Vogel Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog : Texas Internet, Information Technology, eCommerce & E-Discovery Lawyer & Attorney Peter S. Vogel : Gardere Wynne Sewell Law Firm : Dallas TX

Plagiarism is alive and well on college campuses however it is no wonder since the Internet and Social Media have changed communications. Without question Wikipedia has become a reliable source for students and at least 16 US intelligence agencies. Many question the authenticity of Wikipedia, but if the US intelligence community can rely on Wikipedia I guess the information’s reliable. But plagiarizing Internet information is part of a larger social issue that college students today believe that any information on the Internet is free game to include in their course assignments. Perhaps this is not a new phenomenon, rather professors can use Internet search tools to determine if students are plagiarizing which was not available when information only available in books when I was a college student.

Who Needs eMail or a Watch?

As Social Media morphs it’s no wonder that college students rely on cell phones for knowing the time and sending text messages in lieu of email. Remember that in 2009 there were 1.5 billion text messages sent, and with Facebook’s estimated 500 million friends the shift of communications probably indicates more postings on Facebook and that eMail will to decline from the estimated 210 billion sent each day….of course 70% are probably SPAM.  Interesting to see how Social Media evolves.

Where’s the Evidence?

Without question courthouses in the US have changed forever as a result of Social Media and the increase in text messages and eMail. However for more than 30 years my clients’ litigation has been limited to disputes about computer technology and Internet services which means that every lawsuit has had eEvidence. Recently I participated in a webcast with US Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm who wrote the well respected opinion in Lorraine v Markel (about the admissibility of eEvidence) and Judge Grimm pointed out how much more education is necessary to raise the water level for Judges and lawyers. Courthouses will never be the same, so Judges and lawyers have to understand more about Social Media communications.

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Tweets a plenty were posted announcing that Wikipedia and LinkedIn were down, but one tweet wondered what would happen if Twitter also went down! We are so dependent on these Social Media tools that when these sites go down the communications also disappears….except probably text messages, phone calls, or even face-to-face conversations. If Social Media sites going down for a short time cause shock waves just image what would happened if the President flipped the “Internet Kill Switch?” Or if a Cyber War totally disabled the Internet and Social Media? These events only re-enforce how vulnerable the Internet is and how critical it is that our government does everything possible to protect the Internet.

We All Know that Computers Will Fail

After working with computers for more than 40 years one thing is absolutely clear to me, every computer will fail since that is the inherent design…that is, every component will fail at some point since each component has a mean time between failure. So Internet system designers take into account system failures to avoid Internet down time, or at least minimize down time. Because of the nature of computer technology and its inherent design that they will fail it’s not really much of a surprise that Wikipedia, LinkedIn, and other Social Media sites are reported down from time to time. However we have become so dependent upon Social Media that we are all at a loss about how to communicate during down times!

Good News - More US Broadband

Recent reports announced “that $795 million in grants and loans for broadband deployment projects across the US in all 50 states from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS). The Texas Department of Agriculture recently announced that “More than 96 percent of Texas households have access to home broadband service; however, a quarter of a million households in the Lone Star State - more than all of the households in Vermont - lack access to this critical service.” However if that were really true then it’s unlikely that the NTIA and RUS would be spending so much money. Rural Texas and US do not have broadband services as I know my own personal experience in central Texas, just check the ConnectedTexas.org website to see. We will have 100% broadband coverage in the US someday, and it’s great that the federal government is helping expand broadband.

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Google just announced that will it “will find full-text legal opinions from federal and state courts.” It had to happen at some point, so it’s not a tremendous surprise that Google would expand its services to include legal research. However will courts rely on Google as a cited authority? Maybe not, since few Judges rely on Wikipedia as authority. However  Wikipedia currently has more than 3.1 million articles (and growing) maybe that will change. Also since more than 65% of all US searches are made on Google, maybe Courts will soon rely on Google as an authority.  Time will tell!

Google - More Mapping

Google’s recent announcement of free turn-by-turn navigation including maps in the US certainly sent shockwaves throughout the navigation world. However since Google does not have maps throughout Europe there are also reports that Google is teaming with Automotive Navigation Data (AND) “a Netherlands-based digital map provider, to get detailed mapping data of Europe.” However there are disputes in a number of countries including Japan and the UK that are up in arms that Google is collecting pictures of neighborhoods and streets.

Future of Google in the Courts

With its value increasing to more than $32 billion is it any wonder that Google continues to offer new services? Where this is ultimately headed is really the great question. It was not very clear that when Google purchase Postini a few years ago that Google was posturing itself to enter the eDiscovery fray. However since virtually every Judge knows of Google surely how far wrong could a litigant go by relying on Google and Postini to manage eMail for eDiscovery?

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Wikipedia is without doubt the model for online collaboration, so it should be no surprise that the 16 US intelligence agencies would use Wikipedia’s software to connect dots to protect our country. Obviously the availability to Intellipedia is limited to users with proper government clearance and has grown since the 2006 launch to “and now averages more than 15,000 edits per day. It's home to 900,000 pages and 100,000 user accounts.”

Wikipedia Continues to Grow, or Not?

Recent reports are that Wikipedia which now has over 3 million English articles is one of the 10 most popular sites on the Internet, and roughly 60 million Americans visit Wikipedia every month. But at the same time at the recent Wikimania Conference in Buenos Aires reported that Wikipedia now has 330 million users and is in the top five websites. It doesn’t matter which statistics are more accurate as there is no question that Wikipedia is essential in today’s use of the Internet. But the Wikimania participants spent a lot of time bemoaning a major slow on Wikipedia’s growth.

Wikipedia Finished?

Much has been said about Wikipedia’s demise, but it continues to grow. So as the Internet morphs and changes, it’s also possible that more creative uses of Wikipedia software will be found, which is clearly what’s going on with Intellipedia. However since no one wants to be the US Cyber Czar one might wonder if we will ever have a Cyber Czar and whether the use of Wiki tools, and specifically Intellipedia really helps.

What do you think? 

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Google is always making news, but the report that the Google Apps have new features to compete with Microsoft Office is interesting as more users rely on free Google Apps. It’s hard to fathom that Wikipedia could be used as a news source, but Google is trying that out since so many users rely on Wikipedia as a source of reliable information. Without question Google continues to grow and evolve in interesting directions, clearly something we all have to watch.

Google vs. Microsoft (including Free Windows 7)

Notwithstanding the ongoing search engine wars between Google and the universe, Google Apps are apparently improving at time with Microsoft users are unhappy with the additional features in Office 2007 which causes new complications for users. Specifically the new features in Google spreadsheet are an improvement over Excel, and with the general unhappiness of Microsoft Vista clearly many users are awaiting Windows 7. So Microsoft’s original game-plan to move the PC world from XP to an new operating system, and of course related revenue from upgrades to the Office Suite, got a major stall since Vista has been such a major dud. So it’s not much of a surprise that Microsoft has revealed that users can get Windows 7 free or very low cost when released later this year if they buy a new computer now with the upgrade.

Wikipedia As A News Source?

Often Wikipedia shows up at the top of many Google searches and as result users tend to rely on Wikipedia has grown to over 2.9 articles. But recently Google News has also been including Wikipedia links so that users can read more about topics. Interestingly enough no one at Google asked Wikipedia and the folks at Wikipedia learned of the new Google News service use of Wikipedia by reading the Nieman Journalism Lab. With this evolution Google News has positioned the collaborative written source Wikipedia in direct competition with the New York Times, Washington Post, AOL, CNN, and other news sources.

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Speculation that Wikipedia has run out of ideas is an amusing headline. It’s hard to believe that in 8 years Wikipedia has more than 2.8 million English articles since the Encyclopedia Britannica started in 1768 and has about 250,000 articles. Wikipedia’s growth is quite astonishing since in March 2006 (three years ago) the 1 millionth English article milestone was reached! Today Wikipedia has more than 75,000 active contributors who write the articles in 260 languages with more than 684 million visitors a year. Because of Wikipedia’s dominating success, even Microsoft just announced it is withdrawing its encyclopedia Encarta (with 42,000 articles).

What’s a Wiki to Begin With?

As recently as yesterday an experienced business person asked what the heck a wiki was anyway. Wiki is Hawaiian for “quick,” and the wiki concept is part of the Internet web 2.0 (my 5th Big Bang of the Internet) for content collaboration.  IBM and Microsoft (and many other companies) have thousands of wikis they use for the development of new technologies. That is, developers on new projects use wikis as a tool to contribute ideas and edit content. These private wikis allow teams within companies to work together to solve problems, but a public wiki is different.

Wikimedia Is More than an Encyclopedia

Wikipedia is a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit Internet encyclopedia and also has sister projects hosted through Wikimedia Foundation which includes among these services: Wikiquote (Collection of quotations), Wikispecies (Directory of species), Wikinews (Free-content news), Wikibooks (Free textbooks and manuals), Wikiversity (Free learning materials and activities), Wikitionary (Dicitionary and thesaurus), and Wikisource (Free-content library).

Wiki Legal Issues

Who owns wiki articles and the content makes is interesting. Clearly contributors to internal private company wikis expect the content owned by the companies. However if an employer fails to establish contractual terms with their employees about ownership, it becomes less clear about who owns the content in a wiki. On the other hand, when individuals post on public wikis such as Wikipedia they are contributing all intellectual property to the wiki (under the terms of service) and all Wikimedia materials are available under the GNU Free Documentation License (Open Source). To make things more interesting Wikipedia expressly disclaims the validity of it content. Yet millions of people around the world rely on Wikipedia as authority, when the articles are just a collaborative encyclopedia that may be changed or edited at any moment. As the Internet evolves clearly the sharing of information in wikis will continue to affect the future of information available.
 

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No surprise at all that the New York Times reported that there has been a rash of mistrials because jurors are searching Google and Wikipedia about the parties, lawyers, and subject matter of the trials. As well, jurors are sending texts, emails, and Tweets (on Twitter) during trials. The traditional rules of trial require that judges admonish jurors to do no independent research about the dispute and to only rely on the evidence presented during trial and argument of the lawyers, and not discuss the case with anyone, even other jurors until deliberations. Actually in days gone by it was relatively impossible to stop jurors from doing their own investigations of going to crime scenes or reading about parties in newspapers, or watching television stories about trials in process. There was virtually no way to police jurors from discussing among themselves the issues in dispute before deliberations. But in today’s Web 2.0 world it’s not possible to restrict jurors at all.

Power of Cells

Without a lot of imagination it is easy to realize that our cell phones allow jurors to text, send emails, post blogs, and send Tweets, not to mention search the Internet while sitting in a jury box or room. So even if courts were to confiscate jurors’ cell phones during trial, surely when the jurors go home at night they can use their cells and the Internet to their hearts’ delight.

Evidence Present in Court

Lawyers spend most of their time in preparing for trial by examining trial witnesses in depositions and reviewing documents to determine what evidence will be presented during trial. The opposing parties do everything possible to restrict bad evidence under the rules of evidence and procedure, and it’s the job of judges to determine what evidence may be shown to jurors. Actually evidence is presented in trial by asking witnesses to identity and authenticate, and then it’s up to the jury to weigh all the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses who vouch for the evidence.

Accuracy of Information on the Internet?

One of the sharp realities of the Internet is that there is no assurance that just because information is found on the Internet that it’s true and accurate. This has been one of the challenges of the Wikipedia in that the articles are posted and updated by individuals who may, or may not want the truth to be portrayed. As a matter of fact many judges will not allow lawyers to cite Wikipedia as legal authority because of skepticism of the authenticity of the content. On the other hand just because Google, Yahoo!, or other search engine happens to push a particular link, pdf, or website to the top of its search list does mean that there is any truth to the content found at that url.

Where are we Headed?

It’s likely that the mystique of a jury trial where jurors only rely on evidence presented in the courtroom will never be the same. Without question the number of mistrials will only grow and cause great difficulty for the judicial system.
 

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