Technology, particularly legal technology is supposed to make the delivery of legal services more convenient. However, sometimes lawyers get in the way and muck things up. Teraview is a perfect example.

Back in the day, anyone could walk into the local registry office and register any document they wanted. Since the mid-1980s registration documents were not witnessed, nor were signatures checked. The system was one of openness and accessibility.

Then along came Teraview – which allowed registration from anywhere in Canada via the internet. A seemingly great idea that would make real estate transactions faster and smoother. However, everyone forgot . . . [more]

The presentations from last year’s Semantic Web in Libraries (SWIB13) held in Hamburg, Germany, were posted a few months ago. Lots of great stuff relating to linked data, metadata, classification mapping and ontologies, including a few case study reports (e.g. Europeana updates).

I recommend to you Dorothea Salo’s presentation, “Soylent SemWeb Is People! Bringing People to Linked Data.” * Drawing on a rather stretched analogy to the Charleton Heston movie Solyent Green she explores this question:

“… how do we best invite people — including skeptical people, reluctant people, less-technical people, people committed to different data structures

. . . [more]

We usually hear about the attempted use of social media by the opposite side to discredit a party. But what about the use of social media to bolster a defence in anticipation of litigation?

Andrew Jarvis, a Pennsylvania architect, was concerned the Department of Revenue would audit him and ask him to pay additional taxes once he opened up an office in New York, where he spent a considerable amount of time.

The State changed the domicile requirements in 2012. They conduct residency audits because residents are subject to tax on worldwide income, whereas non-residents are only taxed for the . . . [more]

A US appeals court found – properly, in my view – that clicking ‘Like’ on the Facebook page of a political candidate was political speech protected by freedom of expression law.

Another US court found that clicking on ‘Like’ on the Facebook page of someone who has a restraining order against any contact by the clicker is contempt of the restraining order. That too seems sensible, if severe. (Restraining orders often need to be severely enforced.)

Here is an account of a bit of a confused British situation, where someone is apparently being investigated by police for Liking a Facebook . . . [more]

Earlier this month Microsoft’s privacy policies became the focal point of a controversy about the right of cloud providers to access their customer’s data. The controversy, and Microsoft’s subsequent response, may create a precedent that will influence terms of service for cloud providers going forward.

Briefly, the controversy erupted when it was revealed that, in the process of investigating a potential leak from one of its employees, Microsoft accessed the Hotmail inbox of a blogger that it suspected was the recipient of the leaked, internal Microsoft documents. While Microsoft was within its rights to do so under its terms of . . . [more]

Maybe it’s something that happens to your brain at 5,000 feet above sea level. Maybe it’s the fresh mountain air. Or maybe it’s the frontier, no-one’s-gonna-help-me-so-I-just-gotta-do-it-myself, spirit of the West. Whatever it is, some of the most entrepreneurial Canadian lawyers I’ve met to date, are from Calgary.

Over and over again I’ve heard that if you have a great idea in Calgary, you can find partners to help make it happen.

We live in an age of cloud computing, greying of the bar, and underserved populations living on mobile devices, and many of us have also been commenting on the . . . [more]

A note of congratulations to fellow Slaw contributor Jack Newton, whose company Clio has successfully secured a C Series funding round; led by Bessemer Venture Partners and valued at $20M.

Launched here on the West Coast of Canada in the Fall of 2008, Jack and his co-founder Rian Gauvreau are now working through their sixth year of Clio operations. According to Clio’s blog, the newest round of funds will be used to accelerate product development and to expand the size of their internal team. (Recruiting efforts already look to be underway.)

I write this offering my full . . . [more]

“Phishing” is one of the most common scams that cyber criminals use because it can produce spectacular results with very little effort or expense on the part of the hacker. Phishing involves the use of an email, text message or phone call that appears to come from a trusted source or institution, vendor or company, but is actually from a third-party impostor. Phishing messages are intended to trick you into giving cyber criminals your information by asking you to update or confirm personal or online account information. Personal information and identity theft and/or payment scams are the motives behind most . . . [more]

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) held an eForum on Library Linked Data earlier this month. An eForum is a great way to participate in a topical discussion because, unlike a webinar or live chat session, it allows you to drop in and out of the discussion as you have the time.

Theodore Gerontakos, Metadata Librarian, University of Washington and Co-Chair of the ALA Linked Library Data Interest Group, provided a couple of very useful summaries of the two days:

• Summary Day 1, Library Linked Data Forum
• Summary Day 2, Library Linked Data

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The New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench recently admitted into a criminal case screenshots of a Facebook conversation that took place the day after an alleged sexual assault between the complainant and the accused. R v Nde Soh, 2014 NBQB 20

The court held – properly, in my view – that the screenshots were electronic documents within the meaning of ss. 31.1ff of the Canada Evidence Act, which reflect the Uniform Electronic Evidence Act. It found that the documents were properly authenticated. It decided that the computer system was sufficiently reliable in the absence of any evidence from . . . [more]

In case you needed another reason to get paranoid about your growing loss of privacy, Facebook has now successfully developed facial recognition software that performs to the same standard as the human brain. [Cited FB research paper.]

The project is called “DeepFace”, and its recognition rate of 97.25 is closely comparable to human accuracy at 97.53%. Even with variances in lighting; and even when the angle of the shot is different. If you’d like to get into the detail, the link above gives a nice condensed summary.

What could this mean in the future? It’s hard to predict, of . . . [more]

The ABA Journal has a story about a law firm falling victim to a cyber attack that locked up the firm’s computer files for ransom. Here’s the text of the article:

The good news: No law firm or client data was taken.

The bad news: Attorney Paul Goodson and his staff can’t access his Charlotte, N.C., law firm’s files after they were locked up by a computer virus, WSOC reports.

Like other businesses in the city, the firm was targeted via email. Once an attachment was opened, the Crypto Locker virus took over. Thousands of documents stored on his computer

. . . [more]