:: Cybertelecom :: Federal Internet Law and Policy ::

In Which We Learn the Cost of Letting a Domain Name Expire During a Litigation
If you let a domain name expire during a pending Anti Cybersquatter Consumer Protection Act case, and are ordered to transfer that domain name to plaintiff, is now impossible for you to transfer the expired domain name? Apparently not.

October is CyberSecurity Month
"National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), conducted every October since 2004, is a national public awareness campaign to encourage everyone to protect their computers and our nation’s critical cyber infrastructure. Cyber security requires vigilance 365 days per year. However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), the primary drivers of NCSAM, coordinate to shed a brighter light in October on what home users, schools, businesses and governments need to do in order to protect their computers, children, and data."

WHOIS Dat who say WHOIS Dat when I say WHOIS Dat?
Using WHOIS a discovery technique to discover who is messing with you, and learning the subpoena's used in limited discovery generally wont get you full server logs.

ReTweet ReLawsuit?
If Joe comes to my Web 2.0 site and posts a defamatory comment about Jane, I am not a publisher of that comment pursuant to Sec. 230 even though it is on my site, and therefore am not liable. But what happens if I retweet Joe's comment?

A Hack. A Scrape. A Crash. A Lawsuit. Snap-On Business Solutions, Inc., v O'Neil Associates, Inc., (ND Ohio April 16, 2010)
In today's story , we hear a tale of a business deal gone sour, the alleged hacking and crashing of a computer system, data that are free except when it's not, and words that don't always mean what they appear to mean. Can Daffy's access to a database be unauthorized if Thurston controls who has access, and Thurston gave Daffy permission to access? Does Thurston violate copyright law when the data in the database is his, and he makes a copy of it? This sounds like a case for Motion-to-Dismiss-Man and his somewhat incredible superpowers!

1910 Navy Radio Station in Arlington, VA
This short history story comes from Arlington Virginia, home town of the 1910 US Navy Radio station. Back in the day, before broadcast radio - before the Federal Communications Commission - heck even before the Federal Radio Commission -- folk were interested in "wireless" as a means for ship-to-shore communications. Marconi monopolized commercial wireless telegraph service to shipping - while the US Navy took interest in the ability to communicate with the fleet at sea. The first federal agency to exercise regulatory spectrum authority was in fact not the FCC but the US Navy . Anyway, on with this great story....

Virtual Banishment and the First Amendment: Estavillo v. Sony Computer Entertainment of America
Many of us host or sponsor online communities of one form or another. On occasion, this means we must engage in moderation of the discourse in that community, and, as chance may arise, on occasion, we must give some chap the boot from the community for violating the AUP or the TOS. Inevitable, the booted chap screams “First Amendment Violation,” to which we must respond, “The First Amendment restrains government actors – we are not government actors.” Apparently, we are correct.

Speaking of Cyber Security, OnGuard Online has just released its new guide NetCetera: Talking to Kids About Online Safety. "In Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online, OnGuard Online gives adults practical tips to help kids navigate the online world. Kids and parents have many ways of socializing and communicating online, but they come with certain risks. This guide encourages parents to reduce the risks by talking to kids about how they communicate – online and off – and helping kids engage in conduct they can be proud of. Net Cetera covers what parents need to know, where to go for more information, and issues to raise with kids about living their lives online."

"Steal More WiFi!", Cybertelecom Research Paper #8, v 0.9 (Discussion Draft) (released Jan. 26, 2009)

In Which We (Once Again) Consider: Is it Legal to Link? Plaintiff Voldemort demands that Blockshopper, a real estate news site, stop linking to Plaintiff - and objects to the mere mention of Plaintiff's name. Better do as Voldemort says! Dont link to plaintiff and dont mention plaintiff's name!

In Which We Consider the History of Unlicensed Wireless Broadband In the beginning all was unlicensed and spread spectrum. In the early days of radio operation, there was little agreement or coordination on what frequencies transmitting and receiving radios should be set to. The solution was brute force - pump up the power and broadcast all over the radio dial. This was before governments had realized it might be nice to be able to send a radio message to their battleships without interference from other radio operators. So the feds stepped in with a licensing regime that determined who had permission to transmit, where, when, and with how much power. And that's the way it was for 60 years. In the mean time, the most beautiful woman on film developed a way to elude interference, otherwise known as jamming, through frequency hopping, otherwise known as spread spectrum. It would take decades for her vision to come to fruition, but eventually, with the issue of interference solved by technology instead of a licensing regime, the FCC could unleash the unlicensed revolution.

In Which We Explore the Federal Laws that Apply to Cyberstalking Cyberstalking is a tragedy to which current law responds poorly. The solution is (A) rewrite local law in order to cover the Internet, (B) attempt to jam an unfortunate event into a law that was not designed to cover the event, or (C) look to enforcement of annoying federal laws? Fortunately, the feds have some clear advice for us on this matter.

History Teaches Us Nothing: If there is one thing we learn from history, it is that we learn nothing from history! I love communications history. So frequently with our narrow vision of the present we presume that we are in an era of innovation and dramatically new paradigms - when so much of what is, already has been. I stumbled upon a wonderful government history, Captain Linwood S. Howeth, USN (Retired), History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, Bureau of Ships and Office of Naval History (1963) (Govt Work: public domain), which talks about such things as Marconi refusing to deliver messages because the transmitting radio station was not using Marconi radio equipment. Hum, where I have I heard of that problem before. Select portions of this text have been uploaded to the history section.

Steal More Wifi, part 2! Charlie the Unicorn pulls up to parking lot of the local coffee house driving his convertible Mustang (what else would he be driving). He opens his laptop, finds an open WiFi network, and searches eBay in the hopes of finding that new kidney that he so desperately needs. Pop quiz: What law has Charlie broken?

NSFNET: The Partnership that Changed the World

On November 29 & 30, in Washington DC was an NSFNET Celebration. It was an oral history project. Almost all of the primary people from the primary organizations (NSF, MERIT, IBM, MCI) were present, retelling the NSFNET Story. I was fascinated. It is, like so many things, like looking a picture in black and white, and then seeing the same picture in color. So much was added to my understanding of the history. Things like - the "network of network?" - that was NSFNET. NSFNET established the network hierarchy and "tiers." The roots of NSF's use of "cooperative agreements" and how that created the foundation of future policy struggles. This was not, after all, a simple R&D and transfer of technology project that NSF funded. This was, as the NSFNET Final Report stated, communications infrastructure, vital to the success of our economy and culture. At any rate, all this led to significant revisions to CT's history section. Take a look; give feedback!

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