:: Cybertelecom ::

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.

Proceeds from Cybertelecom go to support good things. July's proceeds have been donated to Arlington Food Assistance Center.

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?

Taking a Shot in the Dark at Jurisdiction :: Pop Quiz: If Inspector Clouseau from New York found a Smart Fortwo Coupe on eBay for sale by Cato in New Jersey, and called Cato from New Hampshire to make the deal, and then wired Cato the money from New Mexico, and Cato had no other contact with New York, could the good Inspector sue Cato in a New York court?

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!

Caselaw Construing 47 USC 230 Immunity is Surprisingly Scant
At least according to one Arizona Superior Court: Children of America v. Magedson , CV 2007-003720 (AR Superior Court Oct. 31, 2007). The court's order itself is "surprisingly scant," thus we know little of the facts surrounding this case. What we do know is that once again it involves Ripoffreport .com. Jinkees ! The Sec. 230 caselaw for this one defendant is surprisingly robust . Ripoffreport .com must have some well paid attorney on retainer that does little more than mash the print button for the proforma Sec. 230 Motion to Dismiss form... merely taking a bit of time to scrawl in the name of the latest plaintiff.

What's Google Upsidedown???
According to Dylan Stephen Jayne, it's his social security number. Kinda-a-bummer, if true. Dylan certainly thought it was a bummer, so he sue Google - for $5 Billion - for a civil rights violation pursuant to 42 USC s 1983. Dylan Stephen Jayne v Google Internet Search Engine Founders , No 3:07cv1677 (MDPA Sept 27, 2007).

The Right to Whine :: Global Royalties, Inc., v Xcentric Ventures, LLC, (DAR October 10, 2007)
So a Canadian Mountie walks into a bar in Arizona and says to the bar tender, "I hear this guy that you have never heard of, who doesn't work for you, and who you dont control, walked in here the other day and bad mouthed a Canadian company. Since you didnt tell him to hush-up, we're going to hold you responsible. "

A Perfectly Clear Long Arm Jurisdiction Case :: Weldon-Francke v. Fisher , 06CV0386 (14 th TX Ct of App Sept. 11 , 2007)
I love Internet long-arm jurisdiction cases: they are a mire of how the judiciary deals with a defendant that has made itself available in every forum everywhere all the time all over the globe. No matter how judges grapple with notions of due process, you always are left with the feeling that one party or another got screwed. And it is wonderful to watch old school judges who grew up driving VWs grapple with this new environment, flipping through one failed metaphor after another in an attempt to pigeon-hole what would be "fair" on the Internet. There are no easy or clear cases on the sliding scale of Internet long arm jurisdiction. Except this one.

26¢ Emails - Regulated by the FCC
Time to use the Way-Back Machine. The time is 1977. The country is in a tailspin. Saturday Night Live is singing carols about killing Gary Gilmore for Christmas. President Carter takes the Oval Office and pardons Vietnam War draft evaders. The Clash releases their debut album. And the USPS is scared.
The USPS has learned about this thing called electronic mail and electronic transactions. It occurs to the USPS that if everyone were to use these electronic thingies, First Class mail would get wiped out and so would all that revenue. After some careful strategic planning, the USPS launched an attack on email with a classic pincer movement: on the left flank, the USPS initiated its own email service known as E-COM; on the rank flank, the USPS considered banning all private email service.

The Sliding Scale Jurisdiction Test: Sliding toward Jurisdiction (Crummey v. Morgan, et al, 2007 CW 0087 (LA App 1st Cir. Aug. 8 2007))
Faced with the conundrum of Internet jurisdiction, the judiciary has created a sliding scale. At the one end of this scale is purely passive sites which simply provide information and offer no level of interactivity (and if you can find any of these "purely passive" sites any more, it belongs in a museum). At the other end of the scale is the fully interactive site such as an ecommerce site where the visitor can interact with an inventory, establish a relationship with the website's company, purchase goods and services, find the status of those goods pending delivery, and provide a review of how good the product was. In between we have the fudge. If I set up an ecommerce business and sell 1 million books to Salem, Massachusetts, seems like I am purposefully availing myself of that jurisdiction. But if I put up one book for sale for whoever wants it on Craigslist, did I really intend to do business with Puritans? The sliding scale is in place because there is a certain degree of ambiguity involved.