INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
September 8, 2002
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #81 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ilrw-subscribe@topica.com. It’s free!
Have you visited Inter Alia yet? If you haven’t, drop by – I try to update it every day with new and interesting information on the Internet, legal research, and other things. Plus, there are some items on the website that won’t make it into the newsletter each week. The HTML version of this newsletter is also available there.
A new feature this week, for those of you who hate cutting and pasting those really LONG urls (especially from Law.com) – TinyURL will make those long urls small again. So where I have a long URL, I’ll also post the shorter, “tiny” url – both will work.
And away we go…..
News Update
Protecting Yourself Online
There are two articles out this week on protecting your computer from outside attack. First up is a pretty good article from Business 2.0 – the only quarrel I have with the author is that I wouldn’t use the Windows XP or Apple firewall – try ZoneAlarm instead. The second article is written by yours truly, and appears in this month’s edition of the Dallas Bar Association’s Headnotes.Google Only Got a B+?
Fortune Magazine rates several search engines, with some pretty good information on the features of each.You Can Disclaim a Lot in 873 Words
Law.com notes that the disclaimers found at the end of law firm e-mails have grown considerably since the Enron and Worldcom scandals.How about a weekend at a Colorado ski resort?
Well, in September there’s no snow, but it’s still beautiful. I’m speaking at the Colorado Bar Association's 4th Annual Solo & Small Firm Conference in Breckenridge, Colorado, September 27-29, 2002. My speech is entitled “Eight Highly Effective Habits of Internet Legal Research,” and I’m also participating in a “60 Sites in 60 Minutes” discussion with others from the Colorado Bar Association. If you’re in the neighborhood, or if you need CLE hours, take a moment and register!
Reclaiming Your Inbox – Part II received an e-mail from a loyal reader several weeks ago asking me to help “stop all this unwanted e-mail I keep getting!” All of us have received spam at some point, and I have yet to find one person who actually enjoys reading the stuff. Although many valiant people and companies are attempting to stem the ever-increasing tide, the junk mail just keeps on a-comin. Depending on what survey you read, anywhere from 15 to 50 percent of the e-mail we receive is unsolicited; Jupiter Media Metrix predicts that in four years each of us can expect to receive over 1,500 servings of spam annually – I know I receive much more than that now. The European Union estimates that spam costs businesses worldwide between $8 and $10 billion per year.
For the next two weeks, I’ll take a look at the spam phenomenon, including how the spammers find you, and what you can do to stop them (as best you can, anyway).
Like you, I am often bewildered when I start receiving junk e-mail from vendors or purveyors of sex websites, and I’ve never even gone near their websites. So how does the spammer get your e-mail address? They’re sneaky, those spammers, and they are very resourceful. CNET recently listed Internet activities in relation to their potential for attracting spammers, from low risk to high risk – you’ll be surprised at the findings:
- Free software registration – low risk
- Subscribing to an e-mail newsletter (like the Internet Legal Research Weekly!) – low risk
- Registering products online – low risk
- Registering a new domain – this can result in some risk of becoming a spam victim
- E-mail links on your own website – it’s easy for spider programs to find e-mail addresses on websites, and they do.
- Message Boards – this is high-risk behavior. If you post your e-mail address on a message board on Usenet (or anywhere that the spammers can crawl), they’ll find it.
- An America Online Chat Room – this is also guaranteed to earn you some servings of spam in your mailbox. If you are an AOL user and you never use the chat rooms, chances are you won’t get many unwanted e-mails. Enter one of these rooms and you’re virtually marked for spamming.
Have you ever received junk e-mail where it appears your e-mail address is in alphabetical order with the others, and all the addresses start with your letter of the alphabet? This is another way a spammer tries to find you -- the “dictionary attack.” By this method the spammer sends an e-mail to every address created by two dictionaries – a dictionary of commonly used user names, and one of known domain names. The system matches the names to the domains and sends the spam on its way.
Another method of spamming is pretty scary, because if you’re not careful there’s not much you can do to stop it. Many e-mails come to you in HTML format nowadays, to enable richer, more creative presentations. The graphics are not actually “in” the e-mail, however; they reside on a computer somewhere on the Internet, and they are downloaded into your e-mail when you open it. To get to you, the spammer simply puts a code into an image file, and when you open the spam that code is sent to the spammer that he (or she) has found a good e-mail address. Not even the Preview Pane feature of Outlook will help you; the image is downloaded there, too.
Finally, one of the BEST ways to assure your permanent position on a spammer’s list is to reply to an unwanted e-mail. Many of these messages contain “unsubscribe” instructions, if you want to stop receiving solicitations. To the more unscrupulous spammers, however, this reply from you is simply a validation that they found a good e-mail address, making it more valuable to sell to other spammers. So unless you know the vendor to be reputable, never, NEVER reply to spam.
I know you’re asking: if we can’t ask to be removed ourselves, how do we stop spam? Next week we’ll talk about a few ways to do just that.
Help Desk
While we’re on the subject of e-mail, here’s another Outlook tip. You can have Outlook show message from specific people – your boss, clients, and spouse – in colors that stand out. To do this, select the message in your Inbox you want to highlight, then choose Tools | Organize to open Ways to Organize Inbox. Choose Using Colors, and fill in the blanks to color messages from or to the particular individual in your choice of color. You can also use this to color messages temporarily to help pick a specific message out of a full in-box. To turn the color-coding off, scroll up in the color field and select Auto.
Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me a line at tmighell@swbell.net– I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!
Legally Relevant – Sites on the InternetForeign and International Legal Databases
A simple website provided by NYU Law School, this is a great place to find international law resources. The home page features such categories as Search Engines, Business and Finance, Intellectual Property, Environmental Law, Human Rights, International Criminal Law, Trade, Treaties, and many others. Each category has an impressive set of worldwide links on the topic. If international law is a part of your practice, this is a valuable resource to keep in your favorites folder.Government Redistricting Website
Does anyone do any research on redistricting anymore? After the census results are issued, state are required to re-draw the legislative boundaries, depending on the number of congressional seats available. This page, from Purdue University, is a straightforward listing of redistricting efforts in each state. No more, no less.State Government Tax Collections
Speaking of state information, this page from the Census Bureau provides a view of the amounts states collect in taxes each year. The statistics go back to 1992; you can see the total amount of taxes collected by each state in HTML format, or download an Excel file with the collections broken down into 25 categories.Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
TLPJ calls itself a “national public interest law firm,” but I think that’s a little misleading. Sure, the project has staff attorneys, but this is not a law firm. The mission of TPLJ is to protect people and the environment, hold accountable those who abuse power, challenge governmental, corporate and individual wrongdoing, increase access to the courts, combat threats to our justice system, and inspire lawyers and others to serve the public interest. TPLJ relies on a network of 2,700 trial lawyers across the country for its support, and it has an impressive docket of ongoing lawsuits. You can review documents and briefs from these cases and others, or search for other public interest resources.Women’s Law Initiative
The Women’s Law Initiative tackles the tough issue of domestic violence, its goal to provide resources to women and girls who are real or potential victims of abusive spouses, parents, or children. The home page provides links to information on domestic violence, safety tips, national links and resources, and more. Especially valuable are the state-by-state resources; for each state you can get information on how to get a restraining order, statutes and legal definitions, court forms, and contact information for local law enforcement. This is a terrific resource for victims of domestic violence.Finally, a useful site (because I didn’t find anything particularly funny this week). If you ever have a need to convert a document to PDF format, but don’t have the expensive Adobe software to do it, DocMorph can help. Just download the free software, and you’ll be creating PDF files in no time.
Well, that’s it for Issue #81– I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.
Tom Mighell
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Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tmighell@swbell.net.