Electronic Transaction Law of Oman: a Review

July 16th, 2009 at 08:54pm Under Computer Law

In a move towards creating a suitable environment for secure electronic transactions, the Sultanate of Oman has issued the e-Transactions Law formalised by the Royal Decree 69/2008.

This is the first law for legalising electronic transactions in Oman which can be defined as any contract, agreement or communication in this regard to be fully or partially implemented by electronic means as electronic messages.

The formulation of this law begins a new era for Oman, where a truly e-enabled society evolves in the realisation of the digital society of Sultanate. It is a major milestone in the implementation of the national IT strategy by the Information Technology Authority (ITA) of Oman.

The e-transactions law consists of nine sections and combines 54 articles, developed and refined over a period of three years. ITA along with a few other government entities and a private law firm have compiled this law based on studies about the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Trans-border Flows of Personal Data, and e-laws of several countries like the USA, Europe, France, Ireland, Malaysia and Tunisia.

The e-transactions law of Oman legalises the use of digital signatures in electronic commerce and communications through letters, emails, etc. Organisations wishing to introduce digital signatures for their use must be approved by the Information Technology Authority through a formal process.

Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of Information Technology Authority (ITA) has pointed out that one of the main purpose of this law is to facilitate electronic transactions which are vital to e-government and e-commerce applications in Oman. In order to support such transactions, any contract, agreement or communication carried by electronic means as electronic messages is considered legally valid through this law. It regulates the transfer of electronic data and messages through various electronic channels such as the Internet and control changes made to data.

For creating the regulatory environment, the law has strict penalties for anyone misusing electronic systems, the applications and the data resident in them by punishing criminal acts using electronic systems and data like hacking into computer systems, unauthorised capture or tampering of data, etc.

ITA is saying that through this law it aims to consolidate public trust in the safe use of e-transaction, messages and records while assuring adequate protection for privacy of data of individuals involved in such e-transactions.

Promotion of this law sets up unified rules, regulations, and standards of authenticating electronic messages and records. By building trust and security, it will reinforce the development of the e-transaction at the national, Gulf, and Arabic domain by using the e-signature and e-transactions. The use of electronic signatures in electronic commerce set forth a common legal framework for electronic authentication over the Internet or other electronic media. It also will play a pivotal role in forming contracts, carrying out business; assisting people work together co-operatively and underpin many forms of electronic collaboration.

As a comprehensive law it gives credibility to electronic information sharing, while taking the issue of information and communication security to higher levels of authentication, integrity and privacy.

The law provides for encryption as a means to protect e-transactions in order to ensure confidentiality of information or data of the message, to verify the originator, and to prevent others from getting information or data messages so as not to reach the addressee or to corrupt them.

Government entities can now use electronic records and digital signatures in tendering systems; license request processing and taxation systems can also accept fees or any payments electronically.

Protection for adequate privacy in matters related to personal data held in computer systems and processes for enabling electronic transactions is assured by the new e-transactions law of Oman. The law rests the responsibility of protecting electronic systems and data on the entities that manage these electronic systems and the authorised entity that issues valid digital signatures.

The necessary regulations and decisions for the law, which will come into effect three months after its publication in the Government Gazette, would be issued by the Minister of Commerce and Industry.

Computer Forensics – Finding Out What The Bad Guys Did With Their Computers!

July 16th, 2009 at 02:55am Under Computer Law

Computer forensics is a lot like the CSI investigation programs on the television. Using advanced techniques and technologies, a computer forensic scientist will reconstruct a possible crime using the data that one computer systems. This data may include email trails, files, hidden directories and other related clues.

Computer Forensics is the scientific study of computers or computer related data in relation to an investigation by a law enforcement agency for use in a court of law. While this technology may be as old as computers themselves, the advances in technology are constantly revising this science.

While all computer languages are created with ones and zeros, it’s much easier to track what was done when, although by whom continues to be problematic. Forensic science has done well to keep up with the task of tracking and tracing what is done and creation of a timeline in an attempt to reconstruct a possible crime. Although it’s possible to clean and remove data from a hard drive, most people simply think that a delete key really removed the data. In actuality, the delete key simply removed the file location from an index file and the actual data is still safely on the system. It’s up to the data recovery skills of the forensic computer personnel to capture and restore that data without modification.

Computer forensics can be used to track emails, instant messaging and just about any other form of computer related communications. This can be necessary, especially in the world where computers and data travel around the world in seconds. Packet sniffers can literally be placed within a data stream and provide information on what’s running through the network in real time. This is really phenomenal considering the millions upon millions of data packets moving through any individual part of the network.

Computer forensic science is an interesting niche in the law enforcement field that is seldom considered as a career. As it’s relatively new, the field is considered by many to be wide open for anyone with the initiative to learn the skills. Unlike many computer related jobs, a computer forensic specialist will not be outsourced to a country on the other side of the world. The confidentiality of the data is just too sensitive to allow it to travel throughout the world just to save a little cash.

Law of Attraction – a Basic Understanding

July 15th, 2009 at 08:55pm Under Computer Law

The Law of Attraction truly cannot be defined by any single definition. It has to do with energy and a force that’s so powerful and so mystifying that words wouldn’t do it justice.

Some definitions refer to the law of attraction as karma or the golden rule. You may have heard people say, “you get what you give…”; “what goes around, comes around…”; “karma”; “do unto others” and a host of others.

They’re all right.

However, when I’m asked, “What is the Law of Attraction?”, I like to summarize it in two 3-word phrases: “Like Attracts Like” and “Thoughts Become Things.”

Like Attracts Like

Everything in the universe is composed of energy. If you were to take a peek inside your body, you’d see that you’re made up of organs. With magnification, you’ll see that your organs are made up of tissues. With even more magnification, you’d see that your tissues are made of cells; your cells are made of molecules; and your molecules are made of atoms. You may remember this from science class.

These atoms are made of even smaller ‘components’ called electrons, neutrons, and protons. Here’s where science class got a little fuzzy for me. At the time I learned this, we were taught that the electrons, protons and neutrons were the smallest units of matter and this is where things stopped. What they didn’t tell us is that these ‘units of matter’ are made of energy. More accurately stated, they ARE energy.

So in short, everything is made of energy. The computer you’re using, or the newspaper you’re reading this in…everything. And what’s amazing is that these different energies have their own vibrational resonance. For this illustration, we’ll call vibrational resonance “frequency” – just like a radio station frequency.

So as this energy is emitting its frequency, there are other energies that are on the same frequency and they tend to draw towards one another.

If you were to tune your radio to 101.9 you would only be able to hear what’s on the 101.9 frequency, which is being emitted from the 101.9 radio tower. It’s the same with energy.

Have you ever sat next to someone and you ‘just didn’t feel right’? There may have been nothing ‘wrong’ with the person, but for some reason you just felt uncomfortable. It was because at that time, your energy was on a ‘different frequency’ as the person sitting next to you. Your energies clashed and it made you feel uncomfortable.

You will attract to you what you embody or what you are “like,” in other words. If you’re gloomy, you’ll attract gloomy people. And if you’re happy and cheerful, you’ll attract happy, cheerful people (or at least, they’ll become happy and cheerful because of YOU).

If you feel broke, you’ll attract more of being “broke,” because it’s a match to you, to your energy. And if you feel prosperous, you will attract situations to help you be prosperous.

Thoughts Become Things

The other thing about the Law Of Attraction is that thoughts really do become things.

This can also be summed up more scientifically by the expression, “Energy is neither created, nor destroyed.” So rephrasing the aforementioned statement, “If you put a loving a caring energy into the Universe, that same energy will be returned to you.

So the thoughts (energy) you put out will be returned to you (or ‘created’ in your reality)

Everything starts as a thought. That computer you’re reading this on originated, at its essence, as the thought of Konrad Zuse, who invented the very first working programmable computer in 1941. Others, like Steve Jobs, believed computers could be accessible to anyone in their homes. And Zuse and Jobs began to manifest those realities for themselves before most thought they were “possible.”

LOA is at the essence of everything that exists today. When you think of something you want AND you believe it can come, you will attract it to you. It will ultimately become your reality.

Computer Forensics – a Brief Introduction

July 15th, 2009 at 02:54pm Under Computer Law

Computer Forensics – A Brief Description

Computer Forensics is the function of utilising scientifically proven methods to assemble together and process data found on a digital device, (computer, hard disk drive, mobile phone, memory card etc), and interpret that data for possible use in a court of law or other theatre of investigation. The evidence may assist in the prosecution or a criminal, help in the defence of an accused person, or be of intelligence to an individual who is seeking knowledge for either personal or professional reasons.

The main users of Computer Forensics are law enforcement officers, as a large percentage of crimes in some way utilise digitally stored data. This data could be a phone call made on a mobile phone, (or cell phone), which could place an individual at the scene of a crime, (or of course away from it), accounts for illegal activities such as drug sales, images of paedophilia, human resource issues, hacking, email abuse, unauthorised data duplication, IP theft etc. Corporate organisations are utilising computer forensics more and more now as they often have to investigate incidents such as inappropriate computer use, inappropriate email use, unauthorised data duplication and disloyal employees. Human Resource departments and Internal Security are the biggest users of these specialist corporate services. Private individuals may also use these services. It may be the lover cheating on their partner, or inappropriate internet use by a family member.

Computer Forensics or Cyber Forensics as it is also known, is now taught at many colleges and universities around the world, and is available to both the law enforcement community and private individuals.

What to do if you suspect illegal or inappropriate activity on a computer or digital device:

1. Turn the power off – Pull the plug out if necessary

2. Secure the ‘exhibit’. Don’t allow anyone access to it, security seal it if possible

3. Contact a Computer Forensics Expert

What NOT to do if you suspect illegal or inappropriate activity on a computer or digital device:

1. Call your IT manager, or one of your technical staff

2. Get them to ‘see’ if the user has been looking at ‘dodgy’ websites or if any important files are missing

3. Sack the member of staff

The analogy of the above:

Imaging a body lying in a muddy field. There is a blanket over the body and something petruding from it. By not following procedures, what you will have done is the same as follows:

1. See the body

2. Walk up to the body in the field

3. Take the blanket off the body

4. Move the body to ‘have a look’

5. Put the blanket back over the body – ‘like it was before’

6. Leave the field

What you have just done:

Entered the scene of a crime, left YOUR footprints all over the muddy field, left YOUR fingerprints on the body and blanket, left YOUR DNA all over the place.

You then expect to call the relevant organisation/authority and have them try and find evidence, which has just been tainted by YOU or YOUR STAFF. This is not a good start, and could make the case in question inadmissible.

Remember that this is a very specialised service provided by experts. Use experts to do the job correctly in the first place, then there shouldn’t be a problem.

Simon Steggles

Disklabs Computer Forensics

www.disklabs.com/computer-forensics.asp

www.computer-forensics.co.uk

simon.steggles@disklabs.com

Computer Implemented Inventions – Where are We Now?

July 15th, 2009 at 08:55am Under Computer Law

The EPO define a computer implemented invention as an invention that works by using a computer, a computer network or other programmable apparatus. To qualify, the invention also needs to have one or more features which are “realised wholly or partly by means of a computer program”.

Before the European Patent Convention 1973, the implementation of the specific provisions relating to computer related inventions was generally left to the EPO, member states and national courts to resolve.  It was felt that as technology developed a specific definition of what would qualify as a patentable invention could potentially restrict or omit emerging technologies. Also there was much disdain towards the US treatment of Software Patents and wariness about letting the practice infiltrate to Europe.

Finally, it was also widely believed that copyright and database right were sufficient protection for software code, and that allowing patenting of a computer program might lead to double protection, which would fall foul of competition laws.

While some countries grant patents for software, the patent practice in Europe requires an applicant to show their invention actually makes a contribution in a technical field.  

The European Patent Convention 2000 (as amended), the legislative instrument governing the grant of European Patents at Art 52 (1) ‘Patentable Inventions’ states that “European patents shall be granted for any inventions, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are susceptible of industrial application.” The section then lists a few groups of exclusions at Art 52 (2),  namely:- (a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods; (b)aesthetic creations; (c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers; and (d) presentations of information.  However, it goes on to include a clause that the subject matter relating to these exclusions shall be excluded from patentability “only to the extent to which a European patent application or European patent relates to such subject-matter or activities as such”. 

Over the years there has been much banging of heads about what the true meaning of the ‘…as such’ – especially because the EPO has  not provided a clear indication as to what the words mean in  relation to ‘computer programs’. The only explanation has been that for computer implemented inventions to be patentable, they must have technical effect/ character, and solve a technical problem, in addition to the other requirements of patentability. However, this simply begs the questions what is, or isn’t technical character and what is or isn’t a technical problem.

Case law is where one hopes to find the answers to these questions.  However, the EPO has been somewhat inconsistent.

In Vicom/Computer-related Invention [1987] the EPO said that a claim directed to a technical process which is carried out under the control of a program (to be implemented in hardware or software) cannot be regarded as relating to a computer program as such as it is the application of the program for determining the sequence of steps in the process for which in effect protection is sought and that such a claim is allowable under art 52 of the EPC.

Then came Merrill Lynch’s Application [1989] establishing that there must be “some technical advance on the prior art in the form of a new result.” Although Vicom established that programs running on known hardware were patentable, many applications for such programs had been hopelessly unsuccessful.

Fujitsu’s Application [1996] was for a method of modelling crystal structures for designing inorganic compounds by manipulating the images of known structures, a process that had previously been done by linking bits of plastic. The examiner decided that the invention fell within the exclusions, being nothing more than a computer program and a method for performing a mental act. On Appeal to the High Court it was found that the invention was “in substance of a scheme or method for performing a mental act” The Court of Appeal dismissed the subsequent appeal that followed, concluding that the important question was whether the invention produced a technical contribution, not if it provided a new tool.

Thus, in the UK, computer implemented inventions are not patentable if they fall within the exclusions of the Patent Act 1977 Section 1(2), which has similar provisions to those of Art 52.

The current practice however comprises a ‘four step test’ that originates from the principles in Aerotel/ Macrossan’s case which involved a new automated method of acquiring the documents necessary to incorporate a company. It involved a user sitting at a computer and communicating with a remote server, answering questions. The four steps were:

(1) properly construe the claim

(2) identify the actual contribution;

(3) ask whether it falls solely within the excluded subject matter;

(4) check whether the actual or alleged contribution is actually technical in nature.

In comparison with the EPO’s approach, and in light of cases such as Astron Clinica Ltd {2008], the  practice has been challenged and even dismissed as incorrect, especially because, some of the UK decisions have not been clear in identifying the technical contribution, or indeed what comprises technical character. Although some judges have tried to interpret the four step test as being in line with the EPO approach, the judgement in Macrossan’s also appears to reject the fundamental principles set out in other earlier judgements for example the Fujitsu’s Application, a judgement that suggest the UK Courts should seek guidance from the case law of the EPO.

On 22nd October 2008, the President of the European Patent Office (EPO), Alison Brimelow, made a referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeal (the EPO’s Supreme judiciary body) on several questions pertaining to the Patentability of Computer Implemented inventions. With patent applications for computer-based inventions experiencing the highest growth rate among all patent categories filed at the European Patent Office (EPO) over the past few years, it will be interesting to see what the response from the Enlarged Board of Appeal will be.

An Understanding Of Moore’s Law

July 14th, 2009 at 08:55pm Under Computer Law

It’s plain to see that the computing speed found in the personal computers of today has been steadily picking up steam since the market began. Many wonder when our technology will begin to taper off, but according to a man named Gordon Moore, we’re only beginning to tap the potential of what we can do with our computer systems.
Gordon Moore was a co-founder of the popular Intel brand. Aside from this substantial title, Moore is most commonly known due to his assertion of what became known as Moore’s law. In the April, 1965 issue of Electronics Magazine, Moore put forth his beliefs about semiconductors:
“The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year … Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer.”
Surely, when he said it, Moore had no idea how significant his assertion was. The statement was taken to heart by a Caltech professor by the name of Carver Mead, who dubbed the belief “Moore’s Law”. In 1975, Moore stated that he believed his equation would continue to hold true, save the fact that it would take 2 years for a doubling of the computing power. His statement was made based off of what he had seen in the market so far and what he predicted it to do. Making the announcement may have actually helped to push computer scientists to follow and achieve the goal throughout the years. Clearly, the manufacturers have been meeting that goal. Questions arise, however, about the theory’s validity in the coming years. Moore himself has stated that the size of the transistors that we are building cannot get much smaller unless we figure out a significant method of changing the process. He still believes that we will continue to progress for the next 10 to 20 years at the same rate, but is curious as to where computing can go from there. At Moore’s rate, it would place machines capable of processing 100 gigahertz of information per second in our houses as soon as 10 years from now.

Computer Security Certification

July 14th, 2009 at 02:55pm Under Computer Law

If there has ever been a growth field, it is computer security certification. With a good computer security certificate from a reputable college, you can go anywhere. Even if you go to one of those IT training schools the you see advertised on daytime television, your certification computer security will probably open doors for you. There are all kinds of jobs for computer security experts, from Homeland security to private industry. You can help prevent data theft, write computer security software, or investigate hackers for law enforcement. For a security certified network professional, the sky is the limit.
I had never expected to get into computer security certification when I was growing up. If anything, I was on the other side of the law. Many of the experts in computer security certification were hackers when they were kids. I used to try to break into all kinds of things just to see if I could do it. It wasn’t a matter of malicious intent. I just wanted to test the boundaries and see what holes computer security systems had in them. To me, it was more of a game or an intellectual exercise than an act of vandalism. Unfortunately, law enforcement did not see it that way. I was caught when I was 16 years old, breaking into the offices of a major multinational corporation. Because of my age I got off with probation, but I realized that I had to turn my life around.
I got my computer security certification training after a few years of soul-searching. To be honest, I was tempted to give up computer hacking altogether, but finally I realized that this was not the course for me. I was just too fascinated by computer networking and the security issues that it involved. I knew that, if I did not go into computer security, it was only a matter of time before I would get into trouble again. Temptation would overwhelm me, and I would suddenly found myself hacking into something or other. Although a I could get away with it for years this time (I had learned from my mistakes) is still didn’t seem to be worth the risk. In the long run, I would get caught. That is why I got my computer security certification. As a certified information security auditor, I can make my hobby into my life and stay on the right side of the law.

Media Piracy and Law Enforcement

July 14th, 2009 at 08:55am Under Computer Law

Once upon a time, music played for free on the radio. And you could record a cassette if you wanted to, and you could listen to it as many times as you wanted to, and nobody thought you were a pirate if you shared it with your friends. In fact, this was seen as a way for new bands to break into the market; quite frequently receiving a mix tape would be motivation to buy the album of the band whose song was included.
What little concern there was over music piracy was restricted to “bootleg” tapes made at concerts. Even one of the most outspokenly liberal musicians ever, Frank Zappa, vented in vain at bootleg tapes of his music. He went so far as to include the tape of an interview expressing his anger with this practice at the beginning of his “As An Am” album, part of his “Beat the Boots” project. But even at its most vampiric, the bootleg recording industry was hardly able to suck off more than a single-digit percentage of profits.
But then the Internet happened. And suddenly, through it, the sharing of a home-made recording suddenly became something you could provide to thousands of people instead of one or two friends. Where even the recording of several purchased CDs onto cassette tape was only moderately a big deal before, now it is a major industry.
The media piracy issue is one of the most vitriolic hot-button issues in today’s Internet culture. The major factors being:
* The RIAA. The Recording Industry Association of America may live on in history as being one of the most ineffective measures of copyright protection the world has ever seen. Its methods have been draconian, never once catching a pirate, but relentlessly pursuing everyone from soccer moms to grandmothers to even dead people with a lawsuit for receiving a pirated tune, which in and of itself is not even a crime. Funded by the not-particularly successful record labels and armed with a battalion of lawyers, the RIAA’s practices have so far been futile at stopping piracy and harassing of legitamate users.
* Sony – became the laughing stock of 2006 with the Rootkit Fiasco. Sony included a malicious program on several music CDs, which installed a computer program called a “rootkit” on any computer you stuck them into, for the purposes of preventing unauthorized copying. The attempt backfired two ways: not only did it do nothing to prevent copying, but it crippled the software on the computer by compromising its security layer; any hacker looking to break into a computer need only look for the rootkit and they were in! Sony faced consumer lawsuits for this attempt and had to distribute an uninstaller for the rootkit, which itself was another botch in that it introduced more security holes into the system after patching its own rootkit. Sony lost millions of customers with this fiasco, many of whom swore publicly that they would never trust Sony again.
* The DMCA. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is the United States copyright law which both criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services that are used to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works and criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, even when there is no infringement of copyright itself. This law has since endured no end to controversy, and is in the process of being reformed. The DMCA is said to be anti-competitive; because it gives copyright holders and the technology companies (including the ones convicted of monopolistic practices under anti-trust laws) that distribute their content the legal power to create closed technology platforms and exclude competitors from inter-operating with them. Once again, DRM technologies are clumsy and ineffective; they inconvenience legitimate users but do nothing to stop pirates.
The whole problem with copyright protection stems from the haziness of defining at what point someone has broken the law. Say I bought an album on tape cassette, brought it home, and played it on my stereo so that my whole family can hear it. I’m not a pirate yet. I upgraded my stereo to a new model and copied that album to a compact disk so that my new stereo can play it. Obviously, I haven’t stolen anything here, but now I might be breaking a law intended to stop me from copying it for piracy purposes. If I play it so my whole family can hear it in the living room, that should be no different from if I made a separate CD copy for each member of my family so they can all listen to it in their bedrooms with their headphones on. Am I a pirate now?
The further problem is that digital protections against copyright are platform and player-specific. There has been a whole quagmire of different devices such as the Apple iPod, Microsoft Zune, handheld game consoles, cell phones, and other devices capable of recording, storing, and playing back music. These features are sold to us as benefits of the device, and yet when we get them home we find that we have to pay for the song some six times to be able to listen to it on each device – if indeed (as is seldom the case) the song has even been ported to that platform! Subscribing to a DRM-protected device further restricts the user’s freedom to switch to a different device – you’re locked in, and would be breaking the law if you moved the media from one device to another – even if you, yourself, wrote and recorded that song at home!
The turmoil over media piracy isn’t likely to end any time soon. Fortunately, the legal system has so far left the enforcement of copyright concerns to private industry, which isn’t doing such a hot job of enforcing copyright anyway. Consider that any country in the world can host any media pirate and in fact several countries do just that, with no laws to stop them. Pirated media is very big business in some countries, not because they want to steal, but simply because they want that media to play on their own independently produced digital devices. Remember when you could just buy a record and drop it on any record player and it would just play?

Understanding Software Copyright Laws

July 14th, 2009 at 02:55am Under Computer Law

Software copyright laws are among the most difficult to enforce among the masses. Many companies and corporations are well known for overlooking these laws, which were designed to protect the creation of software from not earning their worth. Perhaps one of the biggest hitches why many software businesses go out of business is they have difficulty enforcing software copyright laws and getting money that is owed to them from end users.
Software developers, particularly in the corporate world, design software that makes other companies run more efficiently. The software allows these companies to save millions of dollars each year. Software copyright laws protect the interests of the software developers who create these massive programs. These expensive programs are designed specifically for that one company. The copyright and license agreement often consists of a certain number of users with the company purchasing more licenses or copies of the software during expansions or paying some sort of royalties for the use of the software.
The purchasing companies agree to this and then often fail to honor that agreement. The agreement is what allows this company to use that software. When companies aren’t living up to their end of this agreement, they are not only guilty of breaching that agreement, but also of breaking software copyright laws. The trouble always lies in proving they are not honoring the contract and the extent and duration of the breach.
Some ways companies will argue, in defense of not paying the royalties, additional fees, purchasing additional software, etc. is they had upgraded computers and reused the old software (they did actually purchase the rights to use the original software and by doing so feel that they have broken no software copyright laws). The problem lies in the fact that adding ten new computers and placing the software on those should mean you remove it from or get rid of 10 old computers. This is rarely how it works. The truth is they’ve stolen ten copies of software which can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Multiply this by 10, 20, or 100 companies doing the same thing and the offending companies are costing software developers millions of dollars in profits. This is when software copyright laws are not as far reaching in their scope as they really need to be.
Software copyright laws exist to protect the software companies from this type of abuse and misuse; however, the hands of the companies are almost unilaterally tied when it comes to proving that software copyright laws have been broken in court.
There are always exceptions to every rule. In this case big business software developers that abuse the software copyright laws make the exceptions rather than consumers who do not pay for the products they are consuming. The big boys are able to do this by offering licenses for their software and claiming that these laws do not apply to their situation because they are not actually selling the software, but only “renting” out permission for people or companies to use that software. The true irony is that these practices began as a response to the corporate irresponsibility mentioned above. It’s amazing the very software copyright laws that were created to protect these companies can’t protect their consumers from the greed of the developing companies.

Add Murphy’s Law to Moore’s Law

July 13th, 2009 at 08:55pm Under Computer Law

The battle for an enhanced and exponential rise in consciousness between now and 2012 is not going to be a walk in the park by any means. We’ve got Moore’s Law going for us, but we’ve got Murphy’s law standing in the way. Moore’s law describes an important trend in the history of computer hardware since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958. It simply says the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years. 

In essence, man’s computational ability, via computers, is moving off the charts. We have more and more brain power at our disposal to become greater- faster.

The trend was first observed by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in a 1965 paper. It has continued for half of a century and is not expected to stop for another decade at least and perhaps much longer. Almost every measure of the capabilities of digital electronic devices is linked to Moore’s law: processing speed, memory capacity, even the number and size of pixels- and so on. But then we have Murphy’s law!

Murphy’s law is an adage in Western culture that broadly states, “If anything can go wrong, it will.” It is also cited as: “If there’s more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way”. Or, “Anything that can go wrong, will.” In a less dramatic fashion, the law can be expressed as “Anything that has a probablility of happening greater than 0 can and will happen. No exceptions.” The saying is sometimes referred to as Sod’s law or Finagle’s law.

The WHAT that can go WRONG is a vast list of probabilities that extend from new age cults, extraterrestrial appartitions by wacko space cadets wearing tim foil hats, to ancient looking, sounding, and feeling religions with advanced rigamortis who are always looking for Armageddon and Jesus to coming flying back to earth out of the East.

May we not give in or put too much stock in either Moore or Murphy, but, may we look within to the Spirit-Consciousness that knows and has all the answers we need. Meditation and contemplation whould be our increasingly fall back positions as we head to 2012. Did I mentioned it good for September 2008 also?