Where do we go now

I haven't blogged for a while.  I have been considering the raft of social media formats online over the last few months.  Initially, when I set up my blog, I restricted comments for moderation.  This seemed a logical thing to do as a lawyer.

However, I have now opened up the blog for comments.  It will be interesting to see where it leads.  Perhaps nowhere.

I have seen over the last few months quite a few blogs.  Some are incredibly sophisticated.  Links to photos, YouTube, videos and music.  One such blog I would refer you to is becauseofbipolar.com.au.  This is an amazing piece and well worth looking at. 

I have also considered the legal aspects to social networking.  There were three things that highlighted to me recently where things are perhaps heading and in reality are unstoppable.

In the film 21 Jump Street which is currently on wide release, there are a number of references to social networking.  Effectively, the plot is about two adults who go back into a school to look for a drug dealer for some new drug that kills.  The drug is similar to ecstasy I assume but it adds in some extra 'benefits'.  The illicit drug has various phases which include a laughing phase (THC), hallucination (LSD), heightened activity (amphetamenes) and subsequent death.  The actual cause of death is never explained.  Presumably cardiac arrest or stroke.  There is one side effect that the Americans (who made the film) leave out being heightened sexual arousal (crack or ice).  In a bizarre way, the film actually gives the drug allure and almost glorify it.  Despite the humour, the death scenes are rapid and almost irrelevant to the general focus of the film which really is an analysis of American pop culture as it is perhaps today.

In an ideal world, there would be no drugs.  However, it would seem that this is impossible.  There are certainly plenty of films that deal with the drug issue and sadly, Whitney Houston's initial toxicology report was released today.  The major cause of death was drowning, cocaine use and a heart condition.  This is amongst a phalanx of other prescription drugs including Xanax.  The Coroner did say that the prescription drugs did not cause death.

The internet is here to stay.  Indeed, parts of it are falling away as other parts take over.  The real benefit of the internet is that basically it is free (removing online shopping, apps and other aspects of the net where people are trying to make money).

The other strange thing about the film was that I found myself laughing at parts of the film where the rest of the audience were not.  That can be embarrassing.

The two stand outs were one scene where the older (adult) telephones one of the school girls to invite her to a party.  She states that she is shocked that someone is actually calling her as everything is now done by text.

The other amusing anecdote is that the chief Detective refers to the 'Twitterarti'.  This is a whole new class of people.  In relation to Whitney Houston's death, the first person to release a twitter comment was Mariah Carey.  It was intriguing. 

In the end, it is a question of whether perhaps the internet should be regulated at all.  Should there be laws about what can and can't be said on twitter?  Should blogs be protected from copyright or trademarks?

Across my practice, I deal with an age range of a child right across to an 80 year old.  Children are unusual cases as they rarely come up except perhaps in bullying cases at schools or in Family Law cases.

From my observations, it would seem that the demographic of 18-30 are using text messages as the main form of communication.  I have watched a 31 year old receive and send over 30 text messages in less than five minutes.  All of this could have been handled by a telephone call.

However, that same 31 year old then went and had drinks with his mates in a social environment.

In my mother's age group (70 - 75), some are web aware and some are not.  My mother for instance knows how to use a mobile phone.  However, she does not know how to text.  When I recently visited, she gave me her phone to clear out the text messages.  There were 35.  I basically sent replies to every text stating that my mother did not know how to text and there was no point sending text messages.  Indeed, one text was to announce the death of an acquaintance and the next day was a text to announce the funeral details.

After I sent out the text messages (on an old Nokia phone where I had to remember the keypad as all the letters were worn off the phone), a strange thing then happened.  Phone numbers that I did not know then started sending text messages back to me stating that she must learn how to text.  I then got caught in a text conversation with two telephone numbers back and forth. 

Facebook is in decline.  Eventually, something will overtake it and people will become bored.  LinkedIn is rapidly expanding and now has 3 million members in Australia alone.

Despite my previous blogs, I have tried out some LinkedIn discussion groups.  These are very useful for me as a sole practitioner.  You can bounce ideas off people online.

I use a computer all day.  I have been steadfast in my unease with social networking due to the insecurity of personal information and the lack of any sort of control.

However, on reflection I feel that I have made a mistake.  Perhaps I must embrace everything. 

My own telephone now only communicates to my computer via the Gmail server and presumably the cloud.

Finally, I have watched the opening of 'The Hunger Games'.  This film is again on wide release, cost $200million to make (or a little less with tax breaks) and has certainly been hyped.

I have seen some demented films.  This really takes the cake.  The systematic killing of children as young as 12 is shocking.  The book was apparently worse with decapitations and other forms of systematic killing.

Effectively, this is Lord of the Flies 2012.  The reviews all discuss how brilliant the lead is and the development of her character into a full blown adult.  They seem to miss the point that senseless mutilation of young teenagers is repugnant.  In the United States, the film was cut in parts so that it could be reduced to a rating of PG 13+.  The very age of the people that are introduced into the 'game'.

And the sequels are to come.

Stephen Wilcox
Australian Lawyer

  

Cyber attacks - Get used to it

It has been an interesting week in Cyber world.  Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook has had his own personal page and pictures hacked into and released.  There are two interesting points about this.  Firstly, on the positive side, Mr Zuckerberg actually has enough confidence in his creation that he has a page.  Secondly, on the negative side, there are obviously a lot of people that don't like him.

Telstra this week faced a major problem as it was identified that parts of its database were open for all to see.  The estimate of people affected range from 100,000 to over 1 million depending on whose spin you listen to.  Telstra did the right thing and immediately shut down parts of Bigpond.  Of interest was that when I phoned Telstra to find out what was happening, the first person said that they had no idea and that it wasn't a Telstra problem. I phoned a second time.  This time I was routed to a call centre in the Phillippines.  She was far more frank and said that Telstra had been hacked, they had immediately shut down the system to protect people's data and that it could be three days before the system could be restored.

I am impressed that Telstra actually did what they did.

Vodafone on the other hand had massive outages on Friday across Melbourne.  There didn't appear to be any clear answer from the company as to why.

In the end, it raises an interesting point about hackers.  I would suggest that there are at least three types.

The first I would compare to a firebug.  They hack for the hell of it to see if they can do it.  They are not really too concerned about the consequences.

The second is the professional.  They are looking for things, people, bank accounts etc.

The third is organised crime.  They hack for a range of purposes including identity theft.

The fourth I would suggest is some Governments who actually employ people to do it.

Interesting times.

Stephen Wilcox
Australian Lawyer

Cyber Birthdays - Who gets the presents?

One of the interesting things about online activity is the inevitable question for the date you were born.  Indeed, even offline activities such as obtaining information about your utility bill, bank account or any other phone based inquiries will generally request your birthday.  This can be by voice recognition or keypad entry (two digits for the day, two digits for the month and four digits for the year).

Often, when applying for anything over the telephone, there may be a period where an automated machine reads out the terms and conditions of whatever you are applying for.  The Government legislated to protect individuals in this regard such that any term or condition that was unfair was removed.

Virtually anything you do online such as purchasing an airline ticket or joining a site (say EBay) requires you to tick a box agreeing to terms and conditions.  Does anyone read them? 

I have logged onto Facebook to try and find their terms and conditions.  This is not an easy task.  Even their own search engine does not bring up their terms and conditions as the first hyperlink as one would expect.

Even more interesting is that I have not logged onto Facebook for over a month.  I immediately received an email from Facebook stating 'Sorry that you've been having trouble logging into your Facebook account'.  This is an odd message considering that I haven't.

When setting up a Facebook account, you are required to enter your date of birth.  Indeed it is a term of use that this is up to date at all times.  Why it would change I am not sure.

Initially I assumed that the relevance of this was so that when your birthday came around each year, Facebook (which it does), sends out reminders to all of your friends that it is your birthday.  Whilst this is a charming aspect of the site, the real reason for the use of your birthday is set out in the terms and conditions.

The term states 'Your birthday allows us to do things like show you age-appropriate content and advertisements'.

Of further interest is 'Other information we receive about you'.  This includes:

'When you post things like photos or videos on Facebook, we may receive additional related data (or metadata), such as the time, date and place you took the photo or video'

This is an oxymoron.  Metadata is defined to mean 'data about data' or 'descriptive statistical information about the elements of a set of data'.  The wording 'data (or metadata)' literally means 'data (or data about data)'.  

Even weirder:

'We receive data from the computer, mobile phone or other device you use to access Facebook.  This may include your IP address, location, the type of browser you use or the pages you visit.'

Presumably this is only within the limits of the Facebook 'sphere'.  The clause then goes on (and I am not sure how the two are connected:

'For example, we may find your GPS location so we can tell if any of your friends are nearby'

I have not yet seen Facebook activate this.  Why would they want it?

In any event, your birthday is not so that Facebook can send you a present.  It is a data (or metadata) collection mechanism.

Finally, one would think that of more importance for your birthday is so that Facebook can scan and remove minors from the site.

Stephen Wilcox
Australian Lawyer

Cyber love - till death do us part

In an interesting twist to social media, it is now reported that in the United States, 20% of all divorce cases mention Facebook in the pleadings.

In a further twist, this very site is slowing down my access to place blogs.

I suppose the question is - who is looking at who?

Stephen Wilcox
Australian Lawyer

A Hairy Situation

In a Canadian case, Shonn's Makeovers & Spa, Appellant, versus the Minister of National Revenue, Respondent, a hairdresser became unstuck because of his Facebook page.  The case which was heard before His Honour Justice Boyle examined whether or not a Mr William Hall was working for the Appellant as an employee or an independent contractor.

The tests to determine this are similar to those in Australia and include intent of the parties, control over the work, ownership of tools and chance of profit/risk of loss.

Mr Hall was a colouring artist.  His Honour found that it was almost impossible for the Court to determine on the facts what his status was and further that evidence of the financial arrangements between the parties did not usefully point in either particular direction. 

Under cross examination, Mr Hall was asked why he had put on his Facebook page that he was self employed.  His response was that you didn't have to be honest on Facebook.

On further cross examination, it was put to Mr Hall that everything else on his Facebook page was true including his age, his likes and preferences, his hometown, his education and his activities and groups.  The only thing that wasn't true was his self-employment status.  Mr Hall replied that this was for privacy reasons. 

His Honour held that his credibility had been damaged by his responses.  It was not that he lied on Facebook, his Honour said that he did not believe that he was telling the truth when he said that he was lying on Facebook.

His Honour held that on the balance of probabilities that Mr Hall was not an employee of the salon.

In one of his reasons for his decision, His Honour said "Both surprisingly, and perhaps as a true sign of our times, this ends up turning on his Facebook status.  Unfortunately such is the sad state of affairs of this file ..."

Stephen Wilcox
Australian Lawyer
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Cyber OCD

There is perhaps another issue regarding social networking sites.  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

This disorder is perhaps the worst of all.  It is horrific for the person that has it and for those people that surround them.

I first came across this disorder whilst chatting to a friend.  I was cooking a BBQ and placed my beer bottle on the wheely bin.  My friend was startled and asked me to remove it immediately.  I couldn't quite follow.  The chances of a deadly disease travelling up my beer bottle from the bin was highly unlikely.

I talked to him further.  He said that the bin was a 'dirty place'.  Eventually, I discovered that the only 'safe' place' for my friend was his bed.  The world expanded from there.

When departing for school as a child, my friend would be in agony.  Departing the bedroom was difficult.  This involved washing his hands and then using tissues to open the door to his bedroom.  If he touched the door handle, then the whole process began again.  Catching the train involved wedging himself between two poles and not touching anything. 

Everything in the outside world apart from the bed was a 'dirty space'.

Comparing this to the internet and cyber addiction is an interesting nexus.  The OCD works in reverse to the example that I have given.  A person must log on to the internet to satisfy the compulsion. 

Looking at how the brain works, there is within the frontal lobe an area that is known as the 'feel good' zone.  This is tracked from a part of the brain that runs along the top left hand side of the skull along the face.

Facebook appears to have introduced a new part of its social networking site.  I call it 'where am I". 

I have a Facebook page and a limited friend list (indeed only 21).  The average is 120.  I am now being swamped with emails from Facebook from some of the friends which state 'X is now at the Zoo' or 'Y is now at Z restaurant'. 

I have diverted all of these emails into Junk and my Internet security will eventually automatically delete them.

It is intriguing that a person would engage in this behaviour.  If one had say 1,000 friends, the barrage of emails must be extraordinary.  This development is due to the advances made in Smart Phones.

One of the questions that must be answered is whether or not the person actually knows that the phone is continually sending out messages of where they are or if they are personally entering the information.

With the development of GPS, eventually the phone will simply send out the message automatically.

If the person is entering the information (and in some cases it might be morning, noon and night), then is this a form of developing OCD?

Everyone has habits and these form a part of daily rituals.  It is only when one particular habit becomes essential that it starts to form a problem.

There are certain drugs that are used to try and block receptors in the brain such that the habit does not satisfy the 'feel good' part of the brain and therefore it becomes useless.

One such drug is Anafranil.  From the drug company's website, this drug is used for a variety of purposes, one of which is OCD and phobias in adults.  Strangely, there is a warning that grapefruit, grapefruit juice or cranberry juice can interfere with the drug's capability. 

Perhaps part of the internet is a form of OCD after all. 

Finally, as an example of my own personal experience with gaming, there was developed in the late 80's a game called Super Mario Brothers.  This game was the first of its type in that it could remember and hold your position wherever you were.  The game had 8 stages and was complicated.

I was studying law at the time and also addicted to this game.  It came to the morning of my Tax exam.  The exam was at 2pm.  Rather than study, I played the game as I was within hours of beating the whole thing.

I finally did at 11:20am.  As soon as I won, I realised that I could never play a game like that again.

Stephen Wilcox
Australian Lawyer

Cyber Insanity - One Solution

The internet has a number of games.  Some of these games are highly addictive.

Other parts of the internet are addictive.

One of the objects of this blog is to identify the legal issues surrounding social networking but also to look at the practical realities.

Parents are faced with a real problem.

There is one game that is so addictive that it now has warnings on its label.  I cannot mention the name of the game for defamation reasons.

However, there is hope.

One of my clients is a leading expert in I.T.  I have spent some hours with him discussing how to resolve the problem of adolescent internet addiction.

There are a variety of solutions.  However, an effective solution is set out below.

Every computer in the common age that has any sort of network connectivity, whether it be on an internal home network that does not have access to the internet and computers that are configured for internet access will be assigned an IP address. Normally the IP address is assigned by a modem/router provided by the internet service provider.

All computers with an IP address then communicate with other computers and the internet using specific ports assigned by the IP address. For example, when you use Internet Explorer to visit the Sydney Morning Herald website, your IP address will communicate with that web site using port 80, which is the standard port used to communicate via unsecured HTTP. When you visit the ANZ website and make a “secure” transaction, your IP address would not only use port 80 to load the web page using HTTP, but also use port 8080 as that is the “secure” HTTP port.

All applications use various ports to communicate and there are tens of thousands of ports available that applications use, however they are assigned ports so that they can be controlled and monitored on networks. 

It is possible to “rate shape” ports on specific IP addresses using the modem/router. Rate shaping allows you to assign a finite variable as to “how fast” and “priority” on the network so that you can effectively make the network traffic that travels (or uses) certain ports so slow, that although it will work, it will become tedious and unusable. Given the changes are made on the network infrastructure they can not be overridden from the client laptop or computer.

This is not a simple task as to implement this in a transparent manner. My I.T. expert would need:

·         Access to the router/ADSL modem at the premises

·         Activation of logging on the modem to determine what applications are being used, as per IP address and port number along with an analysis of this data

·         Advice as to what the make/model of the modem/router is (as it may need to be replaced as to allow rate shaping)

·         Additional configuration of the modem so that static IP addresses are assigned to any devices that need to be rate shaped

·         Training for the parents so that they can initiate the “slow down” on demand from their computer or their phone

As configuration can be made to “slow down” specific ports, like the ones games use, this will still allow general access to the internet to be at “full speed” referencing the above where HTTP traffic uses port 80, there would be no modification as to how that specific port works, so only games or applications that are deemed to be appropriate for “rate shaping” would be modified so anything deemed appropriate would still operate at “full speed” which is convenient.

Corporates use rate shaping for sites like Facebook and other network intensive (costly) non-critical applications like internet radio streaming over the internet. In the case of internet radio streaming, you need a large amount of bandwidth so that the music streams properly and doesn’t pause or break up. Initiating rate shaping makes it so slow it is unusable so the users do not bother with it. To ban it outright just causes angst.

With respect to costs, there are three phases.

1    Analysis and recommendation 

        

      Purchase of new network hardware if required.

3.      

            Implementation and training.

This is not a cheap process.  On average, the cost is about $2,000 plus GST depending on the complexity of the systems involved.  As parents, you have full rights to implement the process without the child/children even knowing.


For more information, you can contact me via my Website - stephen-wilcox.com or email direct at australianlawyer@bigpond.com


Stephen Wilcox
Australian Lawyer