January 2, 2005

Welcome to Issue #176 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 fill out the subscription form -- it's free!

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The Internet Moves into Libraries
Google has announced that it will begin digitizing library collections from universities including Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and others. Later, ten major international libraries, including the Carnegie Mellon University Library and the Library of Congress, have agreed to have their collections digitized by the Internet Archive. Competition is a good thing, right? Especially if it means we get to view these archives for free. Here's more from SearchDay and ResourceShelf.

Next up in search: video
Two sites announced the availability of video search -- on Wednesday Yahoo debuted a beta version of its video search, and then hours later Blinkx unveiled its tv video search. The Blinkx product is interesting because it uses speech recognition technology that allows you to search for specific words in a broadcast. These are both products that need a little time to mature.

Does unsubscribing really work?
I have always argued that clicking on the "unsubscribe" link in an e-mail is helpful only with reputable vendors; that spammers who send out e-mails for watches and male enhancement aids have no interest in honoring an unsubscribe request, and in fact may sell your e-mail address to other spammers. A reporter for Salon decided to get the scoop himself -- and the results are very interesting. Check out Remove Me! -- if you're not a Salon subscriber, take the time to view the ad for the free daypass -- it's worth the read.

New phishing attack warning
There's apparently a new hole that has been discovered in Internet Explorer that allows phishers to launch attacks on your computer. The site that found the hole, Secunia, has this test that you can take to see if your computer is vulnerable. Or, you could download Firefox and forget about it.

A PC Security Primer
Brett Burney has a great overview on the basics of protecting your computer in PC Security 101 for Lawyers.

Get yer Mealey's via RSS
LexisNexis announced that its Mealey's Publications and Conferences group now makes its top headlines available via an RSS Feed. Free stuff from Lexis -- it is Christmas!

We all need a buddy now and then
There's a new add-on for the Firefox browser called Research Buddy. It's a little bit like OnFolio or NetSnippets, but it looks like it's geared to students and maybe writers. The plugin allows users to save selected pages or even just text, and will capture enough information to construct a proper bibliography. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like a nifty tool -- and you can't beat free.

Sneak Peek at the Supremes
The Supreme Court Collection at the Legal Information Institute has a cool new feature -- previews of upcoming Supreme Court cases through its liibulletin-cert page. You can see the previews here, or subscribe to free e-mail updates.

Another browser speaks out
In all the fuss surrounding the Firefox browser, we seem to have forgotten Opera, which has been an IE-alternative for long before the Mozilla offering. Now Opera is out with a new release, and this one is pretty cool -- it allows users to navigate using voice commands, and have Web pages read to them.

Blawgs of the Week(s)
There are a lot of law-related weblogs visited the past two weeks, so let's get goin': Tom Baldwin is Chief Knowledge Officer at Sheppard Mullin, and he's blogging about knowledge management issues over at Knowledgeline. Ohio Law is written by Ken Koslowski, the Director of the Ohio Supreme Court Law Library. It features "reviews and announcements of new and not-so-new online sources of Ohio law along with a smattering of internet news." Charley Foster is a Salt Lake City attorney, and he's penning The State of the Beehive, a blog about Utah law, politics, history, and sports. The Vancouver Law Librarian Blog is published by Steve Matthews, who is a.....well, Vancouver law librarian. He'll be talking about "points of interest to the West Coast Law Librarian, highlighted sources on KM, Web development, and Law Library Management," and more.

Week 2 blawgs: Electronic Discovery Law is a new blog from the Document Analysis Technology Group at Preston Gates & Ellis. It's also a new lexBlog blog. Oregon law firm Jordan Schrader has got a blog (a lexBlog blog, at that) named Construction Labor Law. BarclayBlog is a product of Wendy Scott of the Barclay Law Library at Syracuse Law School. Yet another blog pops up at the Law Professor Blog Network: this time it's the White Collar Crime Prof Blog, which is published by Peter Henning and Ellen Podgor. Paul Gowder is a civil rights lawyer, social activist, and writer, and he's writing The First Amendment Run Amok, "wherein Public Policy is discussed with an eye to ecological sustainability, broadly defined, and humanistic values." Finally, Appellate Law & Practice is a group blogged published by federal law clerks, appellate lawyers, and law students. Looks great, but the posts could use some dates so we can tell when they are posted.

Caught in the 'Net

Google Desktop Search Flaw

Well, that was quick. On December 20 the Internet was all abuzz about a flaw found in Google Desktop Search, that would apparently allow malicious sites to access a user's personal computer files. By the afternoon of the same day, that hole was fixed. Here's a brief discussion on how the flaw was discovered.

I think it's great that Google is so responsive to these issues. Still, this illustrates my reservation about the Google product in general, and perhaps even the MSN and Ask Jeeves products -- when you conduct a search, you receive a blend of results, both from the Internet and your computer. If there's a security hole in the search program (or in Internet Explorer, if you're using it), you run the risk of exposing your personal computer files to someone on the Internet.

With the Copernic and X1 searches, this isn't a problem -- they only search the contents of your computer. Of course, you're losing the functionality of being able to search the Internet at the same time. But that's a loss I'm willing to face, I think.

::Blush::

Dennis Kennedy announced his non-scientific, "highly opinionated" Legal Blogging Awards yesterday, and I'm pleased (and more than a little shocked) that he named Inter Alia the Runner-Up in the "Best Overall Legal Blog" category, and me the co-winner of the "Best Legal Blogging Expert" category. It means a lot, coming from Dennis, who I consider to be the best legal technology expert out there. He is constantly pushing me in new technological directions, and I'm grateful for his support.

Speaking of the best legal blog out there, beSpacific, Sabrina and I will be speaking soon on the Internet, research, and maybe even blogs. Stayed tuned for more details.

Help Desk

If you find yourself working on a computer without antivirus protection, fear not -- just head over to McAfee FreeScan, which will scan your computer -- for free! -- to see if you're harboring any viruses or other nasty Internet creature.

Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net – I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!