Here’s a story pointing out that the phone ‘hacking’ that has caused so many headlines (and resignations) lately in the United Kingdom was possible because of a simple default setting on mobile phones sold in the UK, that no one took the trouble to fix and that no regulator was prepared to take responsibility for. It’s a fascinating sad story:

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-hacking-loopholes-remain-consumers-deserve-better/?elq_mid=15051&elq_cid=995446

As I understand the story, all phones provided by particular providers had the same default password for checking messages, so that if you called somebody and they didn’t answer, you could use the standard password to access their messages . . . [more]

With the Canadian Law Blogs List now surpassing 300 entries (100 in the past year), along with the continued growth of law firms and lawyers using Twitter, Canadian legal web-commentary is definitely on the rise. One segment that’s lacked exposure, however, is the number of in-house perspectives from north of the border.

Happily, that change has started, with the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (a Stem client) providing a foot in the Twittersphere door. Launched earlier this month to coincide with a website redesign, @CCCA_News will provide a mix of:

• news stories relevant to corporate counsel from Canada, the United

Google+ is the latest social media tool. It will take some time before we know how it will fit in with twitter, facebook and linkedin. Opinions range from it being a nuisance as it is just another thing we need to follow, to being a superior tool that will supplant other social media. But for now its growth rate has been phenomenal – 20 million users in 24 days.

So I thought it would be interesting to look at what I would have learned so far this week from Google+ if that was my only source of information. These are . . . [more]

The South Carolina Bar Association just released an Ethics Advisory Opinion on the use of Groupon by SC lawyers.This interesting opinion dealt with the question of whether it is ethical for SC lawyers to use Groupon. The answer: Yes, but proceed with caution. Read SC Ethics Advisory Opinion 11-05 here. . . . [more]

If you’re a Mac-using lawyer, Apple’s recently released OS X Lion has a new feature that single-handedly makes the upgrade worth the $29 price of admission.

FileVault 2 enables whole-disk encryption for OS X Lion computers with just a few clicks of the mouse. Whole disk encryption ensures the contents of your drive are only readable when you provide a valid username / password combination to the operating system. This means your entire computer’s hard drive will be encrypted, and thus unreadable, should it fall into the wrong hands.

I consider whole disk encryption a best practice for all lawyers, . . . [more]

Sunday at the AALL 2011 conference in Philadelphia about 200 people attended the Cool Tools Cafe, a 75 minute session in which we could visit 5 minute demos of new tools at any of 17 tables. I managed to visit about half. I was particularly impressed by DRAGNET, a legal search tool from the New York Law School demonstrated by Terry Ballard, Assistant Director of Technical Services for Library Systems of Mendik Library.

DRAGNET (Database Resource Access Using Google’s New Electronic Technologies) is a search tool created with Google custom search which we have mentioned a few times over . . . [more]

Anyone following me online right now knows that I’m currently on the West coast. Considering that last year I mentioned that social media can potentially affect home insurance premiums, why aren’t I being more surreptitious about my travels?

For me it probably has a lot to do with the net worth of all of my belongings at home being no more than a few hundred dollars on the Craigslist or Kijiji markets. But not everyone lives so sparse, and there are some emerging solutions to help mitigate the risk of robbery when people are posting their travels. . . . [more]

I am currently in Philadelphia for the American Association of Law Libraries 2011 conference. Today is the PLL Summit put on by the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section (PLL-SIS). I have live-blogging the sessions I attended:

• James Jones on Understanding Law Firm Trends
• Esther Dyson on Technology Changes in Business and Libraries
• Steven Lastres, Julie Bozzell and Toby Brown – Moving Beyond the Library Walls to Support Strategic Knowledge Management
• Joan Axelroth – What Law Firm Administrators Want Librarians to Know
• Greg Castanias – How librarians add value to their law firms
• David Curle on transformations in the

Corruption is likely very much near the front of your mind these days as the Murdoch/Tory/Scotland Yard revelations continue in Britain.

At the same time, the US GAO has revealed an astounding 16Trillion dollars in bailout funds (not 800 Billion, as previously reported), delivered in many cases to companies with strong, current ties to the granting agencies.

Meanwhile, Canada has decided to send Lai Changxing back to China for trial. His extensive (alleged) smuggling operation flourished under the aegis of Jia Qinglin,

…now the Communist Party’s fourth most senior leader, [he] was the province’s party chief. It was one

Since I am on vacation this week, I have been spending extra time with distracting technology like Google Plus. Another example of distracting technology is the D5 Cat that is moving clay and top soil on the Mireau Farmette at this very moment. It is very distracting attempting to compse a coherent Slaw post when there is a piece of heavy equipment appearing out the window at frequent regular intervals and a shovel waiting to be (wo)maned for the finishing work.

We, and I mean me, frequently define technology in its most circuit related form. In our modern world where . . . [more]

Back in May I wrote about two sets of proposals that may impact the adoption of cloud computing technology among lawyers.

The first set of proposals comes from the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20, which has issued an initial set of draft proposals addressing lawyers’ confidentiality-related obligations when using technology. The second set of proposals comes from the North Carolina State Bar in the form of in Proposed 2011 Formal Ethics Opinion 6 – Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property.

Last week the comment periods for both proposals . . . [more]

On occasion, lawyers have engaged in activities that have made them front-page news, subject to embarrassment and possibly lawsuits or discipline complaints. Not only can this kind of attention be bad for a lawyer’s reputation, it can also damage or even destroy client relationships.

That’s reason enough to be aware of and avoid activities that could lead to these types of outcomes. But there is another – equally if not more compelling – reason to avoid them: In some instances, it may be the law firm, not LAWPRO (or your own malpractice carrier if you are outside Ontario), that foots . . . [more]