Tag: Tech/Law/Policy Blogs
-
Fuzzy Language, Fuzzy Thinking
One of the things I’ve learned in working with lawyers is that the language you use to describe something can powerfully shape your listeners’ ideas about it. Unless you’re very careful, you can fool yourself in the same way. Many have remarked upon the rhetorical trick of using the word “piracy,” which denotes a type…
-
Microsoft Does The Right Thing
Microsoft has decided not to try using the DMCA to censor a paper by former MIT student Andrew “Bunnie” Huang about security mechanisms in Microsoft’s Xbox videogame console. (See this announcment.) Good for Microsoft! If more companies behave like Microsoft did in this case, the DMCA would do less harm. Let’s not forget, though, that…
-
Serendipity
I’ve been reading recently about the history of technology. That history is filled with lessons for policy-makers now. Here is one: One of the reasons we should be wary about banning technologies is that it’s often very hard to tell what a new technology will be good for. It might take a decade or more…
-
Self-Help
Lawyers use the term “self-help” to refer to all of the little steps people take to protect themselves. Locking your bicycle is self-help – even though it would not be necessary in a world where everyone obeyed the law, it’s a good idea in the real world. Fences and burglar alarms are self-help too. Self-help…