There is no Hard Mode 11

In celebration of the end of the semester and my final blog post, I've compiled my Top 11 List of How Law and Computers Changed My Life:

1. Playing Monopoly has never been the same. Knowledge of Property, Credit Transactions, Land Titles & Deeds, Transportation & Public Utilities Law, Taxation Law and Corporations is recommended.
2. When going out with law school mates, keep in mind that hunger is always jus cogens.
3. When you're assigned to read a case, you now ask for the G.R. Number and date of promulgation instead of the SCRA citation.
4. You dismiss gossip and tsimis as hearsay, but still believe in them.
5. You still click on "I Agree" without reading the EULA first, despite understanding what a "venue stipulation" means.
6. Talking to MMDA or other law enforcement officers has never been the same.
7. You smirk when a food vendor or jeepney driver gives you candy as change instead of coins.
   
8. You now begin to think of entering into contracts in electronic form, hoping that the judge won't know any better.
9. When riding in a classmate's car, you consider paying him so that he or she will be forced to exercise extraordinary diligence.
10. Reading newspapers and listening to the news has never been the same.
11. You begin to think about specializing in ICT law.

Cheers!

Hard Mode 10: The Myth of the Superuser

"The old-style hackers were renowned and even feared, for their expert knowledge of the workings of communications systems. The mythology surrounding the omnipotent hacker assumes that once the ethical hacker's moral bind has eroded and they go over to the 'darkside' then they become a danger to society."

This week's excerpt is from David S. Wall's article, "Cybercrime, media and insecurity: The shaping of public perceptions of cybercrime" from the International Review of Law, Computers, and Technology.

The author argues in the main, that the popular concept of "cybercrime" is confused, misleading and heavily influenced by media and pop culture. To the point that it has even influenced policymakers, activists and commentators.

Cybercrime misconception and paranoia is fueled by many logs, and one of them is the perpetuation of the myth of the superuser.

The term "superuser" defines a user profile that possesses all the permissions and privileges in a given system -- it is analogous to an "Administrator" account in Windows, needs no passwords, can modify anything. In other words, it is the D_O_G of the OS.

In another sense, "superuser" pertains to a myth popularized in the 80s and 90s, that in a basement or attic or slum somewhere, there exists a programmer or engineer or just a plain genius who knows all the ins and outs of the Internet or any system or network.

The latter of the two was bad news for the policymaker back then, because the superuser could easily foil any attempts to make the Internet secure for ordinary users and for commercial activities. Hence, according to the author, many ambiguous and overbroad laws were passed just so there could be any hope of catching the superuser.

Photoshop Etiquette

Sometime last month, an Egyptian paper have earned the ire of international media when it had been found out to have altered a picture of some world leaders at the Middle East peace talks at the White House. The original photo above have been altered to look like this:

The Egyptian leader was made to look like "leading" the other leaders (including Obama) through the hallway.

While we've heard quite a lot about celebrity sex scandals done through Photoshop, this is the first time I've heard of a scandal of diplomatic proportions brought about by photo editing softwares. And to think, it's a newspaper that did it. Whatever happened to true pride, eh?

====================================================

Sirs,

My blog posts are all under the tag FGM. :)

I've only made 12 blogs.

Online Communities 2

"Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health."

xkcd has updated its classic Online Communities Map, as earlier posted here.

Still absent, as expected, are the near-invisible, undetected or simply unindexed Deep Web, Dark Internet, and darknets, said to be comprising the real bulk of data posted on the Internet.

Although to be fair, these three kinds of Internet "dark matter" are practically impossible to measure.

Not Just in the Movies

Facebook is fast becoming the most popular and widely used networking site of this generation. But just like any networking site, it suffers from serious defects, all the more publicized by criticisms hurled by different interest and socio-civic groups, all lambasting Facebook’s inability to meet and even exceed privacy expectations of users of the site.

An online article headlined “Sex Traffickers Using Facebook to Spot Targets” immediately caught my attention. And the first line that followed completely had me floored. Recent studies showed that the Philippines now ranks 4th in the world in the number of child prostitutes with over 100,000 of them also victims of sex trafficking. In fact, according to the proponents of the study, many traffickers are now exploring social networking sites such as Facebook in search of unsuspecting potential victims. Some kids who regularly post pictures of themselves while in school uniform may be unaware that they have already fallen prey to the malevolent scheme of sex traffickers. Thus, parents are highly advised to monitor their children’s online activities.

Dr. Cindy Romine, president of the advocacy group who initiated the study also shared that the hit movie “Taken” which starred Liam Neeson as a retired special ops agent out to rescue his daughter from Albanian slave traders was inspired by the life story of retired US Army Special Forces Colonel William Hillar. His experience, however, did not share the same gratifying ending as that depicted in the film. Just when he had already closed in on his daughter’s whereabouts, he was informed that she was tortured to death a week earlier.

Hillar’s story should serve as a lesson to parents to constantly be mindful of their children’s activities, whether it be by regularly keeping an eye on their children’s whereabouts or through the trivial task of supervising their children’s online activities. Who knows, slave traders out to victimize unwary minors may be lurking not far behind….

Source: http://techbeta.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/09/30/10/sex-traffickers-using-facebook-spot-targets
Image courtesy of : http://earthhopenetwork.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=1707

An Examination of the Rules on Electronic Evidence in Light of the Best Evidence Rule

The Rules on Electronic Evidence can be considered as the most radical measure that the Supreme Court initiated to cope with the pressing need to address far-reaching developments in technology and mass media that have been drastically modifying and continuously evolving the means by which information is stored and distributed. With it also comes the inevitable challenge of providing ways to be able to make electronic document admissible as evidence.

Section 2 of Rule 3 states that: “An electronic document is admissible in evidence if it complies with the rules on admissibility prescribed by the Rules of Court and related laws and is authenticated in the manner prescribed by these Rules.”

Section 1 of Rule 4 further qualifies that: “An electronic document shall be regarded as the equivalent of an original document under the Best Evidence Rule if it is a printout or output readable by sight or other means, shown to reflect the data accurately.”

The aforementioned provisions can only be interpreted to mean that the Rules on Electronic Evidence still requires the presentation of an electronic document, which must be reduced to a readable printout, for it to be admissible as the best evidence in any given case. While it seeks to solve the problem of presenting an electronic evidence in court, there appears to be a considerable lapse in the law as it confines the best electronic evidence to one that must be tangible and readable in form. This prerequisite absolutely defeats the purpose of making it more convenient and practicable to introduce an electronic evidence, say through the use of a mobile phone to show the existence of a text message or a computer device to prove the receipt or transmission of a particular email at so and so date and time. It is imperative that the Supreme Court fills in this discrepancy in the law should it wish to truly achieve the objective of simplicity and expediency in court proceedings.

No Wi-fi, No Fun??! Not!

I was riding the MRT when I looked outside and saw the Jac Bus Liner station in Cubao and saw this huge banner in front of their terminal. The banner said: "With Free On-board Wi-fi. The First in the Country".

I mean, seriously? Why would you need Wi-fi while on board a bus? Then I thought, oh for those with WLAN enabled phones, laptops, Nintendo DS and other peripherals. For the kids esepcially. Okay, it makes sense now..

Heck no, it doesn't!

I remember when I was a little kid and my family would travel for 12 hours to visit relatives in Bicol. How I cherished those times as a kid when I would open the car windows, stick my head outside and feel the wind against my face as we were cruising province after province of mountains, coconut plantations, creeks, rivers, ravines, carabaos, etc. I marveled at the sights around me, compared it to the dusty pollution in Metro Manila and loved every moment of it. During the ride, me and my sisters would also play a game where we would look for every kilometer marker and count down until we reach the next municipality. When we would get bored, we would listen to our parents' stories of growing up, how they escaped Japanese soldiers during World War II, how they fed themselves with just 10 cents as school baon, how they studied at night without electricity. When we were lucky and the car would break down, as it often does, we would stay at a local inn for the night and roam the beaches and barrio, absorbing local culture, while waiting for the local repair shop to get our car fixed. We would sing songs, recite poems, not play board games for I would get dizzy, but talk about EVERYTHING to our heart's desire.

We needed no PSP, no DS Lite, no iPad, no Wi-fi to keep us entertained. And we still had the best time. :)