Andrew Terrett, Masons, Email andrew.terrett@masons.com.
'The Internet is a huge electronic resource'; 'The Internet is a network of computers that allows people to communicate with other people from all over the world'; 'It’s is a hacker’s paradise and a computer security nightmare'; 'It’s the future of commerce'; 'It’s a jargon-ridden techno-jungle'.
LL.M, Solicitor (non-practising) and Legal Information Systems Advisor,The Internet - What is it?
The excitement that surrounds the Internet today is not due to the underlying technology, important though it may be. One of the reasons for the Internet’s recent phenomenal growth has been the increasing ease of Internet communication; any computer user who is reasonably familiar with the concept of computer application windows and a mouse or pointing device can quickly get started given an Internet connection and the appropriate software. Another key reason is the wealth of information available over the Internet. Indeed, it would be hard to think a topic that is not represented on the Internet. Therefore, this chapter also looks at the types of information the legal user can find and how one goes about finding such information. 1
Although there is no official definition of the Internet, most industry commentators would agree upon a description of the Internet as a “network of networks.” It is unclear exactly how many networks are attached to the Internet. Current estimates suggest that at least 30 million people have access to the Internet and this number is growing all the time2. The Internet is based around three key technologies; packet-switching (a means by which data to be transmitted across the network is encapsulated in addressed “packets” or envelopes); Client-Server technology (a technology that allows a computer to access and utilise the services available on another computer); and a set of software protocols known as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.) Protocols are sets of specifications that allow computers to exchange information regardless of their make, type or operating system. Any computer that can recognise the TCP/IP set of protocols is what is known as “Internet-enabled.” The facilities available over the Internet include email, Telnet, file downloading and uploading (using so-called File Transfer Protocol or FTP), Gopher, Usenet discussion groups, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and most importantly, the World Wide Web (WWW or W3 or simply “the Web”).
The definition of the Internet as a “network of networks” has been further complicated by the recent development of the term “Intranets” and, at the time of writing, much discussion about, but little implementation of so-called “Extranets.” Intranets are internal company networks which use the same software as one would use to access the Internet World Wide Web but are configured to prohibit public access. They can be used to connect corporate “islands” of information that often exist on older corporate computer systems. Such intranets may be connected to the Internet across what is known as a “firewall3.” Extranets also use the same technologies as the Internet but link networks together beyond the firewall so that corporations can securely share data with their business partners, re-sellers or in the case of law firms, with their clients4.
If we consider the network of a hypothetical corporation, each department may have its own network that allows users of the network to share files and to perhaps share the use of printers. Such departmental networks may be connected together to form a so-called “Wide Area Network” across departments or between geographically disparate offices. These Wide Area Networks may, in turn, be linked to a corporate “backbone” (yet another network) and such backbones may be linked together at meeting points called “gateways”. This matrix-type arrangement of networks is a microcosm of the physical skeleton of the Internet, (the term “Internet” being an abbreviation of the word “internetworking.”)
The history of the Internet can be traced to a US defence-related academic research initiative in the late 1960’s leading to the development of the ARPAnet (or Advanced Research Projects Agency network.) ARPAnet began its existence as a network of a mere four computers. Since that time, a large number of other additional networks have been attached to the original ARPAnet. However, the Internet only took its first real steps towards adulthood in the early 1990’s when its commercial potential was recognised following the development of the World Wide Web. There are still many technical standards to be decided before the Internet evolves into the much-trumpeted information superhighway. In short, the Internet is undergoing quite a shaky adolescence.
Packet-switching, one of the key technologies of the Internet, , was designed to ensure that the network could withstand a sustained Soviet missile attack. The concept behind packet-switching was that data to be transmitted across the Internet, would be encapsulated in addressed “packets” or envelopes. These packets would be examined by special purpose computers known as “routers” for the packets’ address. The routers would consider the current best route to the final destination based on available information. Routers constantly scan accessible networks looking for breakage and data traffic jams. Thus packets with the same destination need not necessarily take the same route. Moreover, information packets tend not to take the most direct route between two points. Once the data reaches its destination, the addressee computer “unpacks” the packets, removes the envelope and offers the data to the user.
Another important Internet concept is that of client/server computing. Many Internet services are based around this paradigm. A server is a computer that delivers or “serves” information to a client software program on another computer which may be physically part of the same network or it may be located thousands of miles away. The benefit of this computing paradigm is that servers and clients can be using different operating systems. For example, on the World Wide Web, one of the most important client/server Internet services, a Web Server may operate on the UNIX operating system, while the Web client software may be operating on Macintosh, Windows, UNIX or any of the myriad other operating systems - it doesn’t matter. The Web Server needs to store only one version of the information to be “served” because the client program will interpret that information and create the display as appropriate. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol over Internet Protocol) is the final element of the three key Internet technologies. It is a suite of protocols or rather a set of rules consisting of various layers that ensure communication across the Internet occurs smoothly. It is far more important for the non-technical reader to simply be aware of its existence rather than how it works and what each protocol does - that is a book in itself5.
Every computer that is Internet-enabled will have both a Domain Name and an IP (Internet Protocol) address, similar to a telephone number. IP addresses consist of four sets of numbers each between 1 and 255. An example of an IP address might be;
130.132.59.234
Such an address can be analysed in the same way as one can analyse a telephone number by looking up the area code. However, IP addresses are hard to remember and easy to type incorrectly. Thus the Domain Name System (DNS) was established because it was felt that computer users would prefer to deal with computer names rather than numbers. The IP address is still essential however as it is this numerical address that is attached to each data packet. The system that converts domain names into IP addresses is a distributed DNS database spread across the Internet on various computers world-wide. When the idea of DNS was mooted in the United States, little regard was given to the potential of an international naming convention. For instance the original hierarchy did not have a geographical domain for the United States as it was assumed that all domains would be located in the United States! For the first few years of ARPAnet, this was not a problem; the first international connection to ARPAnet did not occur for four years. Thus there remain six top-level domain (TLD) names (.com for company, .org for organisation, .gov for government .net for network organisations, .edu for academic establishments and .mil for military networks6.) In addition there are now also geographical domains for nearly every country in the world7 and each may have its own variation on accepted naming convention8. The legacy of the original naming convention remains in that most domains in the United States still do not use the .us ending. Experienced Internet users can analyse a domain name and learn something about the host computer or its owners; For example, the computer called “law.aberdeen.ac.uk” tells us that this computer is based in the United Kingdom, is in the academic domain, is based at Aberdeen University and is law-related. Alternatively, a (fictional) computer with the name of “spock.law.indiana.edu” tells us that this computer is based in the educational domain at Indiana University, is law-related and that the Computer Administrator is probably a Star-Trek fan!
Internet addresses may also offer the user some clue as to the type of software they should use or the type of Internet service they will encounter and possibly also the complete directory path of the file in question. These addresses are known as URL’s (which stands for Uniform Resource Locators.) For example, the following URL;
http://www.w3c.org/WWW/style.htm
tells the user to use a World Wide Web browser (http:// is the protocol of the Web), that the site belongs to the “organisation” domain and that the file we are interested in (style.htm) is located in the WWW subdirectory.
The most straightforward answer is that no one does. There is no single body that controls activities on the Internet. Networks within different countries are funded and managed according to local policies and laws. This is both one of the Internet’s greatest strengths and one of its main weaknesses. Ownership is distributed between countries and their own governments, corporations, universities and telecoms utilities. Each individual computer attached to the Internet will be owned by someone, whether a corporation, firm or individual. Telecommunications utilities own the physical wires over which data is transferred. Internet Service Providers (so-called ISP’s), telecoms utilities or Universities will own the data routing equipment. Thus a wide variety of organisations each play a part in owning the Internet.
Each network that is attached to the Internet, whether commercial, academic, military or government will have its own user policies and procedures. Thus the Internet does have some measure of localised regulation but such policies and procedures cannot be enforced upon other areas of the Internet beyond the control of an individual organisation. Instead, rules and protocols between networks have to be negotiated and are usually agreed upon after proposal, trial and (often endless) electronic and face-to-face discussion. Thus the technology of the Internet is constantly in flux. However, the Internet does benefit from the existence of two organisational bodies; the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which, in its own words is “a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet.9” and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) based in Geneva which is an international industry consortium founded to develop common protocols for the evolution of the World Wide Web. These two bodies are the closest the Internet has to an executive. That said, there still remain a huge number of differing interest groups competing to control the way in which the Internet is used. These include Internet software vendors, software users, free speech advocates, Governments, advocates of censorship, information scientists, information providers (both commercial and non-commercial) network administrators and corporations interested in the commercial potential but concerned about the legal liabilities.
Information providers such as Compuserve, America On-Line (marketed as AOL in Europe) and until quite recently the Microsoft Network (MSN), offer users access to electronically “ring-fenced” information resources in return for a monthly fee. Many people mistakenly believe that such services are the Internet - they are not. Although these information provides now offer users access to various Internet services via a gateway, they use proprietary software that uses different protocols. At the time of writing, with at least one of the above information providers rumoured to be looking for a buyer and another under intense financial pressure, it may only be a matter of time before these services are pulled under financially by the massive wave of consumer enthusiasm for full Internet access using ISP’s. There are also a large number of commercial datasets accessible over the Internet such as Dow Jones, Westlaw and perhaps best known within the UK legal context, LEXIS-NEXIS. However, the Internet only serves as an access point for such services and unlike much of the content one finds on the Internet, these services are fee-based.
Although there are a large number of different services available and each are addressed in this section, by far the most important to most Internet users are the World Wide Web and email. Amongst the “also-rans”, there are services such as FTP, Usenet, Telnet, MUD’s, Talk and Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
Arguably the most important Internet service, the World Wide Web (“WWW” or “the Web”) is defined as a “wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents10.” More simply stated it is a system of linking millions of documents on thousands of computers together across the Internet using hypertext links11. Although the World Wide Web and the Internet are terms that are used almost interchangeably, the WWW is actually only a subset of the Internet. However like the Internet, no one body owns the WWW. Individuals, organisations and corporations are each responsible for the documents they author and publish on the Web.
Since the end of the Second World War, scientists have imagined a seamless library where they could interact with the sum of human knowledge. An article entitled “As We May Think12” written by Vannevar Bush, offered a startlingly relevant vision of the World Wide Web, at that time still some 40 years away. Bush envisaged a machine called the “Memex”, a “device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanised so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility”, and in addition would allow the user to follow their own associative trail of thought. This is very much the model of the Web except that in addition, the user is also able to look at electronic documents provided by others. The first major move towards Bush’s vision came in 1989 with the development of a prototype World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues who, at the time were working at CERN (the European Particle Physics Laboratory) in Geneva. Berners-Lee was interested in finding an easier method of sharing information between researchers. The elegant solution that Berners-Lee and colleagues developed was not to impose standards on hardware or software but rather on the data itself. This standard is HTML (or Hypertext MarkUp Language) and is the glue of the World Wide Web.
There are three features of the World Wide Web that have made it the de facto standard for Internet communication and information dissemination. First, it understands the difference between various types of files. There is no need for the user to appreciate that she/he is downloading, for example, a sound-file. The Web browser “knows” that the file should be transmitted via the computer’s speaker. Secondly, hypertext linking allows the user to seamlessly follow links according to their own interests whether linking between machines on their own Local Area Network or across the Internet. Finally, WWW browsers offers the user a Graphical User Interface (i.e. no typing of commands) in order to navigate the Internet. In addition, developers have built into Web browsers the facility to access other Internet services such as FTP Gopher, Telnet and even email thereby making it the most widely used tool for Internet navigation.
The World Wide Web is now undergoing further development. From its beginnings as an essentially passive medium, whereby the user obtained an electronic copy of a static document, users can now input information through the use of on-line forms. It is now quite common for Web users to fill in forms in order to take part in surveys, register preferences or even purchase every-day items electronically. This inter-activity has allowed Web-based commerce to develop at a frightening pace. In addition computer programmers have introduced animation, sound and even video onto webpages. Furthermore, the introduction of new Internet-compliant and platform-independent computer languages such as Java13 have made it possible for software to be distributed over the Internet or Intranet at the time of need. This, in turn has called into question the current model of computing with expensive PC’s storing software on the computer’s hard drive until needed. The alternative is a cheap Internet-enabled machine which has much lowers costs of ownership and has been labelled by the computing press as the “Network Computer.”
How does a user find information on the World Wide Web given that there is no indexed guide to all available Internet websites. There are two main methods. Certain organisations have set about indexing websites through the use of computer programs (so-called “spiders”) which are sent out onto the web and follow the links between websites and add every new website address to a central database. Internet users can then interrogate this database using the Web. Well known trade names in this area include Altavista14, Infoseek15 and Lycos16. There are many others.
Secondly, it is possible to make an educated guess as to the address of many organisations. For example, every user of the Internet will have heard of the software company Microsoft and know that it is a corporation based in the U.S. All U.S. corporations register their websites with the .com suffix. Therefore, it would be a reasonable guess to assume that Microsoft’s website is www.microsoft.com and that is indeed the case. Such methods can often be as quick as using a search engine.
Electronic Mail or “email” is the most commonly used Internet service based around client/server technology. It is an asynchronous one-to-one communication link - you do not have to respond to email at the time that it is received and therefore is an incredibly convenient method of communicating both with friends and work colleagues whether in the next office or thousands of miles away. Email can also be used for one-to-many communication with groups of like-minded people. This is achieved through electronic discussion lists known as listserv’s. By joining a listserv-type discussion group, you can deliver a message to the electronic mailboxes of all the individuals who also subscribe to the discussion list. For example, the UK Higher Education community enjoys the benefit of a service called Mailbase17 which offers academics and students access to many hundreds, if not thousands of discussion lists on a wide variety of discipline-specific issues. In the UK there are approximately ten academic law-related discussion lists and in the US there are many hundreds18.
Invented at the University of Minnesota, (and it also happens to be their mascot) Gopher services were in many ways a predecessor to the Web. A Gopher service allows the user to access documentary information resources on the Internet using a simple text-oriented menu-driven hierarchy. Gopher services are now more rare on the Internet as usage of the graphically-enhanced WWW increasingly dominates. Most Web browsers can now access both Gopher and Web services. However, Internet users will still occasionally encounter Gopher sites.
Usenet is a close relative of the email listserv. To quote directly from the Usenet FAQ19, “Usenet is a world-wide distributed discussion system. It consists of a set of "newsgroups" with names that are classified hierarchically by subject. "Articles" or "messages" are "posted" to these newsgroups by people on computers with the appropriate software - these articles are then broadcast to other interconnected computer systems via a wide variety of networks.” This an asynchronous one-to-many form of communication similar to listserv-type email discussion lists. However, in order to access Usenet newsgroups, a user needs to have a special “newsreader” program. There are many thousands of Usenet groups and new groups are established virtually every day. However, individual Usenet groups are usually controlled by a single person, the “owner.” That person, often in conjunction with members of the group will decide the parameters of the discussion. Some newsgroups are “moderated”, that is, they will have strict guidelines governing acceptable content and tone of the discussion taking place. However, the majority of Usenet groups are unmoderated and therefore are tantamount to an electronic discussion “free-for-all.” Not surprisingly, it is Usenets that give rise to the largest number of “flame wars” (the exchange of highly personalised abusive messages) and potential libel claims. Usenet also contain large numbers of discussion groups that morally conservative organisations would wish to see restricted or even banned and may well be illegal in certain jurisdictions. In addition, given the high percentage of unmoderated groups, the so-called “signal-to-noise ratio” (that is, the amount of discussion that is actually useful as opposed to that which is merely opinionated) can be quite low.
File Transfer Protocol or FTP is the method by which a user can send a copy of a file from one computer to another across the Internet. There are two forms of FTP. In the first, you sign onto the remote host computer using a login or ID code which is supplied to you by the administrator of the host. The second form of FTP, known as “anonymous FTP”, allows any user to sign on as a guest provided they offer some basic details about themselves such as an email address. Anonymous FTP is a very useful Internet function in that it allows Internet users to obtain digital information, either documents or computer software for no charge. Computer software houses often make software updates and so-called “bug-fixes” available to the world using anonymous FTP as it is far cheaper than using the traditional mail service.
Telnet is a simple Internet service that allows a remote user to access the facilities of their home network as if they were directly connected to it. For example, a user could retrieve their email from their own mailbox using Telnet. Similarly a number of reference libraries world-wide have make their library catalogues available over the Internet using Telnet.
A one-to-many communication, IRC is the CB (Citizen’s Band) radio of the Internet. Unlike other Internet services, IRC allows the user to engage in synchronous conversation by typing into a keyboard and watching his/her own comments and the responses of others appear directly on screen, key by key. There are many thousands of IRC Channels offering discussion on a wide variety of topics. However given that conversations can occur between users from widely differing cultures and backgrounds, the results can often be quite anarchic. IRC has its own culture and “netiquette20.” Talk is a more controlled and comprehensible one-to-one version of IRC. All that is required for this service is a Terminal Emulation program (usually available in the UNIX operating system), an email address and of course, someone at the other end willing to respond and chat.
These then are the major services that a user can obtain from the Internet. There are others such as MUD’s which can stand for any of; Multi User Dimension, Multi User Dungeon, or Multi User Dialog. This is software in which many user interact and is primarily used for gaming purposes. Another area that has not been addressed in this chapter is the emergence of three dimensional worlds on the Internet built using a language called VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language). In due course, we will see many current two dimensional websites evolve into three dimensional sites built using VRML. At the time of writing we are still some way from the delivery of such sites.
As with all new technological breakthroughs, all users whether corporate or individual need to consider their legal responsibilities and liabilities in their use of the Internet. From a practising lawyers point of view, and as this book reveals, the Internet is a source of new legal problems and therefore a potentially lucrative source of new legal work. However, the Internet has at least four other uses;
· First, a technology as simple as Internet email can have dramatic benefits. Instead of using expensive and environmentally wasteful resources, organisations can save themselves thousands of pounds each year by distributing internal memo’s, newsletters, and news releases via email. Some UK law firms already use email for this task and in addition use Internet email extensively for communication with remote offices and with clients as it is far cheaper than facsimile or the traditional postal service. Such firms, however, would appear to be a minority.
· Secondly, the Web can be a excellent source of useful legal and law-related information whether case reports, statutes, legal “grey” literature, or as a method of obtaining up-to-date information about the marketplace in which lawyers operate, information about a law firm’s clients or potential clients (much of which would be difficult and/or expensive to obtain from other sources). There is a wealth of legal information already available. In the US, all Supreme Court decisions, the US Code, Treaties and vast amounts of both Federal and State law are freely available over the Internet. The position is similar in Australia. The UK has been a little slower to embrace this technology but since November 1996, all House of Lords judgments, new Statutes and Statutory Instruments21 have been made available free of charge.
· Thirdly, the Web is a means by which a law firm can advertise its presence and market its skills to a world-wide audience, via its corporate website. Many UK law firms have already established their virtual presence. Notably however, few law firms have yet to provide substantive legal services across the Internet, but there are exceptions22.
· Finally, the WWW can be a cheap, simple and secure method by which lawyers and support staff can disseminate internal information using intranet technology. Intranets require a four elements - a network, computers with WWW browsers installed, a Web Server (the computer which stores the information) and the relevant information in an appropriate HTML format.
Given that the World Wide Web was developed in order to encourage the academic sharing of knowledge, it would seem to be a tailor-made technology for sharing information between lawyers. Information that might be contained on an law firm intranet might include internal memoranda, press releases, IT support information, starting points for legal research and employee information from departments such as Human Resources, Accounts, and Marketing. However, an Intranet may become truly cost effective in the dissemination of law firm knowhow. Law firms are, in essence, know-how companies - other organisations become clients in order to solve their own legal problems and in doing so purchase a firm’s applied knowledge. Hence the firm’s knowhow is an extremely valuable strategic asset. Unfortunately, lawyers have in the past tended to horde their knowledge rather than share it. Breaking this cultural barrier may be as much a hurdle as the technical problems of developing an Intranet. Nevertheless, there remains an enormous opportunity open to law firms to exploit this new technology.
Almost by the day, new Internet-related technological developments are announced. The Internet and particularly the World Wide Web have become most important new computing initiatives. Within the two years we have seen the emergence of Java as a new computing language designed to work on the Web. We have seen Microsoft, the world largest software company perform a multi-billion dollar re-analysis of its current strategy and subsequent redesign of all it’s existing corporate software products so that they could interact with the World Wide Web. We have also seen the emergence of a new commercial force in the computing industry in the form of Netscape Communications Corporation from a two-man start-up to a billion dollar company. The World Wide Web browser has now become ubiquitous and is set to become the new electronic window on information of all descriptions whether originating on the Internet, a corporate database or CD-ROM. These are turbulent technological times.
There are still numerous business, technical and legal problems facing the Internet. Besides the legal problems such as trademark and copyright infringement, pornography, privacy and encryption, etc., many which are addressed in the following chapters, another major problem is information overload. In the words of Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Corporation, “trying to get information off of the Internet is like trying to get a drink from a firehose.” Reading one’s email, belonging to a few discussion lists and exploring websites of interest can be a full-time job in itself. There is also a desperate need for quality rather than quantity of information. Information scientists world-wide are currently working on standards for metadata (data about data) which would allow more effective information search and retrieval but these are still some way from ratification and adoption.
We are still some way from the much-hyped information superhighway, where every house, school, library, shop and office will have high-speed connections to the vast resources of the Internet as well access to video-on-demand, on-line shopping for everything from the holiday of a lifetime to a loaf of bread and interactive virtual-reality games. Indeed, the hype surrounding the Internet has made this term one of the most woeful clichés in technology. Yet, given the rate of change on the Internet in the last five years, the de-regulation of telecommunications world-wide, the establishment of global satellite networks23 to carry Internet data traffic, and the enormously attractive commercial potential, such a scenario is likely to be with us much sooner than we expect.
List of Footnotes for Terret