by blogging.

In an earlier post (blogging revisited 21/1105) I reported about an article concerned with the risks being taken by job-seeking academics who blog. The author of the article wrote that their blogs prevented the potential employer from hiring since they revealed a different side to the applicant than that presented at the formal interview.

A temporary prosecutor in San Francisco blogged about a case he was prosecuting:
Karnow didn’t find the postings prejudicial enough to throw out the entire case, as the defense wanted. But in turning down that motion to dismiss this week, the judge still came down hard on ex-prosecutor Jay Kuo, calling his conduct “juvenile, obnoxious and unprofessional.” … (via Lunda Wright)

Other bloggers take greater risks as whistleblowers or reporting on corrupt and/or repressive governments. While some bloggers and blogs are well protected using different means many are open and tracing the authors is a (relatively) easy task.

Organisations such as the EFF have created documents to help those who need to blog anonymously â??How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)â?? but these are either not widely known or widely used.
There seems to be something special about the blog and its place in the private/public divide. The blog is a private diary and yet it is open to the world.  The privacy promotes the sharing of secrets while the public the desire to communicate.

Why take the risks? Are they really risks or is blogging perceived to be a private act? Even though most bloggers are aware of their publicâ?¦

*Some examples from Google on the search â??why I blogâ??
Watermark – Jacobsen – Under the sun – Media Metamorphosis –

Posted on by mklang

Law & Internet Cultures

I reviewed Kathy Bowrey’s Law & Internet Cultures, Cambridge University Press for Web Journal of Current Legal Issues. Bowrey’s book is a very good piece of research and writing. Here is the punchline of my review:

This is not a book for someone looking for a quick answer or a legal ruling. It is not a howto book. It is a book for large groups of academics, activists, businessmen, lobbyists politicians and technologists who want to understand more about how the Internet as a sociotechnical system works. It is a book for anyone who wants to think and discuss the role of the Internet in society today.

Once again we see an example of how Australian legal authors are rising to the challenge to define Internet culture and legislation. The view from the antipodes is not particularly different or odd so as to be outside the interest of Internet scholars but rather refreshing, like familiar stories told with a different flavour. Even those who have heard them before will take something new with them from reading this book. ([2006] 2 Web JCLI).

In other words. Buy it or borrow it – its a great read. For more on Bowrey’s research take a look at her web site: Chickenfish.cc/copy.

Posted on by mklang

This is a pirate

Something that everyone should think about in an age when recording companies are sueing minors for piracy!

The Consumer Electronics Association is taking a brave stand against the entertainment companies’ attacks on the public’s right to record from digital radio. This is brilliant — and maybe it signals that the CEA’s members will stop manufacturing technnoloogy that controls their customers instead of empowering them. (writes Boing Boing)

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"We see you" protest today

Sweden has been erratic in moving into the surveillance society. While the bureaucratic tools such as personal identity numbers and identity cards have been used (and abused) for a long time the icon of the surveillance age â?? the camera has not.

This may be due to the Swedish trust in government. State surveillance and control is in place to make society efficient for all therefore it is to be tolerated. Private surveillance is however suspicious â?? or at least it has been.

Legal changes in camera surveillance rules in 1998 began a trend of privatised surveillance which is today causing the massive use of surveillance cameras. Amongst the more unusual uses â?? which are novel in Sweden â?? are camera surveillance of schools and workplaces.

So with the late development of the surveillance state, Swedes are also slowly developing a reaction to it. Today an organisation called Vi Ser Dig (We See You) based at the University of Linköping will stand in a central square in Stockholm take pictures of passers by in an attempt to awaken interest in the almost dead surveillance debate.

Sergels Torg – picture from D. Kolb’s cool site Sprawling Places

So if you are anywhere near Sergels Torg (between 2pm-7pm) â?? bring a camera and become part of the protest.

VISERDIG.SE Uppmanar Allmänheten/Medier/Politiker att Närvara vid Manifestationen den 27/4 kl 14-19 med Syfte att Personifiera �vervakningen!

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Word, limit & date

Thesis update

When the document hit 100 000 the word counter at the bottom of Word just disappeared! Microsoft huh! But 100k that must be cause for a celebration? I will take a walk in the sunshine and return tomorrow – would be a longer break if it wasnt for those damn deadlines.
The good news is that the date is now firmly set. I defend on Friday, 15 September!

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Text editing blues

Like bad tasting medicine editing is an aweful process which is only done because of its obvious benefits. Its terrifying the amount of errors that can be spotted at this late stage. Today I even found an incomplete sentence… it simply tapered off like someone losing a chain of thought.

This is the begining up until the research question. Not sure about it though…

This work begins with the thesis that there is a strong relationship between the regulation of technology and the Internet based participatory democracy. In other words, the attempts to regulate technology have an impact upon the citizenâ??s participation in democracy. This work will show what this relationship is and its effect on democratic participation.
Taking its starting points from the recent theoretical developments in regulation, disruptive technology and role of ICT in participatory democracy, this work is the application of three theoretical discussions. These theoretical discussions are used in the empirical exploration of six areas: virus writing and dissemination, civil disobedience in online environments, privacy and the role of spyware, the re-interpretation of property in online environments, software as infrastructure and finally state censorship of online information. The purpose of these studies is to explore the effects of these socio-technical innovations upon the core democratic values of Participation, Communication, Integrity, Property, Access and Autonomy. The overall research question for this thesis is therefore:
What are the effects of technology regulation on the Internet-based participatory democracy?

To connect to an earlier ongoing discussion about the text: The book is now 257 pages long and 99 479 words long. Do you think that word can handle going over 100 000 words or will it simply melt…

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So where the bloody hell are you?

In an attempt to grab attention the Australian Tourism has created a typical beautiful tourist add but with a twist. The tagline at the end is â??So where the bloody hell are you?â?? (referring to the tourists I guess!) The original ad can be seen here or here.

The tagline has sparked some debate. In Japan it simply does not work so it was changed to the more polite â??So why donâ??t you come?â?? (The Age). The television ad was banned in the UK for the use of â??bloodyâ??, in Canada for the line â??weâ??ve bought you a beerâ?? (Wikipedia).

The media company (Downwind Media) made a parody of the film which has caused lawyers for Tourism Australia (TA) to threatened legal action over the use of the music used in the parody (the music is similar but tune and tempo are different), TA claim that the offending tune still infringed on their copyright regardless of the musical differences. TA demanded the parody be removed from Downwind Media’s website.

See the spoof on You Tube.

The parody of the tourist advert is a legitimate form of cultural remix. It is particularly relevant since the ad sells Australian cultural icons/stereotypes. Therefore there is a great deal of legitimacy in providing alternative images of that which is sold. As in many cases such as these we can see that the supression has only increased the longevity of the spoof.

The main idea of the spoof is to juxtapose the “traditional” tourist images of tourism & Australia (e.g. outback, hospitality, kangaroos, pubs, watersports, nightlife, aborigines and beaches)

with the more negative images of Australia: violence, racism, drugs, immigration detention centers, dingos, human rights violations.

Posted on by mklang

Mobile phone privacy

Gordon Gowâ??s report on Privacy in relation to prepaid mobile phones is out now. The report Privacy Rights and Prepaid Communication Services. A survey of prepaid mobile phone regulation and registration policies among OECD member states (download pdf here) makes interesting reading on the right to privacy.

The report comes at a time when terrorism is being used as a motivation for governments to limit or prohibit anonymous mobile telephones through prepaids.

Fifteen of the 24 countries that responded to the survey do not have an identity requirement; however, at least six countries considered and rejected a prepaid registration policy following a consultation process. These countries are Canada, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands and Poland. The UK respondent indicated that the UK government might have informally considered and rejected registration.

The project website.

Posted on by mklang