Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Law and Technology (4)
- Internet architecture (3)
- Law (3)
- Telecommunications law and policy (3)
- Administrative law (2)
-
- Artificial intelligence (2)
- Blockchain (2)
- Broadband (2)
- Communications (2)
- Competition (2)
- Computer Law (2)
- FCC (2)
- Federal Communications Commission (2)
- Government regulation (2)
- Intellectual Property Law (2)
- Internet (2)
- Market power (2)
- Network economic effects (2)
- Network neutrality (2)
- Open Internet Order (2)
- Privacy Law (2)
- Regulation (2)
- Science and Technology (2)
- Smart contracts (2)
- Technology (2)
- Technology and Communications (2)
- AI (1)
- Accuracy (1)
- Adapters (1)
- Adjudicating by algorithm (1)
Articles 1 - 24 of 24
Full-Text Articles in Computer Law
Administrative Law In The Automated State, Cary Coglianese
Administrative Law In The Automated State, Cary Coglianese
All Faculty Scholarship
In the future, administrative agencies will rely increasingly on digital automation powered by machine learning algorithms. Can U.S. administrative law accommodate such a future? Not only might a highly automated state readily meet longstanding administrative law principles, but the responsible use of machine learning algorithms might perform even better than the status quo in terms of fulfilling administrative law’s core values of expert decision-making and democratic accountability. Algorithmic governance clearly promises more accurate, data-driven decisions. Moreover, due to their mathematical properties, algorithms might well prove to be more faithful agents of democratic institutions. Yet even if an automated state were …
Transactional Scripts In Contract Stacks, Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman
Transactional Scripts In Contract Stacks, Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman
All Faculty Scholarship
Deals accomplished through software persistently residing on computer networks—sometimes called smart contracts, but better termed transactional scripts—embody a potentially revolutionary contracting innovation. Ours is the first precise account in the legal literature of how such scripts are created, and when they produce errors of legal significance.
Scripts’ most celebrated use case is for transactions operating exclusively on public, permissionless, blockchains: such exchanges eliminate the need for trusted intermediaries and seem to permit parties to commit ex ante to automated performance. But public transactional scripts are costly both to develop and execute, with significant fees imposed for data storage. Worse, bugs …
Paul Baran, Network Theory, And The Past, Present, And Future Of Internet, Christopher S. Yoo
Paul Baran, Network Theory, And The Past, Present, And Future Of Internet, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Paul Baran’s seminal 1964 article “On Distributed Communications Networks” that first proposed packet switching also advanced an underappreciated vision of network architecture: a lattice-like, distributed network, in which each node of the Internet would be homogeneous and equal in status to all other nodes. Scholars who have subsequently embraced the concept of a lattice-like network approach have largely overlooked the extent to which it is both inconsistent with network theory (associated with the work of Duncan Watts and Albert-László Barabási), which emphasizes the importance of short cuts and hubs in enabling networks to scale, and the actual way, the Internet …
The Tao Of The Dao: Taxing An Entity That Lives On A Blockchain, David J. Shakow
The Tao Of The Dao: Taxing An Entity That Lives On A Blockchain, David J. Shakow
All Faculty Scholarship
In this report, Shakow explains how a decentralized autonomous organization functions and interacts with the U.S. tax system and presents the many tax issues that these structures raise. The possibility of using smart contracts to allow an entity to operate totally autonomously on a blockchain platform seems attractive. However, little thought has been given to how such an entity can comply with the requirements of a tax system. The DAO, the first major attempt to create such an organization, failed because of a programming error. If successful examples proliferate in the future, tax authorities will face significant problems in getting …
Common Carriage’S Domain, Christopher S. Yoo
Common Carriage’S Domain, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
The judicial decision invalidating the Federal Communications Commission's first Open Internet Order has led advocates to embrace common carriage as the legal basis for network neutrality. In so doing, network neutrality proponents have overlooked the academic literature on common carriage as well as lessons from its implementation history. This Essay distills these learnings into five factors that play a key role in promoting common carriage's success: (1) commodity products, (2) simple interfaces, (3) stability and uniformity in the transmission technology, (4) full deployment of the transmission network, and (5) stable demand and market shares. Applying this framework to the Internet …
The Tax Treatment Of Tokens: What Does It Betoken?, David J. Shakow
The Tax Treatment Of Tokens: What Does It Betoken?, David J. Shakow
All Faculty Scholarship
Digital tokens have been used to raise substantial amounts of money. But little attention has been paid to the tax consequences surrounding their issuance and sale. There are significant potential tax liabilities lurking in the use of digital tokens. But, because of the anonymity inherent in the blockchain structures used for the issuance of tokens and payments for them, there is a significant question as to whether those tax liabilities will ever be collected.
Legal Mechanisms For Governing The Transition Of Key Domain Name Functions To The Global Multi-Stakeholder Community, Christopher S. Yoo, Aaron Shull, Paul Twomey
Legal Mechanisms For Governing The Transition Of Key Domain Name Functions To The Global Multi-Stakeholder Community, Christopher S. Yoo, Aaron Shull, Paul Twomey
All Faculty Scholarship
This Chapter proposes an alternative approach to the IANA transition that migrates the existing core contractual requirements imposed by the US government to the existing IANA functions customers. It also advances modest internal accountability revisions that could be undertaken within ICANN’s existing structure. Specifically, it advocates that the Independent Review Tribunal charged with reviewing certain ICANN board of directors-related decisions be selected by a multi-stakeholder committee rather than being subject to approval by ICANN and expanding the grounds for review to cover all of the rubrics recommended by ICANN’s “Improving Institutional Confidence” process in 2008-2009, including fairness, fidelity to the …
Modularity Theory And Internet Regulation, Christopher S. Yoo
Modularity Theory And Internet Regulation, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Modularity is often cited as one of the foundations for the Internet’s success. Unfortunately, academic discussions about modularity appearing in the literature on Internet policy are undertheorized. The persistence of nonmodular architectures for some technologies underscores the need for some theoretical basis for determining when modularity is the preferred approach. Even when modularity is desirable, theory must provide some basis for making key design decisions, such as the number of modules, the location of the interfaces between the modules, and the information included in those interfaces.
The literature on innovation indicates that modules should be determined by the nature of …
Introduction: Cyber And The Changing Face Of War, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Kevin H. Govern
Introduction: Cyber And The Changing Face Of War, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Kevin H. Govern
All Faculty Scholarship
Cyberweapons and cyberwarfare are one of the most dangerous innovations of recent years, and a significant threat to national security. Cyberweapons can imperil economic, political, and military systems by a single act, or by multifaceted orders of effect, with wide-ranging potential consequences. Cyberwarfare occupies an ambiguous status in the conventions of the laws of war. This book addresses Ethical and legal issues surrounding cyberwarfare by considering whether the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to cyberspace and the ethical position of cyberwarfare against the background of our generally recognized moral traditions in armed conflict. The book explores these moral and legal …
Cyber Espionage Or Cyber War?: International Law, Domestic Law, And Self-Protective Measures, Christopher S. Yoo
Cyber Espionage Or Cyber War?: International Law, Domestic Law, And Self-Protective Measures, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Scholars have spent considerable effort determining how the law of war (particularly jus ad bellum and jus in bello) applies to cyber conflicts, epitomized by the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare. Many prominent cyber operations fall outside the law of war, including the surveillance programs that Edward Snowden has alleged were conducted by the National Security Agency, the distributed denial of service attacks launched against Estonia and Georgia in 2007 and 2008, the 2008 Stuxnet virus designed to hinder the Iranian nuclear program, and the unrestricted cyber warfare described in the 1999 book by …
Moore’S Law, Metcalfe’S Law, And The Theory Of Optimal Interoperability, Christopher S. Yoo
Moore’S Law, Metcalfe’S Law, And The Theory Of Optimal Interoperability, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Many observers attribute the Internet’s success to two principles: Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law. These precepts are often cited to support claims that larger networks are inevitably more valuable and that costs in a digital environment always decrease. This Article offers both a systematic description of both laws and then challenges the conventional wisdom by exploring their conceptual limitations. It also explores how alternative mechanisms, such as gateways and competition, can permit the realization benefits typically attributed to Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law without requiring increases in network size.
Wickard For The Internet? Network Neutrality After Verizon V. Fcc, Christopher S. Yoo
Wickard For The Internet? Network Neutrality After Verizon V. Fcc, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
The D.C. Circuit’s January 2014 decision in Verizon v. FCC represented a major milestone in the debate over network neutrality that has dominated communications policy for the past decade. This article analyzes the implications of the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, beginning with a critique of the court’s ruling that section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the authority to mandate some form of network neutrality. Examination of the statute’s text, application of canons of construction such as ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis, and a perusal of the statute’s legislative history all raise questions …
Possible Paradigm Shifts In Broadband Policy, Christopher S. Yoo
Possible Paradigm Shifts In Broadband Policy, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Debates over Internet policy tend to be framed by the way the Internet existed in the mid-1990s, when the Internet first became a mass-market phenomenon. At the risk of oversimplifying, the Internet was initially used by academics and tech-savvy early adopters to send email and browse the web over a personal computer connected to a telephone line via networks interconnected through in a limited way. Since then, the Internet has become much larger and more diverse in terms of users, applications, technologies, and business relationships. More recently, Internet growth has begun to slow both in terms of the number of …
Toward A Closer Integration Of Law And Computer Science, Christopher S. Yoo
Toward A Closer Integration Of Law And Computer Science, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Legal issues increasingly arise in increasingly complex technological contexts. Prominent recent examples include the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), network neutrality, the increasing availability of location information, and the NSA’s surveillance program. Other emerging issues include data privacy, online video distribution, patent policy, and spectrum policy. In short, the rapid rate of technological change has increasingly shown that law and engineering can no longer remain compartmentalized into separate spheres. The logical response would be to embed the interaction between law and policy deeper into the fabric of both fields. An essential step would …
Is There A Role For Common Carriage In An Internet-Based World?, Christopher S. Yoo
Is There A Role For Common Carriage In An Internet-Based World?, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
During the course of the network neutrality debate, advocates have proposed extending common carriage regulation to broadband Internet access services. Others have endorsed extending common carriage to a wide range of other Internet-based services, including search engines, cloud computing, Apple devices, online maps, and social networks. All too often, however, those who focus exclusively on the Internet era pay too little attention to the lessons of the legacy of regulated industries, which has long struggled to develop a coherent rationale for determining which industries should be subject to common carriage. Of the four rationales for determining the scope of common …
Enhancing Public Access To Online Rulemaking Information, Cary Coglianese
Enhancing Public Access To Online Rulemaking Information, Cary Coglianese
All Faculty Scholarship
One of the most significant powers exercised by federal agencies is their power to make rules. Given the importance of agency rulemaking, the process by which agencies develop rules has long been subject to procedural requirements aiming to advance democratic values of openness and public participation. With the advent of the digital age, government agencies have engaged in increasing efforts to make rulemaking information available online as well as to elicit public participation via electronic means of communication. How successful are these efforts? How might they be improved? In this article, I investigate agencies’ efforts to make rulemaking information available …
When Antitrust Met Facebook, Christopher S. Yoo
When Antitrust Met Facebook, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Social networks are among the hottest phenomena on the Internet. Facebook eclipsed Google as the most visited website in both 2010 and 2011. Moreover, according to Nielsen estimates, as of the end of 2011 the average American spent nearly seven hours per month on Facebook, which is more time than they spent on Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Microsoft, and Wikipedia combined. LinkedIn’s May 19, 2011 initial public offering (“IPO”) surpassed expectations, placing the value of the company at nearly $9 billion, and approximately a year later, its stock price had risen another 20 percent. Facebook followed suit a year later with …
New Technologies And Constitutional Law, Thomas Fetzer, Christopher S. Yoo
New Technologies And Constitutional Law, Thomas Fetzer, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Rough Consensus And Running Code: Integrating Engineering Principles Into Internet Policy Debates, Christopher S. Yoo
Rough Consensus And Running Code: Integrating Engineering Principles Into Internet Policy Debates, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
This is the introduction to a symposium issue for a conference designed to bring the engineering community, policymakers, legal academics, and industry participants together in an attempt to provide policymakers with a better understanding of the Internet’s technical aspects and to explore emerging issues of particular importance to current broadband policy.
Network Neutrality Or Internet Innovation?, Christopher S. Yoo
Network Neutrality Or Internet Innovation?, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Over the past two decades, the Internet has undergone an extensive re-ordering of its topology that has resulted in increased variation in the price and quality of its services. Innovations such as private peering, multihoming, secondary peering, server farms, and content delivery networks have caused the Internet’s traditionally hierarchical architecture to be replaced by one that is more heterogeneous. Relatedly, network providers have begun to employ an increasingly varied array of business arrangements and pricing. This variation has been interpreted by some as network providers attempting to promote their self interest at the expense of the public. In fact, these …
Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
All Faculty Scholarship
The doctrine of cybertrespass represents one of the most recent attempts by courts to apply concepts and principles from the real world to the virtual world of the Internet. A creation of state common law, the doctrine essentially involved extending the tort of trespass to chattels to the electronic world. Consequently, unauthorized electronic interferences are deemed trespassory intrusions and rendered actionable. The present paper aims to undertake a conceptual study of the evolution of the doctrine, examining the doctrinal modifications courts were required to make to mould the doctrine to meet the specificities of cyberspace. It then uses cybertrespass to …
Copyright And Free Expression: The Convergence Of Conflicting Normative Frameworks, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Copyright And Free Expression: The Convergence Of Conflicting Normative Frameworks, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
All Faculty Scholarship
Recent attempts to expand the domain of copyright law in different parts of the world have necessitated renewed efforts to evaluate the philosophical justifications that are advocated for its existence as an independent institution. Copyright, conceived of as a proprietary institution, reveals an interesting philosophical interaction with other libertarian interests, most notably the right to free expression. This paper seeks to understand the nature of this interaction and the resulting normative decisions. The paper seeks to analyze copyright law and its recent expansions, specifically from the perspective of the human rights discourse. It looks at the historical origins of modern …
Minor Distractions: Children, Privacy And E-Commerce, Anita L. Allen
Minor Distractions: Children, Privacy And E-Commerce, Anita L. Allen
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Privacy-As-Data Control: Conceptual, Practical, And Moral Limits Of The Paradigm, Anita L. Allen
Privacy-As-Data Control: Conceptual, Practical, And Moral Limits Of The Paradigm, Anita L. Allen
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.