September 2017

Congress, Google Clash Over Sex-Trafficking Liability Law

September 29, 2017
Internet, Public Health, Social Media

Samuel Louwagie, MJLST Staffer

Should web companies be held liable when users engage in criminal sex trafficking on the platforms they provide? Members of both political parties in Congress are pushing to make the answer to that question yes, over the opposition of tech giants like Google.

The Communications Decency Act was enacted in 1934. In the early 1990s, as the Internet went live, Congress added Section 230 to the act. That provision protected providers of web platforms from civil liability for content posted by users of those platforms. The act states that in order to “promote the continued development of the internet . . . No provider of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” That protection, according to the ACLU, “defines Internet culture as we know it.”  

Earlier this month, Congress debated an amendment to Section 230 called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017. The act would remove that protection from web platforms that knowingly allow sex trafficking to take place. The proposal comes after the First Circuit Court of Appeals held in March of 2016 that even though Backpage.com played a role in trafficking underage girls, section 230 protected it from liability. Sen. Rob Portman, a co-sponsor of the bill, wrote that it is Congress’ “responsibility to change this law” while “women and children have . . . their most basic rights stripped from them.” And even some tech companies, such as Oracle, have supported the bill.

Google, meanwhile, has resisted such emotional pleas. Its lobbyists have argued that Backpage.com could be criminally prosecuted, and that to remove core protections from internet companies will damage the free nature of the web. Critics, such as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, argue the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act was crafted “exceedingly narrowly to target those intentionally engaged in trafficking children.”

The bill has bipartisan support and appears to be gaining steam. The Internet Association, a trade group including Google and Facebook, expressed a willingness at a Congressional hearing to supporting “targeted amendments” to the Communications Decency Act. Whether Google likes it or not, eventually platforms will be at legal risk if they don’t police their content for sex trafficking.

In Doge We Trust

September 29, 2017
Economy, International Law, Internet

Richard Yo, MJLST Staffer

Despite the closure of virtually all U.S.-based Bitcoin exchanges in 2013 due to Congressional review and the uncertainty with which U.S. banks viewed its viability, the passion for cryptocurrencies has remained strong, especially among technologists and venture capitalists. This passion reached an all-time high in 2017 when one Bitcoin exchanged for 5000 USD.** Not more than five years ago, Bitcoin exchanged for 13 USD. For all its adoring supporters, however, cryptocurrencies have yet to gain traction in mainstream commerce for several reasons.

Cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, have been notoriously linked to dark web locales such as the now-defunct Silk Road. A current holder of Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Monero, would be hard pressed to find a completely legal way to spend his coins or tokens without second guessing himself. A few legitimate enterprises, such as Microsoft, will accept Bitcoin but only with very strict limitations, effectively scrubbing it of its fiat currency-like qualities.

The price of your token can take a volatile 50% downswing or 3000% upswing in a matter of days, if not hours. If you go to the store expecting to purchase twenty dollars’ worth of groceries, you want to be sure that the amount of groceries you had in mind at the beginning of your trip is approximately the amount of groceries you will be able to bring back home.

After the U.S. closures, cryptocurrency exchanges found havens in countries with strong technology bases. Hotbeds include China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea, among others. However, the global stage has recently added more uncertainty to the future of cryptocurrency. In March 2017, the Bank of Japan declared Bitcoin as an official form of payment. Senators in Australia are attempting to do the same. China and Russia, meanwhile, are home to most Bitcoin miners (Bitcoin is “mined” in the sense that transactions are verified by third-party computers, the owners of which are rewarded for their mining with Bitcoins of their own) due to low energy costs in those two nations and yet are highly suspicious of cryptocurrencies. China has recently banned the use of initial coin offerings (ICOs) to generate funds and South Korea has followed suit. Governments are unsure of how best to regulate, or desist from regulating, these exchanges and the companies that provide the token and coins. There’s also a legitimate question as to whether a cryptocurrency can be regulated given the nimbleness of the technology.

On this issue, some of the most popular exchanges are sometimes referred to as “regulated.” In truth, this is usually not in the way that consumers would think a bank or other financial institution is regulated. Instead, the cryptocurrency exchange usually imposes regulations on itself to ensure stability for its client base. It requires several forms of identification and multi-factor authentication that rivals (and sometimes exceeds) the security provided by traditional banks. These were corrections that were necessary after the epic 2014 failure of the then-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Mt. Gox.

Such self-adjustments, self-regulation, and stringency are revealing. In the days of the Clinton administration when internet technology’s ascent was looming, the U.S. government adopted a framework for its regulation. That framework was unassuming and could possibly be pared to a single rule: we will regulate it when it needs regulating. It asked that this technology be left in the hands of those who understand it best and allow it to flourish.

This seems to be the approach that most national governments are taking. They seem to be imposing restrictions only when deemed necessary, not banning cryptocurrencies outright.

For Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the analogous technology may be the “blockchain” that underlies their structure, not the tokens or coins themselves. The blockchain is a digital distributed ledger that provides anonymity, uniformity, and public (or private) access, using complex algorithms to verify and authenticate information. When someone excitedly speaks about the possibilities of Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, they are often describing the features of blockchain technology, not the coin.

Blockchain technology has already proven itself in several fields of business and many others are hoping to utilize it to effectuate the efficient and reliable dissemination and integration of information. This could potentially have sweeping effects in areas such as medical record-keeping or title insurance. It’s too early to know and far too early to place restrictions. Ultimately, cryptocurrencies may be the canary that gets us to better things, not the pickaxe.

 

*Dogecoin is the cryptocurrency favored by the Shina Inu breed of dog, originally created as a practical joke, but having since retained its value and now used as a legitimate form of payment.

**The author holds, or has held, Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash.

Invisible Cryptography: Should Quantum Communications Be Subjected to Legal Restraint?

September 23, 2017
New Technology, Patents

Jacob Weindling, MJLST Staffer

Sending secret messages across the world has traditionally required sending messages that risked interception or eavesdropping by unintended recipients. Letters sent on horseback, telegraphs sent over wires, and radio transmissions through the atmosphere were all theoretically capable of interception in transit between the sender and the receiver. This problem was particularly pronounced in World War II, when the Allies easily intercepted secret Axis transmissions and vice versa. To ensure secrecy the messages were consequently encoded, resulting in seemingly random jumbles of characters to unintended recipients.

Message encoding in World War II operated on two separate principles. For particularly sensitive messages, ‘one-time pads’ were created using (theoretically) random values as starting points. This technique for encryption, while essentially ‘unbreakable’ without access to a copy of the one-time pad, required both the sender and the recipient to hold identical copies of the pads. The second method used machines to transform plaintext messages into code. This second method, famously employed by Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine, substituted true randomness for a complicated but non-random algorithm that provided convenience and reliability. While Enigma proved a sufficient safeguard against traditional pen-and-paper codebreakers, early computers proved adept at quickly defeating the encryption, as dramatically highlighted in “The Imitation Game,” the recent film detailing Alan Turing’s invention of a codebreaking computer during World War II.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, cryptographic systems were added to the State Department’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”) Munitions List shortly after World War II. Thus, while the U.S. government was severely limited in its ability to shield secret messages from foreign adversaries, it categorized the tools, methods, and development of cryptographic systems as munitions and severely regulated their export to foreign entities. While today the Department of State has narrowed the scope of cryptography to exclude civilian products, regulations remain on specialized military applications. A key assumption of this regulatory regime is that sensitive diplomatic and military information will be transmitted ‘in the clear’ for all who happen to have access to the channel of communications. While today many communications have moved from radio waves to fiberoptic cables, both systems remain vulnerable to surveillance over the air and online.

Last year however, China took a major step toward a vast departure in the philosophy of secret communication. With the launch of the Quess satellite, China hopes to enable quantum entanglement communication between two ground sites. The satellite would in principle transmit a photon to the ground, while retaining a photon that is ‘entangled’ with the released photon. Any changes to the photon on the satellite would thus be reflected in the photon on the ground, serving as a rudimentary method for transmitting binary information. This test comes on the heels of an experiment at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, which demonstrated the transmission of information between two electrons separated by a distance of 17 kilometers.

A unique feature of this mode of transmission is that information is not propagated from the sender to the receiver via radio waves, which can be intercepted, but rather via the principle of quantum entanglement. Any attempt to eavesdrop would theoretically be perfectly detectable, as the act of observing the photons being transmitted would potentially change their state and render the communication either unreadable or otherwise obviously tampered with. A system could therefore be developed to automatically cut off communications if disturbances are detected.

Interestingly enough, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent that describes a similar method for transmitting information via quantum entanglement. The invention, claimed by Zhiliang Yuan and Andrew James Shields on behalf of Toshiba Corporation, was filed with the PTO on September 8, 2006 and published August 7, 2012. This patent builds on prior art that envisioned quantum cryptography, much of which was quietly filed with the PTO during the preceding two decades. Nevertheless, neither Congress nor the Department of State has acted to incorporate any reference to quantum communications into law, perhaps reflecting an unwillingness to address emerging technology that sounds like science fiction, as with self-driving cars and cyberspace before it.

Despite Congress’ history of lethargy in addressing new innovations and the State Department’s regulatory silence on the matter, legislative action or regulation may yet be premature. China has claimed its satellite has successfully sent a ‘hack-proof’ communication from its satellite, but the results have not been studied by the scientific community. Furthermore, no public demonstration has been made of a practical, non-laboratory quantum entanglement communication product. Even if the technology were to be brought to market, any early application will likely have severely low bandwidth by today’s standards, more closely resembling the telegraph than a gigabit internet connection. But with organizations around the world exploring ground- and space-based experiments with quantum communications, the technology appears poised to exit science fiction and enter practical application. Within the next generation, the codebreaking arms race may ultimately become obsolete, and Congress will be faced with a need to address the new secret communication regime.

Scents: The Unconventional Potential for Trademarks

September 14, 2017
Trademark Law, Uncategorized

Amber Peterson, MJLST Staffer

Trademarks are intended to create an immediate brand recognition in the consumer’s mind. Consumers who are satisfied with a product must have a way to easily distinguish it from nearly identical or similar products from competitors. Thus, trademarks play a powerful role in branding and marketing as seen in the Nike “swoosh” and the Target bullseye. These traditional marks or logos are what are typically thought of when thinking about trademarks. However, unconventional trademarks such as the catch phrase “Hasta la Vista Baby” from the film, “The Terminator” and the red color of Christian Louboutin soles can be just as effective to identify a product or service.

The key requirement is distinctiveness. If a product can be thought of as inherently distinctive, it can be trademarked. Thus, the United States Patent and Trademark Office allows the trademarking of a scent since scent is distinctive in that it is deeply tied to memory recognition. Although this option is available, few have accomplished the task since the Patent and Trademark Office has put strict boundaries around what smells qualify.

First, the scent must serve no important practical function other than to help identify and distinguish the brand. This means that those smells whose only purpose is smell-related, such as perfumes and air fresheners, cannot receive scent trademark protection. Second, a detailed written description of the non-visual mark is required to complete the registration process. The problem with scents is the subjective nature of them. The perception of smell can be very different among a number of noses and is thus open to interpretation. This creates difficulty in successfully representing the scent graphically which is required to determine whether something is or is not appropriate for a trademark.

To date, there are only about 12 scent trademarks in the United States (e.g., the flowery musk smell in Verizon Wireless stores and the pina colada scent that a ukulele company scents its ukuleles with). As evidenced, the process of registering a scent can be challenging. However, there are marketing advantages that may make it worthwhile if the product or service resonates more deeply with a consumer compared to a typical visual mark or logo trademark.

Artificial Wombs and the Abortion Debate

September 12, 2017
Health, New Technology, Reproductive Health

Henry Rymer, MJLST Staffer

In a study published in the latter part of April 2017, a group of scientists reported that they had created an “extra-uterine system” that assisted in the gestation, and eventual birth, of several fetal lambs. This device, which houses the fetus in a clear plastic bag, is filled with a synthetic amniotic fluid that flows in and out of the bag through a pump system. While inside this artificial womb, the fetus is attached to a machine outside of the bag by its umbilical cord. This machine is used for several purposes: providing nutrition to the fetus, giving the fetus necessary medication, providing the blood of the fetus with a blend of air, oxygen and nitrogen, and removing carbon dioxide from the bloodstream. The scientists report that in housing the premature lamb fetuses in this system, the scientists were able to “maintain stable haemodynamics, have normal blood gas and oxygenation parameters, and maintain patency of the fetal circulation” within the fetuses. Additionally, the scientists report that the fetal lambs subject to this test were able to demonstrate “normal somatic growth, lung maturation and brain growth and myelination.” The scientists’ report that they believe that this extra-uterine system would not be relegated only to animal use, as they believe that the device could support a premature human infant “for up to four weeks.”

With the advent of this new piece of neonatal technology, specifically with the implications of what this invention (and others like it) would have on fetal development for humans, the artificial womb poses the power to completely shift the paradigm in regards to how the abortion debate is framed. In particular, the impact that this invention will have when combined with American jurisprudence will surely be a new point of contention between Pro-Abortion activists and their Anti-Abortion counterparts.

With the Supreme Court case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, SCOTUS re-enshrined the thesis of Roe v. Wade: namely that women have the right to have an abortion prior to the viability of the fetus. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 846. The Casey court also stated that states have the power to “restrict abortions after fetal viability, if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies which endanger the woman’s life or health” and that the “State has a legitimate interest from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child.” Id.

The arguments that arise from the advent of an artificial womb in conjunction with case law flows from the notion of what a “viable” fetus would be after extra-uterine systems become more mainstream and sophisticated. If these machines develop to a point in which they can take a fetus the moment after conception and develop it for its entire gestation period, will abortion procedures become completely outlawed? Will “viability” remain the measure by which a fetus is distinguished from a human, or will a new metric be invented to replace “viability?” Additionally, will this be a problem that the courts will have to answer? The legislature? Or a combination of both? The invention of artificial wombs seems to be a periphery legal issue that will not have to be answered for some time yet. However, there are many questions that need to be answered as technology improves and develops, and the abortion debate will not be a topic that will remain untouched as humanity moves into the future.

The Future of AI in Self-Driving Vehicles

September 11, 2017
Autonomous Vehicles, Public Safety, Regulatory

Kevin Boyle, MJLST Staffer

 

Last week, artificial intelligence (AI) made a big splash in the news after Russian President Vladimir Putin and billionaire tech giant Elon Musk both commented on the subject. Putin stated that whoever becomes the leader in artificial intelligence (AI) will become “the ruler of the world.” Elon Musk followed up Putin’s comments by declaring that competition for AI superiority between nations will most likely be the cause of World War III. These bold predictions grabbed the headlines; but in the same week, Lyft announced a new partnership with a company that produces AI for self-driving cars and the House passed the SELF DRIVE Act. The Lyft deal and the House bill are positive signs for investors of the autonomous vehicle industries; however, the legal landscape remains uncertain. As Putin and Musk have predicted, AI is certain to have a major impact on our future, but current legal hurdles exist before AI’s applications in self-driving vehicles can reach its potential.

 

One of the legal hurdles that currently exists is the varying laws between state and federal authorities. For example, Companies such as Google and Ford would like to introduce cars with no pedals or steering wheels that are operated entirely by AI. However, most states still require that a human driver be able to take “active physical control” of the car to manually override the autonomous vehicle. This requires a steering wheel and brakes, which would make those cars illegal to operate. At the federal level, the FAA requires that commercial drones be flown by certified operators, not computers or AI. Requiring operators instead of AI to steer drones for deliveries severely limits the potential of this innovative technology. Furthermore, international treaties, including the Geneva Convention, need to be addressed before we see fully autonomous cars.

 

The bipartisan SELF DRIVE Act recently passed by the House attempts to address most of the issues created by the patchwork of local, state, and federal regulations so that AI in self-driving cars can reach its potential. The House bill proposed clear guidelines for car manufacture guidelines, clarified the role of the NHTSA in regulating automated driving systems, and detailed cybersecurity requirements for automated vehicles. The Senate, however, is drafting its own bill for the SELF DRIVE Act. This week, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will convene a hearing on automated safety technology in self-driving vehicles and the potential impacts on the economy. The committee will hear testimony from car manufacturers, public interest groups, and labor unions. Some of these groups will inevitably lobby against this bill and self-driving technology for fear of the potentially devastating impact on jobs in some industries. But ideally, the Senate bill will stick to the fundamentals from the House bill, which focuses on prioritizing safety, strengthening cybersecurity, and promoting the continued innovation of AI in autonomous vehicles.

 

Several legal obstacles still exist that are preventing the implementation of AI in automated vehicles. Congress’ SELF DRIVE Act has the potential to be a step in the right direction. The Senate needs to maintain the basic elements of the bill passed in the House to help advance the use of the innovative AI technology in self-driving cars. Unlike Musk, Mark Zuckerberg has taken a stance similar to those in the auto industry, and believes AI will bring about countless “improvements in the quality of our lives,” especially in the application of AI in self-driving vehicles.

 

 

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