©2004 west legal studies in business a division of thomson learning 1 cyberlaw –law governing the...

©2004 West Legal Studies in Business A Division of Thomson Learning

1

Cyberlaw

– Law governing the use of computers and the Internet

– Made up of state and federal constitutional, statutory, and case law

– Builds on traditional laws that apply to brick-and-mortar companies


2

The Internet

– Network of computer networks• Used for e-mail, file transfer, chatrooms

– Different from the World Wide Web (WWW)• Used for commerce and information dissemination


3

History of the Internet

• 1969 ARPANET– Department of Defense built to enable defense researchers at

various sites across the country to communicate and collaborate• Universities Began to Use

– Discussion groups, access to databases, and file transfers• 1973 ARPANET Grew

– Connected to more networks, including those in other countries• 1980’s National Science Foundation

– Built its own network• 1990 ARPANET

– Ceased to exist• WWW in 1991

– Until this time commercial use was prohibited


4

WWW

• 1991 CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics

– For physicists to exchange formatted academic and technical papers

– 1990 Tim Berners-Lee developed and named the WWW


5

Internet Works

• Individual user connects to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) by phone line, satellite dishes, or cable television lines

• Slower connections use modems; faster connections use network interfaces

• The bandwidth is the capacity of the line

• Larger ISPs connected to the backbone of the Internet, and have their own international networks


6

Internet Addresses

• Every computer connected to the Internet has a unique Internet protocol (IP) address that consists of four series of three numbers ranging from 1 to 256, separated by periods.

• Hard to remember 12 numbers• Domain Name System (DNS) implemented in

1984 – Matches the 12 numbers with a text name in a

manner similar to a telephone directory. – Type in the text address into a browsers (IE), the

domain server connects the name with the number and connects the two computers


7

Domain Names

• Top-level domain name and subdomain names– TLDs - Every country given a top-level

domain name• UK = co.uk for company in United Kingdom• US = com, gov, net, org

– Legal Issue – conflict between domain name and trade name or mark


8

Language of the Internet

– Need for a common language– Hypertext markup language (HTML) =

common language – Hypertext transfer protocol (http) = a way of

exchanging such files http://– HTML can be viewed on any type of

computer, using any operating system, as long as it has an appropriate viewer = web browsers


9

URL Uniform Resource Locator

• Within a domain, there may be many web pages or files

• Each file is identified by its URL

• Files are stored on the web server of that Internet node

• Files are transferred from server to a client or browser


10

Transmitting Information

• All info is transmitted by digital transmissions, represented by zeroes and ones

• All data travels in packets– Each packet has a header with the address of

the computer to which it is being sent


11

Packet Communication

• Files and messages are carved (Packetized) into standard size bundles of information. – A network must have a system for carving

information into packets at the sending end (packetizing) and reassembling the packets into messages and files at the receiving end (de-packetizing)

• Not all packets follow the same route to the end address


12

Netiquette

• Culture on the Internet


13

Regulation of Cyberspace

• No one owns the Internet = self policing• Internet Society oversees boards and task

forces that make policy– Engineering Steering Group = Internet Standards– Internet Engineering Task Force = protocol

engineering and development group– ICANN = domain names– WWW Consortium (W3C) develops Web technologies


14

Designed to be “Open” and Unsecured

• Now e-commerce lacks security & privacy– Cookies = server stores on user’s machine

• Information about last visit: may include name, address, sex, pages visited, etc.

– Java enables the sender to execute programs on the visitor’s machine

• JVM java virtual machine program in the browser supposed to protect user from harmful java programs being put on the user’s machine – does not always work


15

Cache

• Temporary storage space on the user’s hard drive

• When a web page is viewed, a copy is held in this storage space

• Overwritten each time web page is visited


16

Information Security

• Firewalls – programs that limit the access to computers or files on

a computer by many methods: passwords, time of day, etc.

• Filters– Block access to certain sites based on keywords

contained in the document– W3C developed Platform for Internet Content

Selection (PICS) – how to insert labels in documents based on rating criteria developed by others


17

Information Security cont.

• Need to protect packets as they travel through the Internet

– Private key – encrypt and decrypt using same key

– Public key – encrypt and decrypt using two keys


18


• Carnivore – FBI’s system capable of monitoring Internet transmission by intercepting at the ISP level– Foiled by good encryption

• Magic Lantern - a program that enables FBI to install a program on a user’s computer that will capture the key strokes of the user, key logging systems (KLS) and reveal the password to the encryption to the FBI


19


• Digital signatures– Encrypt your signature with your private key– Receiver has public key to unencrypt– This proves it is your signature and not

spoofing


20

Weaknesses of the Internet

• Denial of service attacks by overloading a server – Ping of Death

• Viruses

• Passwords stolen


21

Business Uses of Internet Technologies

• Intranet - solely within an organization• Extranet - open your intranet to a limited number of

people on the outside (customers, clients)• Virtual Private Networks ( secure a piece of the Internet

for your use only)• File transfer protocol (FTP) – move files from one

computer to another• Peer-to-Peer networks: Kazaa and Gnutella

– Connect individual machines for the purpose of sharing files without the need for a third-party server


22

Business Uses continued

• Instant messaging – communicating in real time• Videoconferencing – • E-Mail

– Spam– Flooding


23

Globalization

• 2002 more than two-thirds of the Internet users are outside of U.S.


24

Law and Cyberspace

– Chapter 1 E-Business an Cyberlaw – Chapter 2 Jurisdiction– Chapter 3 Trademarks– Chapter 4 Copyrights– Chapter 5 Business Method Patents– Chapter 6 Online Contracting and Licensing Agreements– Chapter 7 Sales Tax in E-Commerce– Chapter 8 Online Security Offerings– Chapter 9 Privacy– Chapter 10 Obscenity– Chapter 11 Defamation– Chapter 12 Internet and Information Security– Chapter 13 Internet and Computer Crime

©2004 west legal studies in business a division of thomson learning 1 cyberlaw –law governing the...

Documents

domain server

internet node files

web server

files http

type of computer

use of computers

web pages

text address