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CmpE 25 9/13/2011 – 9/15/2011

CmpE 25 9/13/2011 – 9/15/2011. Problems with Laws. Laws traditionally control through financial impact and/or confinement. Companies and individuals can be made to suffer financial impact for violation of laws. Individuals can suffer confinement for violation of laws.

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CmpE 25 9/13/2011 – 9/15/2011

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  1. CmpE 25 9/13/2011 – 9/15/2011

  2. Problems with Laws • Laws traditionally control through financial impact and/or confinement. • Companies and individuals can be made to suffer financial impact for violation of laws. • Individuals can suffer confinement for violation of laws. • Technology evolves at a much faster rate than Laws evolve.

  3. Problems with Laws • Laws often rely on physical boundaries as part of control. • For example customs stations at boarder crossings.

  4. Four areas that are often the focus of government control • Censorship of mass communications • Tax • Gambling • Pornography

  5. No simple answers • For each of these focus areas there are no simple answers. • What answers we have in one area often contradict answers in other areas.

  6. Censorship • Traditionally governments will place some restrictions on what information is communicated. • For many years the only methods of mass communications have been newspapers, TV and radio.

  7. Censorship • What is common about newspapers, TV and Radio?

  8. Censorship • Newspapers, TV and Radio are generally in business to make money or at least not lose money. • Financial pressure is therefore an effective means of control. • All of these businesses mass markets are proportional to the size of the business. • Local stations only have a limited audience. • There are only a finite number of these businesses.

  9. Censorship • Censorship is generally not 100%. • It is difficult to stop everything. • There are many different ways of expressing the same ideas or emotion by using different words. • Examples of the can be said on TV. • Getting closer to 100% is very costly. • Example censorship of mail during wartime. • Almost 15,000 censors were used to censor US military mail in 1943. • WGBH American Experience . War Letters . Censorship! | PBS • www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/.../warletters-censorship/

  10. Censorship • Technology has changed mass communications. • Almost everyone is capable of delivering a message to the world. • To control mass communications is no longer simply controlling a small number of mass media outlets. • The Technology of mass communications is so closely tied to modern life that is almost impossible to stop.

  11. Censorship • In January 2011 Egypt cuts access to the internet. • How Was Egypt's Internet Access Shut Off?: Scientific American • www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=egypt-internet-mubarak – Cached • Within a week service was restored. • The shut down never stopped dial-up access however.

  12. Censorship • Efforts within China • Economic pressure on service providers. • Economic pressure on search engines. • Army of people manually filtering. • Somewhat effective but never an absolute control of communications. • At what price can mass communications be controlled?

  13. Censorship • Technology has raised the bar on the costs of censorship. • As more people have multiple ways of doing mass communicating the cost of censorship will raise. • Censorship attempts will continue.

  14. Sales Tax • Why has internet sales become an issue?

  15. Sales Tax • The US Supreme Court ruled that for sales tax to be collected there needed to be a “Nexus” between the location where the transaction takes place and the location where the tax is collected. • There is no clear definition of where a transaction happens in Cyberspace.

  16. Sales Tax • Location is a continuing issue in cyberspace. • Local sovereigns have always had the power to tax transactions that occur under their control. • What arguments can you make for where the transaction takes place?

  17. Sale Tax • What is the rationale for charging any sales tax? • With a physical transaction there is local impact. • The store consumes local resources and services. • The customer consumes local resources and services.

  18. Sales Tax • What is the local impact of internet sales? • Local sales are reduced. • Is it cost alone that reduces sales? • Compare local sales to “Big Box” stores. • If local stores go away what is the impact on the local community?

  19. Sales Tax • The need for increased local revenue is what drives an internet sales tax.

  20. Online Gambling • Different sovereigns have different views of gambling. • When playing online where does the transaction take place? • If it takes place at the client location how could restrictions be enforced? • If it takes place at the server location and the server is off shore how is it enforced?

  21. Online Gambling • Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 • Focus is on the server not the client. • An additional focus on the movement of money. • Does moving the server offshore change the way the law is enforced? • Uses financial pressure to enforce the law.

  22. Online Gambling • Is it significant that this is a national law rather than local? • Does this means that more global solutions are needed? • What about gambling in virtual space is this real gambling?

  23. Online Pornography • This focus differs in that both the client and server are objects of enforcement. • Online companies can supply still and video services. • Services may only be available to clients of a specific age.

  24. Online Pornography • If there are age restrictions how can they be enforced? • Is there a reliable way to identify an online user? • When there is no physical presence when the transaction takes place is there an alternative? • Do any of the methods of online age restrictions make sense?

  25. Online Pornography • Do parental controls make sense? • What is required for parental control? • How simple is it to bypass those controls?

  26. Online Pornography • In addition to the internet, technology has provided other opportunities for pornography. • Simple mobile devices with huge storage capacity. • Cameras and video recorders that are cheap and available to anyone. • Cell phones with embedded video create even additional opportunities for actions never imagined by existing laws.

  27. Online Pornography • The laws concerning searches never imagined mobile devices. • The laws concerning child pornography never imagined that children could the producers of images that are defined as child pornography.

  28. Online Pornography • Do the existing laws covering child pornography make sense? • In general anyone who has sexual images of an under age child is guilty of child pornography. • What is the impact of sextexting on those laws?

  29. Online Pornography • How could you make a better law?

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