INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
December 1, 2002
Tom MighellWelcome to Issue #90 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 visit Inter Alia and filling out the subscription form -- it's free!
I'm finally back, after two weeks off -- it feels like forever! Due to the holidays, we'll have ILRW-Lite. Back to full speed next week!
And away we go…..
News Update
Don't throw away that spam...
Donate it to science! CipherTrust has announced the creation of Spamarchive.org, designed as a spam repository. Just send your spam to Spamarchive, so makers of anti-spam tools can test their algorithms on the latest mass e-mail marketing methods.Taking Identity Theft to a New Level
Authorities say three men are responsible for stealing the credit histories of more than 30,000 people -- they then stole over $2.7 million by emptying out bank accounts, taking out false, loans, and running up credit card charges.A New weapon on the E-discovery front: voice mail
This article from Law.com discusses how a voice mail message can make a powerful impact as evidence at trial, and how to go about asking for it. At my firm, our voice mail is automatically deleted after 10 days, and to my knowledge it can't be retrieved -- this article does not address how to retrieve these voice mails, especially a year or two (or more) after they were left.Study on Sex Offender Registries Released
In the days leading up to the Supreme Court's review of Megan's Law, the University of Florida released the results of a study on how much information states make available on sex offenders. Wisconsin, Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia require the most information to be posted. For a summary of the rankings, see the report here.A worm with a nasty sense of humor?
It's bad enough to accidentally download an e-mail worm -- what's worse is finding one that insults you for being foolish enough to open it. The Winevar worm is making its way around the Internet --make sure your virus definitions are updated!The collective consciousness of the world?
It must be pretty cool to work as a receptionist at Google. In the lobby, there's a display called Live Query that provides constantly updated samples -- in 86 languages, mind you -- of what people around the world are typing into Google's search engine.Sometimes these Spam fighters work TOO well
I mentioned back on November 5 (on the website) that the Federal Trade Commission receives about 70,000 spam messages sent in by Internet users. This article from Wired notes that the FTC itself is bouncing many e-mails for coming from blacklisted Internet service providers. Fred Langa noted earlier this month in Information Week that while spam filters statistically only catch less than 25% of all spam, it also stops 34% of all legitimate e-mail. Crazy.Virus Tools for Small and Solo Firms
Law.com has a pretty good discussion of the tools solo and small firm lawyers should use in the fight against computer viruses.
Help Desk
Want to spice up your bullet points? MS Word has lots of great pictures you can use, but it doesn't advertise this fact. In Word 97 and 2000, select Bullets
And Numbering from the Format menu. On the Bulleted tab, click Picture to open the Picture Bullet panel and scroll through 165 bullets in a variety of colors and shapes. In Word 2002, from the Bulleted tab, select a bullet style and click Customize. From the Customize Bulleted List, click Picture and scroll through the selection of bullets. Highlight your selection and click OK.Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail– 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 Internet
Employment Law Guide
This site, from the U.S. Department of Labor, describes the statutes and regulations that affect businesses and workers, and is designed mainly for those needing information to develop wage, benefit, safety and health, and nondiscrimination policies for businesses. Each chapter lists the specific DOL agency that handles the issue, as well as contact information for that agency. You can also download the whole guide in PDF format. This is a handy tool!Global Banking Law Database
If you are one of those people who believe the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are part of a conspiracy to control the world, this site may not be for you -- it's the result of a joint project between the two organizations. The database consists of a collection of commercial banking, central bank, and deposit insurance laws of jurisdictions that are representative of the regions of the world as well as international financial centers. The laws are available in both Word and PDF formats. There are 39 participating countries; just click on one, and you'll get a listing of banking laws available for that country. For example, I found both the Banking and Financial Institutions Act and the Central Bank of Malaysia Act available for Malaysia.Indonesian Business Law on the Internet ($)
If you really, REALLY need to do research on Indonesian business law, this site may be worth checking out. Only trouble is, you can't do it for free -- a one year subscription costs $1800. Subscribers can get access to English translations of Indonesian business legislation. I'm not sure how often the legislation is updated, but the breadth of coverage looks pretty good. There are also some links to other Indonesian research websites, including legal research and government sites.State Health Facts Online
The Kaiser Family Foundation presents this resource, claiming the latest state-level data on demographics, health, and health policy, including health coverage, access, financing, and state legislation. I'm not sure whether the information provided is the "latest," but there's sure a lot of it. You can view the information individually by state, or compare different states. Among the main categories are Demographics and the Economy, Health Status, Health Coverage & Uninsured, Medicaid and CHIP, Medicare, Health Costs & Budgets, Managed Care and Health Insurance, Providers and Service Use, Women's Health, Minority Health, and HIV/AIDS. There's a wealth of health facts here -- take advantage of it!FMCSA Licensing and Insurance Information
FMCSA stands for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration -- it provides for-hire motor carrier, freight forwarder and property broker licensing and insurance data to the industry and public. If you know what a BOC-3 filing is (I don't), you can do that here. You can also check out Blanket Companies,
Carrier Search, the FMCSA Register, Out of Service Carriers, and other information. I have no idea what most of this means, but it certainly LOOKS helpful.
Some fun sites for you:
Last week's HardBall Hotseat Quiz is now online. On the show, the quiz is given to a college student -- just look at the pitiful scores they get! The best score was 13 out of 19. Makes you want to weep for the future.
COSI Columbus, which claims to be among the country's most respected science centers, presents Bet the Farm, a game that makes you the farmer of your own crops and livestock. The challenge: make a profit.
How fast is your mouseclick? Test it out at Mouse. And while you're at it, let
me know if your score makes it into the rankings.
Well, that’s it for Issue #90– 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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