Computer Law Commons^™

Artificial Intelligence And Corporate Decisions: Fantasy, Reality Or Destiny, Jingchen Zhao

Catholic University Law Review

Fueled by the ever-growing significance of big data and advances in AI, tasks in relation to decision-making in contemporary societies have been increasingly delegated to AI at different levels. While there is massive investment all over the world related to one side of AI, namely engineering, it is also important to create rules and competence related to humanistic AI and its effects on people and societies. This article aims to examine AI’s role in the boardroom and associated legal challenges, by exploring the interplay between AI and corporate law and governance. We observe that the delegation of board tasks to …

Disorderly Content, Ari Waldman

Washington Law Review

Content moderation plays an increasingly important role in the creation and dissemination of expression, thought, and knowledge. And yet, throughout the social media ecosystem, nonnormative and LGBTQ+ sexual expression is disproportionately taken down, restricted, and banned. The current sociolegal literature, which focuses on content moderation as a whole and sees echoes of formal law in the evolution of its values and mechanics, insufficiently captures the ways in which those principles and practices are not only discriminatory, but also resemble structures of power that have long been used to police queer sexual behavior in public spaces.

This Article contributes to the …

The First Amendment And Online Access To Information About Abortion: The Constitutional And Technological Problems With Censorship, John Villasenor

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

To what extent could an abortion-restrictive state impede access to online information about abortion? After Dobbs, this question is no longer theoretical. This essay engages with this issue from both a legal and technological perspective, analyzing First Amendment jurisprudence as well as the technological implications of state-level online censorship. It concludes that the weight of Supreme Court precedent indicates that state attempts to censor information regarding out-of-state abortion services would violate the First Amendment. That said, the essay also recognizes that as Dobbs itself upended precedent, it is unclear what Supreme Court would do when ruling on questions regarding …

Keeping Gates Down: Further Narrowing The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act In The Wake Of Van Buren, George F. Leahy

William & Mary Business Law Review

Internet-connected devices have become essential parts of personal and professional life. As these devices have grown in importance and prevalence in the workplace, so too have federal computer regulations come into the spotlight. Prior to the Supreme Court’s Decision in Van Buren v. United States, the Circuit Courts of Appeals were split on the interpretation of the “exceeds authorized access” clause of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a commonly invoked federal law that imposes criminal and civil liability for computer misuse. Although the Court’s narrow holding clarified the definition of “exceeds authorized access,” the Court did not …

The Pivotal Role Of International Human Rights Law In Defeating Cybercrime: Amid A (Un-Backed) Global Treaty On Cybercrime, Professor Fatemah Albader

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On May 26, 2021, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution approving the drafting of a new global treaty on cybercrime, which commenced in February 2022. The proposed UN agreement on cybercrime regulation has garnered significant criticism among the international community, namely by state delegates, human rights advocates, and nongovernmental organizations. Fears stem from the belief that such a treaty would be used to legitimize abusive practices and undermine fundamental human rights. National cybercrime laws already unduly restrict human rights. However, at a time where the global community has moved toward a digital world, it becomes even …

The Law And Politics Of Ransomware, Asaf Lubin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

What do Lady Gaga, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the city of Valdez in Alaska, and the court system of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul all have in common? They have all been victims of ransomware attacks, which are growing both in number and severity. In 2016, hackers perpetrated roughly four thousand ransomware attacks a day worldwide, a figure which was already alarming. By 2020, however, ransomware attacks reached a staggering number, between twenty thousand and thirty thousand per day in the United States alone. That is a ransomware attack every eleven seconds, each of which …

Bridging The Computer Science – Law Divide, Azer Bestavros, Stacey Dogan, Paul Ohm, Andrew Sellars

Faculty Scholarship

Many pressing societal questions can be answered only by bringing experts from different disciplines together. Questions around misinformation and disinformation, platform power, surveillance capitalism, information privacy, and algorithmic bias, among many others, reside at the intersection of computer science and law. We need to develop institutions that bring together computer scientists and legal scholars to work together on issues like these, and to train new innovators, thought leaders, counselors, and policymakers with hybrid training in both disciplines. In Universities, the disciplines of Computer Science (CS) and Law are separated by many wide chasms. Differences in standards, language, methods, and culture …

Using Artificial Intelligence In The Law Review Submissions Process, Brenda M. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

The use of artificial intelligence to help editors examine law review submissions may provide a way to improve an overburdened system. This Article is the first to explore the promise and pitfalls of using artificial intelligence in the law review submissions process. Technology-assisted review of submissions offers many possible benefits. It can simplify preemption checks, prevent plagiarism, detect failure to comply with formatting requirements, and identify missing citations. These efficiencies may allow editors to address serious flaws in the current selection process, including the use of heuristics that may result in discriminatory outcomes and dependence on lower-ranked journals to conduct …

Algorithmic Governance From The Bottom Up, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are both a blessing and a curse for governance. In theory, algorithmic governance makes government more efficient, more accurate, and more fair. But the emergence of automation in governance also rests on public-private collaborations that expand both public and private power, aggravate transparency and accountability gaps, and create significant obstacles for those seeking algorithmic justice. In response, a nascent body of law proposes technocratic policy changes to foster algorithmic accountability, ethics, and transparency.

This Article examines an alternative vision of algorithmic governance, one advanced primarily by social and labor movements instead of technocrats and firms. …

An Evaluation Framework For Digital Image Forensics Tools, Zainab Khalid, Sana Qadir

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The boom of digital cameras, photography, and social media has drastically changed how humans live their day-to-day, but this normalization is accompanied by malicious agents finding new ways to forge and tamper with images for unlawful monetary (or other) gains. Disinformation in the photographic media realm is an urgent threat. The availability of a myriad of image editing tools renders it almost impossible to differentiate between photo-realistic and original images. The tools available for image forensics require a standard framework against which they can be evaluated. Such a standard framework can aid in evaluating the suitability of an image forensics …

A Study Of The Data Remaining On Second-Hand Mobile Devices In The Uk, Olga Angelopoulou, Andy Jones, Graeme Horsman, Seyedali Pourmoafi

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This study was carried out intending to identify the level and type of information that remained on portable devices that were purchased from the second-hand market in the UK over the last few years. The sample for this study consisted of 100 second hand mobile phones and tablets. The aim of the study was to determine the proportion of devices that still contained data and the type of data that they contained. Where data was identified, the study attempted to determine the level of personal identifiable information that is associated with the previous owner. The research showed that when sensitive …

Anonymous Hacktivism: Flying The Flag Of Feminist Ethics For The Ukraine It Army, Ellen Cornelius

Homeland Security Publications

No abstract provided.

Social Media Harms And The Common Law, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article finds fault with the judiciaries' failure to create a set of common law norms for social media wrongs. In cases concerning social media harms, the Supreme Court and lower courts have consistently adhered to traditional pre-social media principles, failing to use the power of the common law to create a kind of Internet Justice.

Part I of this article reviews social media history and explores how judicial decisions created a fertile bed for social media harm to blossom. Part II illustrates social media harms across several doctrinal disciplines and highlights judicial reluctance to embrace the realities of social …

Wiretapping The Internet: Analyzing The Application Of The Federal Wiretap Act’S Party Exception Online, Hayden Driscoll

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The federal Wiretap Act—originally enacted to curtail the government’s unbridled use of wiretaps to monitor telephonic communications—was amended in 1986 to provide a private right of action, extending the Act’s Fourth Amendment-like protections to private intrusions. Since the advent of the internet, plaintiffs have attempted to predicate claims of unauthorized online privacy intrusions on the Wiretap Act. In response, defendants claim they are parties to the communications at issue and should be absolved of liability under the Act’s party exception. The federal circuit courts of appeal disagree on how the party exception applies in the internet context. This Note evaluates …

Creativity Without Ip? Vindication And Challenges In The Video Game Industry, Bj Ard

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article intervenes in the longstanding debate over whether creative production is possible without exhaustive copyright protection. Intellectual property (IP) scholars have identified “negative spaces” like comedy and tattoo art where creativity thrives without IP, but critics dismiss these examples as niche. The video game industry allows for fresh headway. It is now the largest sector in entertainment—with revenues greater than Hollywood, streaming, and music combined—yet IP does not protect key game elements from duplication. Participants navigate this absence using non-IP strategies like those identified in negative-space industries: AAA developers invest in copy-resistant features while indie game developers rely on …

Content Moderation As Surveillance, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Technology platforms are the new governments, and content moderation is the new law, or so goes a common refrain. As platforms increasingly turn toward new, automated mechanisms of enforcing their rules, the apparent power of the private sector seems only to grow. Yet beneath the surface lies a web of complex relationships between public and private authorities that call into question whether platforms truly possess such unilateral power. Law enforcement and police are exerting influence over platform content rules, giving governments a louder voice in supposedly “private” decisions. At the same time, law enforcement avails itself of the affordances of …

Artificial Justice: The Quandary Of Ai In The Courtroom, Paul W. Grimm, Maura R. Grossman, Sabine Gless, Mireille Hildebrandt

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Creating Broadband Equity In Rural Wisconsin, Brian T. Coe

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

Over 430,000 people throughout the state of Wisconsin cur-rently do not have access to the internet. This "digital divide" is even more prominent in rural communities where broadband is either too slow, too expensive, or simply not available. Wisconsin state law cur-rently restricts local governments from providing this vital utility to their residents. The purpose of this Comment is to help readers un-derstand the impact of Wisconsin law surrounding local government public broadband programs, and how they can be changed to offer a more equitable menu of internet access to rural communities. This Comment will discuss the restrictive statutes that …

The Economic Impact Of Cyberattacks In The United States, Habibullah Asadi

Student Theses

In recent years, the global economy has been beset by cyber-attacks. These events disrupt business and governmental operations, large and small, and include broad-horizon attacks on infrastructure and pointed network takeovers. The attacks can include malicious online activities directed at stealing financial and intellectual property or, manipulating, destroying, and denying access to critical information. Despite increased awareness of these challenges, the victimization of private and public networks continues, and the economic impacts mount daily. This research will present the economic impact of cyberattacks on United States businesses and governmental agencies.

Automating Defeasible Reasoning In Law With Answer Set Programming, How Khang Lim, Avishkar Mahajar, Martin Strecker, Meng Weng Wong

Centre for Computational Law (2022-2025)

The paper studies defeasible reasoning in rule-based systems, in particular about legal norms and contracts. We identify rule modifiers that specify how rules interact and how they can be overridden. We then define rule transformations that eliminate these modifiers, leading in the end to a translation of rules to formulas. For reasoning with and about rules, we contrast two approaches, one in a classical logic with SMT solvers, which is only briefly sketched, and one using non-monotonic logic with Answer Set Programming solvers, described in more detail.