Legal Research

Botnets, Zombies, Malware, Trojans, Spam, Phishing … Oy!

Posted on October 21, 2008
There’s an interesting article in today’s NY Times about botnets — networks of “zombie” PCs that have been compromised by malware such as Trojan Horses — that are being used by criminals worldwide to distribute spam and carry our phishing attacks...

ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, 2008-2009

Posted on October 20, 2008
By Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, SponsorThis publication sets forth the standards that law schools must meet to obtain ABA approval. The 2008-2009 edition reflects all changes and/or revisions made at the August 2008 Annual Meeting of the Section’s Council...

Compiling Bibliographies in JAC, Jenkins’ Catalog

Posted on October 17, 2008
Q: I am working on compiling a bibliography for a research project and would like to know how I can accomplish this by using JAC. A: You’re in luck. JAC offers a new feature of creating lists (called My Lists) To use this feature: Login to MyJAC Click on “Search JAC” button to search JAC From [...

True Or False: George Orwell Was Born In England?

Posted on October 16, 2008
False — it was India. But he was English.  And today the English government is starting to look more and more like the Big Brother regime Orwell envisioned in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.   The NY Times reports that the government is considering the creation of a giant database containing Internet, email and telephone traffic in [...

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Using HTTPS with Gmail

Posted on October 16, 2008
I’ve created a three-minute video discussing how to use HTTPS with Gmail.  I’ve blogged about this previously, but hopefully the video will help you understand the benefits of an encrypted email connection when you’re accessing your mailbox in a public location such as a coffee bar or airport.

Apple’s Version of the “Changing of the Guard”?

Posted on October 15, 2008
Maybe … Maybe not.  But yesterday’s Apple event, launching their refreshed line of laptops, sure featured a whole lot less of Steve Jobs than we’re used to.  He still talked for about 30 minutes, though — not bad for a guy who’s died and had a heart attack (in that order) since the end of [...

This Explains Why I Only Saw 406 Junk Messages In My Email This Morning

Posted on October 15, 2008
Yesterday the NY Times reported that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission shut down a major spammer network.  From the article: At one point, the network accounted for 1/3 of all spam Their botnet consisted of 35,000 compromised PCs — Notice I wrote “PCs” and not “computers”...

Next-Generation Search Engines: The Movie

Posted on October 15, 2008
I’ve prepared a three-minute video on a couple of the most interesting next-generation search engines: Searchme and Powerset.  Enjoy!

Lawrence Lessig is a Pirates Fan

Posted on October 15, 2008
Lawrence Lessig posted a thoughful essay, In Defense of Piracy, in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) on Saturday.  What he calls piracy, I’d call “mashups” or “remixes”, but then you’re left with “In Defense of Remixes”, which is pretty flat indeed...

My Second Public Service Announcement

Posted on October 14, 2008
(Here’s the first.)  Anyway, in case you haven’t noticed, our economy melted down last week.  I’ll leave the messy details to others.  Suffice it to say that a lot of banks are a tad shaky just now, and some have been swallowed by others...

Where We At With Anonymizing Google?

Posted on October 14, 2008
Danny Sullivan has written an excellent status report for Google’s program for anonymizing user data.  Key points: Google is anonymizing only the last octet of the IP address with zeros, i.e. 12.345.678.000.  This is a compromise between privacy on the one hand, and, on the other, having enough of the IP address in order to do [...

Google’s Keeping Their Lawyers Busy [UPDATED]

Posted on October 14, 2008
Google’s trying to head the Department of Justice off at the pass in order to try to reach a settlement concerning their advertising deal with Yahoo, reports the Wall Street Journal today (subscription required).  We’ll see how that goes — a lot of people have already piled on, urging a “no” vote...

The Reflective Counselor: Daily Meditations for Lawyers

Posted on October 13, 2008
By Maureen C. Kessler, F. Gregory CoffeyThis is the only book of it's kind written just for lawyers. Reverse the burnout trend, and discover how easy it is to put energy and enthusiasm back into your career with this once-a-day meditation strategy, you won't be disappointed...

Let’s See … Which Persona Will I Be This Time?

Posted on October 10, 2008
I’ve been using Zoho for, I guess, a couple of years now.  They offer a great suite of online tools: text editor, presentation manager, spreadsheet database, and a lot more.  Unfortunately, they — like just about everyone else — are overshadowed by Google...

Text JAC Records To Your Cellphone

Posted on October 09, 2008
Let’s say you’ve searched JAC, Jenkins’ Automated Catalog, and you’re viewing the record for a book that is on-point. You could: Print it out, which is a waste of paper and toner Get a scrap of paper, find a pencil buried somewhere in your briefcase, write down the call number and hope you don’t misplace it Use [...

If It Was My Kid

Posted on October 08, 2008
He’s only 20 years old.  It was a game that went too far.  Politics played a part, too. But why, oh why, did David Kernell think that hacking into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s email account and posting that info for others to see was a good idea?  He had to know that the trail would point [...

England Changes Patient Consent Policy for Electronic Health Records

Posted on October 08, 2008
One of my previous blogs discussed some of the security issues with the National Health Service’s Connecting for Health IT Programme. A recent article in the Financial Times reports that the NHS has changed the way that patients can consent to having their Electronic Health Record (EHR) posted online...

Thanks For Making Me Feel Old

Posted on October 08, 2008
Google has introduced a new feature to Gmail, Mail Goggles, designed to slow you down before you send that late-night email on the weekend that you’ll regret come Monday morning. Unlike Jon Perlow, the Gmail engineer who posted about Mail Goggles, I don’t have any email regrets with ex-girlfriends...

As a Public Service …

Posted on October 08, 2008
… I present you with a guide for stopping cellphone spam. One of the options involves blocking text messages sent through email.  (You may not be aware that your cellphone has an email address.  For AT&T, my carrier, it’s phone_number@text...

The Database of Intentions, Then … and Now

Posted on October 07, 2008
As part of Google’s never-ending 10th birthday party, they’ve got a link on their homepage to their oldest available index, from January 2001.  Come with me to a kinder, gentler time, when: A query for paris hilton returned pages about hotels instead of a spoiled bimbo...

LexisNexis Congressional

Posted on October 07, 2008
We’ve just added a great new resource to our Member Online Services. LexisNexis Congressional is available 24/7 to all Jenkins members. This web site will help all of those federal legislative researchers out there. For starters, it provides access to the Statutes at Large (1789-present) and the United States Code...

The Legal Career Guide, Fifth Edition

Posted on October 06, 2008
By Gary A. Munneke, Ellen WayneWritten by a law professor at Pace University School of Law and the Dean of Career Services at Columbia University School of Law, New York, this fifth edition of one of the ABA’s bestselling career guide books has been updated to address the unique needs of today’s law students [...

David Pogue’s Tech 101 Class Is Now In Session

Posted on October 06, 2008
David Pogue over at the NY Times has posted Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User.  As he puts it: “One of these days, I’m going to write a book called, ‘The Basics.’  It’s going to be a compendium of the essential tech bits that you just assume everyone knows — but you’re wrong … I’m [...

Linux At 17: It’s Old Enough To Drive, But I Wouldn’t Loan It My Car

Posted on October 06, 2008
Linux journal reports that yesterday (October 5) was the 17th anniversary of Linus Torvald’s post to the comp.os.minix newsgroup announcing the availablility of what we now know as Linux. I have a love-hate relationship with Linux.  It’s such a cool concept, but a real pain to deal with...

It Ain’t Bragging If You Can Do It

Posted on October 06, 2008
You may remember that when the iPhone was introduced in January 2007 Steve Jobs predicted that Apple would sell 10 million of ‘em by the end of 2008.  According to Fortune, it looks like they may have gotten the job done with 3 months to spare.

Steve Jobs Had a Heart Attack? Whew … I Thought It Might Be Something Serious!

Posted on October 03, 2008
‘Cause the first time, they said he was dead. Anyway, Silicon Alley Insider reports that a “citizen journalist” posted a fake story on CNN’s iReport.com about Steve having a heart attack.  (Does everything have to have a lower-case “i” in front of it now?  Is that like a Web 2...

KGB and Keystone Kops, All Rolled Into One [UPDATED]

Posted on October 02, 2008
John Markoff reports today about how the Chinese government blocks chat messages sent by TOM-Skype users containing forbidden words, then logs the text of the message, date and time, and the IP address and user name of the sender.  They even log chats between TOM-Skype users in China and Skype members in other countries...

Brinkmanship

Posted on October 01, 2008
Wired reports today that Apple has threatened to shut down the iTunes Store if the Copyright Royalty Board votes on Thursday to increase by .06 the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters. That’s right, they’ll close down iTunes. Apple pays about $...

… And Yet More Control

Posted on October 01, 2008
Thomson Reuters is suing George Mason University, arguing that the university reverse-engineered Thomson’s EndNote citation software and created a free Firefox extension called Zotero.  Thomson wants GMU to stop distribution of Zotero, plus damages of $10 million for each year it’s been available...

Anonymous Web Browsing

Posted on October 01, 2008
For at least a year now, I’ve been interested in installing and using Tor, the software which hides your IP address by bouncing your packets among a number of servers.  But I held off — it seemed a pain to install.  Plus, to be totally protected, you need to encrypt your packets...

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