Recycling Law Boosts Hi-Tech Transfer.

Here is further evidence of the somewhat circular relationship between the law and technology whereby advancing technology begets the law which then begets the technology required to beget laws capable of dealing with some of the Hi-Tech Crimes mentioned in my last blog. Sachin’s comments expand upon that conundrum. I apologise in advance if this blog begets any headaches.

This BBC article: Recycling Law Boosts Hi-Tech Transfer, discusses the phenomenal waste disposal problem that hardware producers have created in their efforts to satisfy market demand for technology. Once again the result is a new law to deal with the problem. In 2008 this law will be in force in England and it will compel hi-tech manufacturers to find greener ways of making electronic goods and also recycle their own discarded products.

High Tech Crimes

In my research essay I presented one argument that improved speed and accessibility of legal information brought about by the expansion of cyberspace, may at a certain point, become problematic for the legal profession. There may be a point whereat the production and availability of information might outpace the pace at which the common law needs to operate. Justice Kirby identified some of the issues associated with this phenomenon n his article Beyond the Dark Chaos, which I did an earlier post on.

In Azzopardi v R (2001) the HCA described the law relating to an accused’s right to silence in a criminal trial as having developed at a “meandering” pace over more than 100 years. In my opinion this obiter does show that sometimes the law must be allowed to develop at a pace that is indeed contrary to that which cyberspace operates at.

This argument however, tends to run into a barricade when we encounter cyberspace specific crime. I recently came across an Australian Institute of Criminology brief on High Tech Crime and was astonished at the number of new crimes and old crimes committed in new ways via cyberspace. With crimes such a phreaking, hacking, smurfing, phishing, account harvesting and spamming it would logically follow that the law would be certainly unable to meander if it is to successfully identify and process offenders.

Mark

The Future of Law Books

I am not sure if Russell spoke about Gerry Riskin last Saturday but his web site: Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices, has a huge blog on technology in the law and some useful links.

Mark

Why Going Online is Better For Everyone*

In his 2005 article ‘Why going online is better for everyone’, Richard Susskind describes an expert system that was recently launched by a UK based employment law firm. The system simply generates reliable contracts and employment type documents. Mr Susskind see’s this particular system as offering great benefits and reduced costs for all parties involved. This system from the law firm Eversheds can be viewed here: Eversheds.

As I drudge through my Aide Software expert system assignment I am starting to appreciate that whilst there is indeed some drudgery involved, for certain pieces of legislation, expert systems can be very useful. I commenced the assignment with a healthy degree of scepticism and whilst I still believe that there may be many more limitations for expert system applications in law, than for example, Mr Susskind might agree, the conviction of my position has diminished somewhat.

Mark

Lawyers Using Macs

I found this link through a blog on WordPress.

I have been thinking of changing to Mac with all of the viruses that PC’s get. It can be so depressing. In the USA there is now a community of Lawyers using Mac’s

Be sure to protect your PC’s against viruses!

‘Writers lost in the Wikipedia wilderness’

In yesterday’s Weekend Australian, University of Melbourne creative writing honours student, Ms Jenny Sinclair,  had a thought enlivening piece entitled ‘Writers lost in the Wikipedia wilderness’.

In this article Ms Sinclair laments the poor coverage given to Australian literature on Wikipedia.

Although Ms Sinclair does touch on the questionable publishing integrity of the site, she points to statistics, suggesting that Wikipedia receives up to 14,000 hits a second, as reason enough to declare the on-line encyclopedia as having ‘arrived’. 

In a comment posted in response to Sachin’s ‘Wiki Wars’ posting, I suggested that perhaps Wikipedia, as a tool that is accessible to the masses - to be edited in an unrestrained manner-is the very tool that can best arrive at a pluralistic truth.  Ms Sinclair agrees that the quality assurance within Wikipedia, comes from the ‘wisdom of crowds in action’, and rather than question its integrity, we should all jump in and do our bit by way of providing some editorial support.

Mark

Aide Software?

I am having problems running programs in the Aide software.  I get an ‘error on page’ message evertime I try.  Can anyone help?  Have I forgotten something or is there a problem at the moment?

thanks

Mark

Free The Law – Beyond The “Dark Chaos”-Kirby J

Some of you may have come across this journal article whilst researching for your essays.  I found Kirby’s comments interesting from the perspective that we seem to assume that technology makes the law (and life) easier.  Here Kirby J points out some of the adverse consequences of having fast and accessible legal information via the Internet.

Check it out if you haven’t already

Free The Law

Wiki Wars cont

I had made the comment below, on Sachin’s blog earlier.  I have found the Callinan J judgment referred to in; Woods v Multi-Sport Holdings (2002).  Check his beautiful ramblings at [165] where he questions whether there is a true history at all in a postmodernist world.

 

 

I read with cajolery, (my word for the day) your comments about ‘Wiki Wars’ and wonder about the integrity of the content of any Wiki.  My thoughts continue to perplex into a philosophical quandary.  I commented in an earlier blog: Blogging, who do we think we are? , about the indelible stain of questionable credibility that attaches itself to any internet ‘publication’.  However now I wonder more spatially if we can ever be certain of any truth.  For example we know from our own understanding of law that courts need to deal with two forms of facts:  facts which must be formally proved, and other background knowledge that the judge can take judicial notice of as fact (which need  need not be proven). The law actualises that ‘truth’ is usually, merely someones version of the truth.  History similarly, is someones version of facts, (I think Callinan J said something like this in a judgment.  I will try to find it and post it).  In a pluralistic society perhaps we really do need to accept that there is never one truth and just maybe a freely accessible Wiki – accessible to the masses to be edited in an unrestrained manner, is the very tool that can best arrive at a pluralistic truth.

eGanges – Smooth Sailing for Lawyers or a Futile Fishing Expedition?

Lecture by Ms Pamela N. Gray – Saturday 26th August 2006 

   Locals enjoy some futile fishing in the Ganges River.  The total length of the river is about 2,510 km which may still be shorter than the human reasoning process involved in a sexual assault case.

The eGanges ‘River paradigm’, according to Ms Gray, has been used extensively for quality control in manufacturing processes.  Indeed expert systems seem to have a wide scope for application in any process that operates within a ‘closed system’.  However ‘Systems analysis’, (which is a logical foundation for the building of expert systems), becomes inherently uncertain in open system environments.  Whilst manufacturing processes may involve interactions that are clearly determinable and can be readily ‘isomorphised’ into computer based expert systems, they are by nature, largely ‘closed systems’.  Furthermore manufacturing processes are by and large, devoid of humanistic interactions.  On the contrary human decision making processes are generally ‘open systems’ and bereft of the mathematical methodology that is characteristic of  manufacturing processes and so complaisant to isomorphism.

Decision making in Law is not only an open system, the theories of jurisprudence seem to conflict with one of the important assumptions of expert systems.  That is Law is not and can never be a system of easily interpreted rules.  There is human discretion at many levels and jurisprudence theory tells us that eliminating this discretion can undermine the adversarial, common law quest for justice. Ms Gray recounted a court room example of a barrister, in cross-examination of an alleged victim of a sexual assault, who was able to adduce evidence that supported the defendant’s case.  I wish to invite comment on how eGanges may have been able to deal with this situation to the satisfaction of the prosecution?  Ms Gray’s suggestion was that it can do so quite easily.  The Uniform Evidence Act is not explicit on how this should be done so I cannot imagine how any expert system can offer a quick solution.