Category Archives: Tech Developments

A Legal Primer for Bloggers – Introduction

01 Tuesday Sep 2009

Posted by in Authors, Bloggers, Indiana, Intellectual Property, Social Media, Tech Developments

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blogindianaI recently attended Blog Indiana 2009, a 3-day blogging and social media conference that aimed to promote education, innovation and collaboration among Indiana’s fast-growing blogging community.  The conference was very informative and had an extraordinary turnout.  However, despite all the great information we were getting, it became clear that a lot of legal issues were going unanswered (or un-asked).  Being the only attorney in the packed room, that wasn’t totally surprising.  However, knowing that these issues are important for every blogger to at least consider, I’ve decided to prepare a series of posts dealing specifically with the legal issues that bloggers should be thinking about.

My idea to write these posts was reinforced last week when news came out about a recent case where a court granted a plaintiff’s request to force Google to reveal the e-mail address and IP address of an anonymous blogger who allegedly defamed the plaintiff.  Clearly a big hit against anonymous blogging…more on that in a future post.

EFF-logo-transFirst things first, if you want the ultimate source for information on bloggers’ rights, check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (“EFF”) excellent FAQ series.  If you’re a blogger and not yet familiar with EFF, you should be.  After all, they’ve been doing you a world of good for the last two decades.  Quick intro…the Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit advocacy and legal organization dedicated to preserving the right to freedom of speech in the context of today’s digital age.  I have several friends over at EFF and they’re all top-notch people with top-notch legal minds doing top-notch legal work.  ‘Nuff said about that.  On with the info that you want:

Bloggers’ Legal Issues

Bloggers, while hailing from a variety of political, economic and social backgrounds, all have one thing in common…they’ve got something to say.  From cake recipes to motherhood to Indiana Intellectual Property updates, the constant is that bloggers have something to say, often regardless of the size or stature of their audience.  Blogs have provided a great forum for publishing directly to an interested public.  As such, a blogger needs to consider the same legal issues as anyone making a widely-available publication.  Specifically, the astute blogger will want to at least be familiar with:

  • Intellectual Property (Copyright, Trademark)
  • Defamation (Truth as Defense, Public v. Private Figures)
  • Anonymity (First Amendment Protection, Subpoenas)
  • Privacy (Publication of Private Information, “Newsworthy” Information)

Keep in mind that laws vary from state to state.

While the Constitution and federal laws, such as copyright law, apply nationwide, many laws that affect bloggers vary from state to state. For example, defamation and privacy laws are defined by each state.  This blog series will focus on Indiana’s laws, but bloggers should consider checking the law of their jurisdiction (or ask an attorney to look into it for you.)

What about those crazy comments?

Generally, you have a First Amendment right to publish your blog in the way that you want, which includes the right to choose who may participate in discussions on your blog.  That means you’re able to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.  But always be conscientious when removing someone else’s voice from the dialogue…with great power comes great responsibility.

With that general introduction out of the way, the next post in the series will be: A Legal Primer for Bloggers: Intellectual Property.  The post will help you understand your rights to link to information or graphics from other sources, quote from articles and blogs, or otherwise use someone else’s copyrighted works.  It will also discuss the appropriate use of trademarks in blogs (both yours and 3rd-party marks).

More on EFF – EFF is a donor-funded nonprofit and depends on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights. Litigation is particularly expensive; two-thirds of EFF’s budget comes from individual donors, so every contribution is critical to helping EFF fight — and win — more cases.  Want to know how EFF has already helped?  EFF has taken action in several ways; it provides or funds legal defense in court, defends individuals and new technologies from the chilling effects of what it considers baseless or misdirected legal threats, provides guidance to the government and courts, organizes political action and mass mailings, supports some new technologies which it believes preserve personal freedoms, maintains a database and web sites of related news and information, monitors and challenges potential legislation that it believes would infringe on personal liberties and fair use, and solicits a list of what it considers patent abuses with intentions to defeat those that it considers without merit.

A Legal Primer for Bloggers

Part 1: INTRODUCTION

Part 2: Intellectual Property

Part 3: Defamation

Part 4: Anonymity

Part 5: Privacy

Indianapolis Chosen as U.S. Center for Hacking Research

31 Monday Aug 2009

Posted by in Indiana, Tech Developments

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Press Release – The international non-profit, security research institute ISECOM has chosen Indianapolis as their U.S. base for projects and research.  ISECOM is best known for freely providing the OSSTMM, a worldwide standard methodology for security testing which is used to hack computer systems, trick people, and get around home security sensors and alarms to test their effectiveness.

Indiana native, Chris Griffin, is responsible for getting ISECOM to come here. Griffin got involved with ISECOM in 2004 as a volunteer and worked his way to being a core team member where he assisted writing the Hacking Exposed Linux third edition. He then took the next step and flew to Barcelona, Spain, for a “train the trainer” session where security experts fly in from all over the world to attend an extremely intensive 3 day bootcamp of 16 hour days to pass 4 exams of 4 hours each. Certified in security testing and analysis, this qualified Griffin as an accredited ISECOM trainer, one of just 5 in the USA.

isecomlogo“I was working as a government contractor in security and I just couldn’t believe it when I saw this incredibly new direction in Internet Security that was so effective and here we were still making the same mistakes by focusing on products instead of solutions,” says Griffin. “So I just knew we had to get that knowledge out to others here in the U.S. as quickly as possible.”

Griffin is not the first American to be impressed with ISECOM. Organizations such as the Department of Justice, FBI, NSA, and all the military branches have used the OSSTMM for security tests and have even trained some of their people. Companies like Walmart, Disney, IBM, and Intel have also trained people and applied the ISECOM methodology.

“Even the Vatican got their people trained,” says Griffin. “ISECOM know-how is in big demand but there was almost nobody here who can bring it. So I’m doing it.”

Griffin thinks bringing the ISECOM projects and research to Indiana is advantageous for the state in this knowledge economy since so much focus is needed to securing intellectual property. Therefore he is talking to other security organizations, government, and universities for collaboration. He will be teaching his first official class in OSSTMM Professional Security Analysis (OPSA) the week of September 21st at the new Public Agency Training Council building of Indianapolis. The class focuses on “critical security thinking and analysis”. According to ISECOM (isecom.org), much of the security models currently in use are built from best practices which have a way of not being best for everyone. The OPSA teaches people how to investigate, deconstruct, and measure the security of anything to assure it has the unique, and optimum solution it needs.

Griffin is also extending the ISECOM project, Hacker Highschool, to Indiana, which teaches teens resourcefulness and critical security thinking through hacking. The project provides schools free lesson books and access to a safe, hacker playground, a test network specifically for experimentation.

“We can’t turn away from the curiosity these kids have about hacking and expect them to just drop it,” said Pete Herzog, the Managing Director of ISECOM, in a BBC interview. “We need to harness that enthusiasm and help them learn, guide them, and let them understand there are responsibilities and consequences that come with that kind of knowledge.”

Indiana high schools who want to get involved in the Hacker Highschool project or security professionals who are interested in the upcoming OPSA class should contact Griffin.

Source: Newswire Today

What I’m Reading – The World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education

25 Tuesday Aug 2009

Posted by in Authors, Indiana, Tech Developments, What I'm Reading

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On top of all the blogs, law journals, and case updates that I read each day, I also make sure to set aside time to read one Intellectual Property or Tech law book each month.  When I find a book that might be useful for clients, I post it:

worldisopenThe World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education by Curtis J. Bonk, a professor of instructional systems technology at Indiana University.

Technology is changing higher education in more ways than can be counted. Distance education has become common. Leading universities are putting course materials or even entire courses online — free. The Obama plan for community colleges envisions free online courses that could be used nationwide. Professor Bonk surveys this landscape in this new book.

Click here for a full interview w/ Prof. Bonk discussing such topics as the “open” educational movement, online courses, anger at wikis and the future of higher education.

Electronic Signatures on Online Forms

24 Monday Aug 2009

Posted by in KLF Legal, Tech Developments

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The following is a guest post I wrote for FormSpring’s blog a few weeks back re: Electronic Signatures on Online Forms.  FormSpring provides organizations with an easy way to build web forms that integrate with their websites without any programming, software, or special skills.

formspringlogo

FormSpring customers often ask about collecting electronic signatures via FormSpring’s web forms. Here are some examples of the types of questions customers are asking:

  • Does your product offer a way to do verifiable signatures? My client wants to post job applications online which will need this functionality.
  • Our company is looking to add an online enrollment form with an electronic signature on our web site. Is this something you can help with?
  • We have a contract that we want to get up online but are not sure of the most efficient way to do it. The majority of it is in a word document and we’d like to add payment integration and some contact info input and a digital signature.
  • We have a waiver, disclamer, and legal notice that we need to have a digital signature on before they submit payment via PayPal. Can I do this?

FormSpring does a wonderful technical job of making these options available to their customers, and I’ll leave it to them to explain how they work their magic. But they’ve asked that I help explain the legality/enforceability of electronic signatures. Ultimately, being legal or enforceable means that a court would accept an electronic signature collected via your form as admissible trial evidence should there ever be a dispute that requires court intervention.

First, I’ll preface this post by saying that Adobe previously ran an excellent series of blog posts on the topic of electronic signatures. These posts are definitely worth a read if you’re interested in more information on electronic signatures:

  1. “So what is an electronic signature anyway?“
  2. “Trust Us!” – Electronic Signatures and Assurance
  3. “This is legal, right?” – Electronic Signatures & The Law

I’ll address some of those points here as they pertain to web forms. First, what is an electronic signature, and how does it differ from a traditional pen-to-paper signature? Obviously it’s electronic and not ink, but there’s more to it than that…or is there?

In commerce and the law, a signature on a document is an indication that the person adopts the intentions recorded in the document. Accordingly, an electronic signature is any legally recognized electronic means that indicates that a person adopts the contents of an electronic message.

The historical legal concept of “signature” is broader. It recognizes any mark made with the intention of authenticating the marked document. Hence, an “X” can often suffice as a proper signature.

Courts will accept an “electronic signature” as a “signature” so long as it meets the definition set forth by precedent and law (in other words, the definition varies by jurisdiction). An electronic signature and a pen-to-paper signature are equivalent in most respects, and can admissible in trial.

That being said, all signatures (whether electronic or old-school) intended to be entered into evidence in a trial need to be assessed for “admissibility.” Some of the threshold evidentiary questions are: Does it represent the intent of the signatory? Has the document/form been altered? Who had the right to sign this document/form? How was the signature derived, and what controlled access to the document for its signature? These questions come into play no matter the type of signature.

Higher assurance signature methods that better authenticate the signatory, such as encryption or username/password requirements, are more likely to be accepted than signature technologies which provide lesser assurance. While an electronic signature may be a legal signature, it can still be held inadmissible if the judge feels that the signature process did not provide the appropriate level of assurance.

Electronic Signatures and Records Association, an organization which seeks to expand knowledge on both electronic signature and records, plays an active role in public policy on these topics. Check them out for additional information on the legality of electronic signatures.

In the next installment, I’ll discuss the difference between electronic signatures and digital signatures. See you then.

Opportunities and Barriers in Alternative Energy – TechPoint Event 9/4/09

22 Saturday Aug 2009

Posted by in Indiana, Tech Developments

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The Obama administration has set ambitious goals for renewable energy and other ‘clean’ technologies – like doubling renewable energy use within three years and putting a million plug-in electric vehicles on U.S. highways by 2015 – and backed them up with significant federal funding. Venture capitalists have bought in, investing in the energy sector at record levels.

So what are the barriers that still inhibit the markets for wind power, fuel cells, coal gasification and other energy advances? How can Indiana help break down these barriers and reap the economic benefits? Register for this month’s New Economy New Rules for the answers.

techPoint-Logo

Speakers:

Noel M. Davis, Principal, JGC Industries, LLC
Greg Winkler, Director, Project Development, Brevini Wind USA, Inc
Leon Steinberg, Chief Executive Officer, National Wind LLC

Date: September 4, 2009

8:00 a.m. Registration and continental breakfast
8:30 – 9:30 a.m. Presentation

Click here to register.

Hope to see you there!