Otherwise Occupied - Internet

Net Neutrality Symposium at USF

gregh — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:59:29 -0600

The Intellectual Property Law Bulletin at USF is holding a symposium on Net Neutrality. Here are the details:

Net Neutrality refers to free access to the Internet without discrimination based upon content, how often a user accesses the Internet, or the type of services and programs used.

The University of San Francisco School of Law Intellectual Property Law Bulletin is sponsoring The Toll Roads: The Legal and Political Debate Over Network Neutrality, a symposium to increase awareness about network neutrality, bringing together lawyers, academics, economists, and technologists for a balanced debate on the issue. Panelists include Tim Wu, Richard Clarke, Lawrence Spiwak, and many others.

When: January 26th, 2008 8 AM - 7 PM
Where: Fromm Institute on the University of San Francisco main campus
Web: http://www.netneutrality2008.org
Cost: Professionals (6.0 Units MCLE Credit): $100
Non-professionals: Free - $75 (see registration page for details)
Register: http://www.netneutrality2008.org/Registration.html

My current intention is to attend. It should be interesting. I'm not a huge proponent of mandated neutrality, and I'm bothered that most advocates (and some of the statements on the symposium site) suffer from the seeming belief that the Internet is and has been neutral, whereas it isn't and never has been. Hopefully, someone will be trumpeting that side.

Daily blogging.

gregh — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:12:56 -0500

Whew. I'm done.

I just let the time pass, leaving no entry on the archives calendar for August 13, 2007. On June 5, I decided to start blogging at least once per day until the end of the summer. Now, school doesn't start for another week, but it was time to let this go. Now I've got the blemish on the calendar. No more struggling to get a post out if I can't find anything meaningful to say.

I'm sure that won't mean an end to meaningless posts. But then, what truly is meaningless? Today, someone arrived on the site via a Google search for "paul anka freedom american gilmore". As it happens, this site comes up first in such a search. Can a post be meaningless if some lost soul comes to it from the vastness of the Internet?

More on getting it.

gregh — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 23:50:00 -0500

Earlier, I posted with a fairly abrasive title, suggesting that a newsletter about blawgging that is available only by email struck me as odd. The newsletter publisher, Sheryl Sisk Schelin, of blawg The Inspired Solo, posted some thoughtful responses as comments on the original.

I bring this back up largely to address the thought more completely.

The title of the post was, "How to convince me you don't get it." (emphasis added.) I completely understand her points. Chunks of my day job have been spent proselytizing on the benefits of syndication and "Web 2.0." Other chunks of my day job have been spent wedging email notifications into products where moderately flexible feed notifications exist. I understand that it's a small community that truly gets feeds.

That it's a small community that gets it is precisely why I feel that those pushing blogs (and blawgs) should be utilizing the technologies to their utmost. That readers may not all use feed readers or even understand what that means, however, doesn't diminish the importance of using feeds for publishing. It makes it more important!

There are tools, such as Feedburner Email, to allow the recalcitrant users to subscribe to feed-based publications via email. There are tools in most publishing platforms to do the same. It's certainly possible to publish by feed and allow subscriptions via email, all without the user knowing what's going on at all. But more importantly, surely part of that publication will be education, and what better way to educate a user about the feed than to give examples of the the precise content they're looking at as a feed?

Obviously, publishers may publish however they want. However, in my opinion, if one truly gets and values syndications and feeds, it only makes sense to publish everything appropriate via feed and to make allowances for others when needs arise.

How to convince me you don't get it.

gregh — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:28:01 -0500

Introducing the Inspired Blawggers Newsletter!:

You might notice, if you're reading this on the blog's website, that I've got a new addition to the sidebar - a prominent link to a new page where you can sign up to join the newly minted Inspired Blawggers newsletter mailing list!

This newsletter is going to feature all new content - stuff you won't find on Inspired Solo or anywhere else, for that matter. Articles written exclusively for the newsletter will include a host of topics of interest to lawyers who blog:

"I will inspire you to be a better blawgger by forcing you to sign up for an email newsletter."

For those of us who realize the benefits of syndication, the notion of being forced into email newsletters is crazy. Email doesn't allow for the richness, the linking, the sharing, or the cataloging that syndicated web content does. There is really only one compelling reason to make this sort of move: identification of readers to advertisers. That's hidden in code here: "in addition to new and exclusive content, subscribers will also receive advance notice of new services and products from Inspired Consulting. . . ." But then there's my favorite: "regular “best of the blog” feature where I’ll highlight some of the most useful posts at The Inspired Solo since the last newsletter was issued."

Tell me again how an email newsletter is supposed to inspire me about blogging? And please, tell me how seriously I'm supposed to take a blogger who resorts to a an email newsletter for content distribution.

Regular blogging

gregh — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 21:48:38 -0500

Whew.

If you look at the archive calendar on the right for July 2007, you'll notice that every day has an entry. On June 5, I set out with a goal of some meaningful post each day. I've had to settle for a post every day since. There have been some popular posts in that time, and there have been some that have had to undergo several revisions as I rushed to get them out by the day's deadline.

I may continue this push until school starts; I may not. Quality over quantity is a better goal. If I can't get out something meaningful each day, it probably doesn't make sense to post. In the next few days, I do expect to make some changes:

A new name. I'm still trying to decide.
A new look. I've been working on new themes.
Integration with my Google Reader Shared Items and my del.icio.us tagged items.
A Drupal upgrade. This should be invisible to users, unless I screw it up. However, I do plan on integrating Drupal's OpenID support for my small community of commenters.

More when it happens.

This just in: user stupidity threatens computer security

gregh — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:53:14 -0500

Of course, it's easier to blame the technology.

Congress: P2P networks harm national security:

The politicians present Tuesday generally said they believe that there are benefits to peer-to-peer technology but that it will imperil national security, intrude on personal privacy and violate copyright law, if not properly restricted. Both Waxman and Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) dubbed P2P networks ongoing national security threats.

One would be led to believe this is the only way imaginable to get at this. Meanwhile, Congress all but ignores the spam issue, the bots that exist on computers around the world that allow it to happen, and the myriad other risks to government computer security. The primary risks? Untrained users on poorly secured networks.

There were some attempts at balance and sanity:

Mary Koelbel Engle, the associate director for advertising practices in the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said her agency has found in its studies of peer-to-peer network use that risks to sensitive information "stem largely from how individuals use the technology rather than being inherent in the technology itself."

But leave it to our elected representatives to be "impenetrable to logic":

Some politicians nonetheless lashed out at the sole representative from a peer-to-peer software company at Tuesday's hearing: Lime Wire's Gorton, who is also CEO of parent company Lime Group.

The most scathing criticism came from Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), who launched into a lengthy monologue in which he deemed Gorton "one of the most naive chairmen and CEOs I've ever run across," and accused his company of making the "skeleton keys" that grant access to material harmful to U.S. national security.

"I'd feel more than a shade of guilt at this point, having made the laptop a dangerous weapon against the security of the United States," Cooper said. "Mr. Gorton, you seem to lack imagination about how your product can be deliberately misused by evildoers against this country." (Cooper also, at one point, claimed that Gorton's own home computer was probably leaking sensitive documents.)

Gorton know doubt rubs his hands together coolly each day thinking, "All your tubes are belong to us." Apparently the main things missing from this hearing were some moronic platitudes from Chertoff.

I really only see one solution: shut down this Internet experiment. Just flip the switch on it. It's endangering our national security, leaving no other realistic choice.

Recent searches, part 2.

gregh — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:50:00 -0500

It's been nearly 2 years since I last looked at what brings people here. To be sure, there have been some decided traffic changes. For one thing, my regular readership is much greater than it has been. I know this in part because Google Analytics tells me that since the first of the year, 32.27% of my site's visitors are returning visitors. (Mint tells me something similar, but I've only been using it a month.) The numbers for the last month show only a 24.85% return rate. However, I've had my highest visitor counts ever in the last month.

Anyhow, in a practice that those of us who follow our web access logs tend to do, I'll now arbitrarily elaborate on some of the searches that have led people here over the last 4 months.

Some things never change. 3.73% of my visitors since the start of the year came through a search for "Coalition of Concerned Legal Professionals." That search usually leads to this page.

3.32% of my visitors search for "otherwise occupied." That leads to the homepage, generally. Following the clickstream, it's clear that that's how some people find me. For others, I gather they're just sorely disappointed.

Searches regarding USF are huge, and they also produce very interested readers. Rather than type this up, or try to analyze the various ways people search for USF information end up here, below is a screen capture. I'd just like to do a little editorializing first. Look at all of this! This is clearly information people want. Wouldn't it make sense for the school to publish this information online?

The final one is my favorite. It's "romero exception." It brings up my first blog post. There are 7 requests, all from California. 6 from USF. We seem to have the market cornered on Romero Exception teaching.

School student? Watch what you say.

gregh — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:49:38 -0500

If the apparently increased pressure to get into college isn't enough, now students are apparently no longer allowed to let off steam away from school.

In Wisniewski v. Board of Educ. of Weedsport Cent. School Dist., the Second Circuit upheld a student's suspension for sending a "threat" via instant message to some of his fellow students. That instant message was an "icon [that] was a small drawing of a pistol firing a bullet at a person's head, above which were dots representing splattered blood. Beneath the drawing appeared the words 'Kill Mr. VanderMolen.'" Mr. VanderMolen was the student's English teacher.

The message was sent from the student's home computer. The kids who received it weren't at school. The facts are unclear about what happened next, but it's not hard to imagine. The kids probably laughed, and someone started forwarding it around. Next thing you know, it ended up in the hands of the school. Investigations were performed, and the results didn't exactly speak to huge repercussions on the part of the school. "[A] police investigator who interviewed Aaron concluded that the icon was meant as a joke, that Aaron fully understood the severity of what he had done, and that Aaron posed no real threat to VanderMolen or to any other school official. A pending criminal case was then closed. Aaron was also evaluated by a psychologist, who also found that Aaron had no violent intent, posed no actual threat, and made the icon as a joke."

The school district was having no part of that. The hearing officer, an attorney for the school district, didn't really care:

VanCoske found that the icon was threatening and should not have been understood as a joke. Although the threatening act took place outside of school, she concluded that it was in violation of school rules and disrupted school operations by requiring special attention from school officials, replacement of the threatened teacher, and interviewing pupils during class time. The hearing officer acknowledged the opinions of the police investigator and the psychologist that Aaron did not intend to harm VanderMolen and that he did not pose any real threat, but stated that "intent [is] irrelevant." Citing the evidentiary standard followed in New York suspension hearings, the decision concluded:

Substantial and competent evidence exists that Aaron engaged in the act of sending a threatening message to his buddies, the subject of which was a teacher. He admitted it. Competent and substantial evidence exists that this message disrupted the educational environment....

As a result of the foregoing, I conclude that Aaron did commit the act of threatening a teacher, in violation of page 11 of the student handbook, creating an environment threatening the health, safety and welfare of others, and his actions created a disruption in the school environment.

The hearing officer recommended suspension of Aaron for one semester. The recommendation was presented to the district's Board of Education (“Board”), which approved the one semester suspension in late September 2001. Aaron was suspended for the first semester of the 2001-2002 school year.

I'm sure there were lots of times when people I know said something, jokingly, as the student in this case, about killing a teacher. I know people said it about fellow students. Now, in spite of the fact that law enforcement determined there was no threat, busybody school administrators apparently feel that it is their duty to go further, and to use their tendencies to be busybodies as a justification for the punishment.

It must be stifling at times to be a young student these days. Entrance requirements for universities seems to continually escalate, often pushing former safety schools out of reach of the saner of students. Meanwhile, pressure to go to more "prestigious" schools appears to be increasing. Pressure to perform is generally greater. Words are watched carefully, even when they're solely used to vent. And because those words are no longer purely ephemeral, but are logged and forwarded and traded among others, one must be on constant guard, out of fear of being found to have made a threat.

The courts, as seen here, aren't helping things.

Reader influx

gregh — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:50:35 -0500

It's been a busy couple of weeks here on haverkamp.com. Not busy by truly busy website standards, but certainly busy compared to what we normally see around here.

The traffic has pretty much all concerned my post on the proposed ABA standards interpretation for 301(a). At first, it was just a small bump, when the post garnered a mention at Legal Underground. Then on Friday, everything went nuts... Well, nuts for around here.

Someone apparently took my post and started spreading it around to various forums. The biggest traffic generator appears to have been Jd Undergound. The always lovely AutoAdmit.com picked it up, also generating more traffic to my about page than I had previously seen. Finally, someone posted it in a comment on Above the Law, which caused a reader to suggest that I stop "linkwhoring [my] pathetic blog." Wasn't me, pal. This must be the kind of stuff the A-listers see written about themselves everyday.

Since then, I've seen a lot of ripples. The post appears to be running through mailing lists at various California law schools. At first, there were lots of Whittiers. Then came the Chapmans. Today, oddly, was a string of Santa Claras.

What sort of impact are we talking about? Here's a graph for the last few weeks. The first bump is from Legal Underground. The second is the array of Friday bumps.

Home broadband usage, non-usage

gregh — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 23:51:54 -0500

The Pew Internet & American Life Project today released their Home Broadband Adoption 2007 report. It's an interesting read for the details of broadband adoption (not great) and, also, an idea of Internet usage by American adults (a bit surprising.) It's easy to come to the conclusion that everyone uses the Internet. That is nowhere near the truth.

Some interest tidbits:

Slightly less than half of American adults have home broadband.
29% of American adults do not use the Internet. For some reason, that astounds me. 27% don't use the Internet because they don't use a computer at home, work, or school.
Limited rural penetration means limited rural adoption. Home broadband adoption in rural areas is 31%.
90% of home dialup users don't ever read or send email. I find that astonishing. 5% of home broadband users don't. I don't know why that smaller small number makes more sense to me.

It's an interesting study to at least skim. The table of page 11 that lays out the uses people make of the Internet is probably the most interesting bit of the report.