Law Commons^™

Ethical Testing In The Real World: Evaluating Physical Testing Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Maggie Delano, Jonathon W. Penney, Afsaneh Rigot, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper critically assesses the adequacy and representativeness of physical domain testing for various adversarial machine learning (ML) attacks against computer vision systems involving human subjects. Many papers that deploy such attacks characterize themselves as “real world.” Despite this framing, however, we found the physical or real-world testing conducted was minimal, provided few details about testing subjects and was often conducted as an afterthought or demonstration. Adversarial ML research without representative trials or testing is an ethical, scientific, and health/safety issue that can cause real harms. We introduce the problem and our methodology, and then critique the physical domain testing …

Federal Rule 44.1: Foreign Law In U.S. Courts Today, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

This article presents an in-depth analysis of the latent methodological issues that are as much a cause of U.S. federal court avoidance of foreign law as are judicial difficulties in obtaining foreign legal materials and difficulties in understanding foreign legal orders and languages. It explores Rule 44.1’s inadvertent introduction of a civil-law method into a common-law framework, and the results that have ensued, including an incomplete transition of foreign law from being an issue of fact to becoming an issue of law. It addresses the ways in which courts obtain information about foreign law today, suggesting among others the methodological …

Good Health And Good Privacy Go Hand-In-Hand (Originally Published By Jnslp), Jennifer Daskal

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

The Internet Never Forgets: Image-Based Sexual Abuse And The Workplace, John Schriner, Melody Lee Rood

Publications and Research

Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA), commonly known as revenge pornography, is a type of cyberharassment that often results in detrimental effects to an individual's career and livelihood. Although there exists valuable research concerning cyberharassment in the workplace generally, there is little written about specifically IBSA and the workplace. This chapter examines current academic research on IBSA, the issues with defining this type of abuse, victim blaming, workplace policy, and challenges to victim-survivors' redress. The authors explore monetary motivation for websites that host revenge pornography and unpack how the dark web presents new challenges to seeking justice. Additionally, this chapter presents recommendations …

Accessible Websites And Mobile Applications Under The Ada: The Lack Of Legal Guidelines And What This Means For Businesses And Their Customers, Josephine Meyer

Seattle University Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Covert Deception, Strategic Fraud, And The Rule Of Prohibited Intervention (Originally Published As Part Of The Hoover Institution’S Aegis Series), Gary Corn

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Black Mirror - Syllabus, Yafit Lev-Aretz, Nizan Packin

Open Educational Resources

Using episodes from the show Black Mirror as a study tool - a show that features tales that explore techno-paranoia - the course analyzes legal and policy considerations of futuristic or hypothetical case studies. The case studies tap into the collective unease about the modern world and bring up a variety of fascinating key philosophical, legal, and economic-based questions.

Tech Policy And Legal Theory Syllabus, Yafit Lev-Aretz, Nizan Packin

Open Educational Resources

Technology has changed dramatically over the last couple of decades. Currently, virtually all business industries are powered by large quantities of data. The potential as well as actual uses of business data, which oftentimes includes personal user data, raise complex issues of informed consent and data protection. This course will explore many of these complex issues, with the goal of guiding students into thinking about tech policy from a broad ethical perspective as well as preparing students to responsibly conduct themselves in different areas and industries in a world growingly dominated by technology.

Is Data Localization A Solution For Schrems Ii?, Anupam Chander

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For the second time this decade, the Court of Justice of the European Union has struck a blow against the principal mechanisms for personal data transfer to the United States. In Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland, Maximillian Schrems, the Court declared the EU-US Privacy Shield invalid and placed significant hurdles to the process of transferring personal data from the European Union to the United States via the mechanism of Standard Contractual Clauses. Many have begun to suggest data localization as the solution to the problem of data transfer; that is, don’t transfer the data at all. I argue …

Busting Myths And Dispelling Doubts About Covid-19, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Centre for AI and Data Governance (CAIDG) at Singapore Management University (SMU) has embarked over past months on a programme of research designed to confront concerns about the pandemic and its control. Our interest is primarily directed to the ways in which AI-assisted technologies and mass data sharing have become a feature of pandemic control strategies. We want to know what impact these developments are having on community confidence and health safety. In developing this work, we have come across many myths that need busting.

Artificial Financial Intelligence, William Magnuson

Faculty Scholarship

Recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence have revived long-standing debates about what happens when robots become smarter than humans. Will they destroy us? Will they put us all out of work? Will they lead to a world of techno-savvy haves and techno-ignorant have-nots? These debates have found particular resonance in finance, where computers already play a dominant role. High-frequency traders, quant hedge funds, and robo-advisors all represent, to a greater or lesser degree, real-world instantiations of the impact that artificial intelligence is having on the field. This Article will argue that the primary danger of artificial intelligence in …

The Use Of Technical Experts In Software Copyright Cases: Rectifying The Ninth Circuit’S “Nutty” Rule, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Peter Menell

All Faculty Scholarship

Courts have long been skeptical about the use of expert witnesses in copyright cases. More than four decades ago, and before Congress extended copyright law to protect computer software, the Ninth Circuit in Krofft Television Prods., Inc. v. McDonald’s Corp., ruled that expert testimony was inadmissible to determine whether Mayor McCheese and the merry band of McDonaldland characters infringed copyright protection for Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo and the other imaginative H.R. Pufnstuf costumed characters. Since the emergence of software copyright infringement cases in the 1980s, substantially all software copyright cases have permitted expert witnesses to aid juries in understanding software …

Literature Review: How U.S. Government Documents Are Addressing The Increasing National Security Implications Of Artificial Intelligence, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This article emphasizes the increasing importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in military and national security policy making. It seeks to inform interested individuals about the proliferation of publicly accessible U.S. government and military literature on this multifaceted topic. An additional objective of this endeavor is encouraging greater public awareness of and participation in emerging public policy debate on AI's moral and national security implications..

Developing Open Source Software Using Version Control Systems: An Introduction To The Git Language For Documenting Your Computational Research, Jared D. Smith, Jonathan D. Herman

All ECSTATIC Materials

Version control systems track the history of code as it is committed (saved) by any number of developers. Have you made a coding error and cannot debug it? Version control systems allow for resetting code back to when it worked, and show what code has changed since previous commits.

The contents of this lecture provide an introduction to the git version control language, GitHub for cloud hosting open source code repositories, and tutorials that demonstrate common and useful git and GitHub practices. This lecture is intended to be coupled with a discussion on creating reproducible computational research.

The zipped folder …

Payment In Virtual Currency, Benjamin Geva

Articles & Book Chapters

By reference to an analysis of the operation of payment in traditional forms of money, this essay explores the meaning of ‘virtual currency’ and the mechanism for payment in it. Endeavoring to identify directions in which events will unfold, the essay sets the stage for a future detailed analysis of pertaining legal aspects.

Rules As Code: Seven Levels Of Digitisation, Meng Weng Wong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

A guide intended to accelerate sensemaking in discussions involving Rules as Code. Without a common frame of reference, project stakeholders risk talking at cross purposes. Stakeholders contemplating a “digital transformation” project in the legal domain, such as a “Rules as Code” exercise or a RegTech / SupTech proof-of-concept, may find this document useful to agree on a common vocabulary to facilitate discussion and planning. To that end, this document classifies “digital transformation” of legal rules into a hierarchy of levels which can be included as terms of reference in planning discussions. While this document is informed by academic discourse, it …

The Algorithmic Divide And Equality In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

In the age of artificial intelligence, highly sophisticated algorithms have been deployed to provide analysis, detect patterns, optimize solutions, accelerate operations, facilitate self-learning, minimize human errors and biases and foster improvements in technological products and services. Notwithstanding these tremendous benefits, algorithms and intelligent machines do not provide equal benefits to all. Just as the digital divide has separated those with access to the Internet, information technology and digital content from those without, an emerging and ever-widening algorithmic divide now threatens to take away the many political, social, economic, cultural, educational and career opportunities provided by machine learning and artificial intelligence. …

Google V. Oracle Amicus Merits Stage Brief: Vindicating Ip’S Channeling Principle And Restoring Jurisdictional Balance To Software Copyright Protection, Peter Menell, David Nimmer, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

All Faculty Scholarship

The Federal Circuit’s decisions in Oracle v. Google conflict with this Court’s seminal decision in Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879), misinterpret Congress’s codification of this Court’s fundamental channeling principle and related limiting doctrines, and upend nearly three decades of sound, well-settled, and critically important decisions of multiple regional circuits on the scope of copyright protection for computer software. Based on the fundamental channeling principle enunciated in Baker v. Selden, as reflected in § 102(b) of the Copyright Act, the functional requirements of APIs for computer systems and devices, like the internal workings of other machines, are …

A Critical Evaluation Of The Effectiveness And Legitimacy Of Webblocking Injunctions, Mark Hyland

Articles

Relative to the dual criteria of effectiveness and legitimacy, this article evaluates webblocking injunctions in the context of intellectual property law and with a particular focus on the vanguard role played by the English Courts. With regard to the first criterion, it is argued that there is reason to think that webblocking injunctions are viewed by IP owners as well as by legislators and courts as a relatively effective instrument in the protection of IP assets. Moreover, the extension of webblocking orders to trade marks together with their adoption in a number of legal systems, is further evidence that these …

The Machine As Author, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Machines are increasingly good at emulating humans and laying siege to what has been a strictly human outpost: intellectual creativity.

At this juncture, we cannot know with certainty how high machines will reach on the creativity ladder when compared to, or measured against, their human counterparts, but we do know this. They are far enough already to force us to ask a genuinely hard and complex question, one that intellectual property (“IP”) scholars and courts will need to answer soon; namely, whether copyrights should be granted to productions made not by humans but by machines.

This Article’s specific objective is …

Fintech And International Financial Regulation, Yesha Yadav

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article shows that fintech exacerbates the difficulties of standard setting in international financial regulation. Earlier work introduced the "Innovation Trilemma" (the Trilemma). When seeking to balance the goals of achieving market integrity and innovation through clear and simple rulemaking, regulators can-at best-achieve only two out of these three objectives. Fintech's unique characteristics- a reliance on automation and artificial intelligence, novel types of big data, as well as the use of disintermediating financial supply chains comprising a mix of traditional firms as well as technology specialists and newcomers-complicates the application of the Trilemma. Rulemaking struggles to achieve needed clarity where …

National Cybersecurity Innovation, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Faculty Scholarship

National cybersecurity plays a crucial role in protecting our critical infrastructure, such as telecommunication networks, the electricity grid, and even financial transactions. Most discussions about promoting national cybersecurity focus on governance structures, international relations, and political science. In contrast, this Article proposes a different agenda and one that promotes the use of innovation mechanisms for technological advancement. By promoting inducements for technological developments, such innovation mechanisms encourage the advancement of national cybersecurity solutions. In exploring possible solutions, this Article asks whether the government or markets can provide national cybersecurity innovation. This inquiry is a fragment of a much larger literature …

Legal Risks Of Adversarial Machine Learning Research, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar, Jonathon Penney, Bruce Schneier, Kendra Albert

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Adversarial machine learning is the systematic study of how motivated adversaries can compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of machine learning (ML) systems through targeted or blanket attacks. The problem of attacking ML systems is so prevalent that CERT, the federally funded research and development center tasked with studying attacks, issued a broad vulnerability note on how most ML classifiers are vulnerable to adversarial manipulation. Google, IBM, Facebook, and Microsoft have committed to investing in securing machine learning systems. The US and EU are likewise putting security and safety of AI systems as a top priority.

Now, research on adversarial …

Politics Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Jonathon Penney, Bruce Schneier, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In addition to their security properties, adversarial machine-learning attacks and defenses have political dimensions. They enable or foreclose certain options for both the subjects of the machine learning systems and for those who deploy them, creating risks for civil liberties and human rights. In this paper, we draw on insights from science and technology studies, anthropology, and human rights literature, to inform how defenses against adversarial attacks can be used to suppress dissent and limit attempts to investigate machine learning systems. To make this concrete, we use real-world examples of how attacks such as perturbation, model inversion, or membership inference …

Ethical Testing In The Real World: Evaluating Physical Testing Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Maggie Delano, Jonathon Penney, Afsaneh Ragot, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper critically assesses the adequacy and representativeness of physical domain testing for various adversarial machine learning (ML) attacks against computer vision systems involving human subjects. Many papers that deploy such attacks characterize themselves as “real world.” Despite this framing, however, we found the physical or real-world testing conducted was minimal, provided few details about testing subjects and was often conducted as an afterthought or demonstration. Adversarial ML research without representative trials or testing is an ethical, scientific, and health/safety issue that can cause real harms. We introduce the problem and our methodology, and then critique the physical domain testing …

Smart Contracts And The Limits Of Computerized Commerce, Eric D. Chason

Faculty Publications

Smart contracts and cryptocurrencies have sparked considerable interest among legal scholars in recent years, and a growing body of scholarship focuses on whether smart contracts and cryptocurrencies can sidestep law and regulation altogether. Bitcoin is famously decentralized, without any central actor controlling the system. Its users remain largely anonymous, using alphanumeric addresses instead of legal names. Ethereum shares these traits and also supports smart contracts that can automate the transfer of the Ethereum cryptocurrency (known as ether). Ethereum also supports specialized "tokens" that can be tied to the ownership of assets, goods, and services that exist completely outside of the …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Interdisciplinary Research Team On Programmer Creativity In Support Of Respondent, Ralph D. Clifford, Firas Khatib, Trina Kershaw, Kavitha Chandra, Jay Mccarthy

Faculty Publications

This brief answers the two primary issues that are associated with the first question before the Court. First, the programmers’ expression of the Java-based application programmer interfaces (“APIs”) are sufficiently creative to satisfy that requirement of copyright law. Second, the idea expression limitation codified in Section 102(b) of Copyright Act does not establish that the APIs are ideas. Both of these assertions are supported by the empirical research undertaken by the Research Team. This brief expresses no opinion on the resolution of the fair use question that is also before the Court.

Spyware Vs. Spyware: Software Conflicts And User Autonomy, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Transnational Government Hacking, Jennifer C. Daskal

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Artificial Intelligence Inventions & Patent Disclosure, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) has attracted significant attention and has imposed challenges for society. Yet surprisingly, scholars have paid little attention to the impediments AI imposes on patent law’s disclosure function from the lenses of theory and policy. Patents are conditioned on inventors describing their inventions, but the inner workings and the use of AI in the inventive process are not properly understood or are largely unknown. The lack of transparency of the parameters of the AI inventive process or the use of AI makes it difficult to enable a future use of AI to achieve the same end state. While …