Cyberscholar Working Group

Tuesday, March 27th, 6:00pm
Columbia University

The Cyberscholar Working Group is a forum for fellows and affiliates of the MIT,  Yale Law School Information Society Project, Columbia University, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University to discuss their ongoing research. This month's presentations will include:

"The Future Criminal Investigation in the Digital Age"

The presentation features how criminal investigation has been influenced by digitization whether in evidence or case management. And also both positive and negative impact from booming social networking sites.

Harris Chen is currently a Taiwanese public prosecutor at Chiayi District Prosecution Office, specializing in IP crimes, sexual crimes, drug trafficking and insurance fraud. Prior to his service as a prosecutor, Harris had practiced law as legal consultant for the Airforce,court notary and attorney at law. More...

= = =

"Traditional Knowledge – Culture Expression and Access to Knowledge: The Open Questions"

Traditional knowledge (TK), genetic resources and traditional cultural expressions are economic and cultural assets of indigenous and local communities and their countries.  The World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO's work addresses the role that intellectual property (IP) principles and systems can play in protecting TK and TCEs from misappropriation, and in generating and equitably sharing benefits from their commercialization and the role of IP in access to and benefit-sharing in genetic resources.

Established by the WIPO General Assembly, the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) is undertaking text-based negotiations with the objective of reaching agreement on a text of an international legal instrument (or instruments), hopefully until the end of the year, which will ensure the effective protection of TK, traditional cultural expressions /folklore and genetic resources. ((http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/tk/)

The research describes the conflicting interests and addresses the complex conceptual and legal barriers regarding TK issues, which remain unsolved (mainly from an Intellectual Property (IP) perspective) and therefore, hide the road ahead.
The research, which focuses on traditional cultural expressions, asks questions, such as: What is a TK?; Shall it be protected under IP laws?; What are the best ways to protect traditional cultural expressions?; and What are the purposes of the proposed protections?.  The ongoing discourse about such open questions regarding TK, has given rise to a broader discussion in the legal community regarding the tension between the development of intellectual property law regimes as well as acceptance of WIPO's international treaties and the interests of the developing world.

The research address these open questions, explore the different solutions that have been proposed by scholars as well as by the representatives of the different countries, and proposed a solution.

The lecture will include a short web presentations of the Masai representative and a short interview with the Director of the Traditional Knowledge Division at WIPO Geneva, Mr. Wend Wendland.

Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid is an Intellectual Property senior full time Professor of Law at Ono Academic College (OAC), Israel (Israel's largest Law School). Currently, she is a Yale Law School ISP Fellow and a Visiting Researcher.

Prof. Yanisky-Ravid completed her PhD in the direct track for outstanding students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She conducted a major part of her PhD research at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law.  Her thesis concerned Rethinking Intellectual Property Rights of Creations and Inventions Developed by Employees. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Law from Tel Aviv University cum laude as was on the Dean's List for each year of study, a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology, cum laude from Bar Ilan University and a Bachelor's Degree in Life Sciences, Bar Ilan University, cum laude.

Previous to visiting Yale Law School she has conducted her research as a visiting scholar and researcher at Cardozo Law School, Fordham Law School and as scholarship recipient at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, Switzerland (SICL) and the Max Plant Institute, Germany. She has also lectured at many institutes around the world, such as American University, Washington D.C., University of Lausanne Law School, Switzerland, the Marco Biagi Foundation, University of Modena, Italy and Warsaw, Poland as well as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO), both in Geneva, Switzerland. While being at the YLS she is in charge of two seminars: "Advanced Legal Studies" and (with Slifka)" Law and Society in I-L: Contemporary Issues".   

Prof. Yanisky-Ravid is the winner of many prizes and grants:  the Minerva Center for Human Rights - International Center for Human Rights grant; Prize for Outstanding Researchers in Memory of Prof. Gadi Harel, the Lafer Center for Women’s and Gender Studies scholarship for outstanding researchers, the Silbert Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem grant for PhD thesis and the Van Calker Fund Research Grant, awarded to selected scholars by the SICL.

In 2006 she founded and became the director of the Shalom Comparative Research Center at OAC, which is active in Israel, Switzerland and the U.S. The center promotes comparative research through academic activities by sponsoring and conducting comparative legal research and international seminars in cooperation with international U.N. organization such as WIPO and the ILO as well as US Law Schools, and submits recommendations in the context of international treaties.   

Prof. Yanisky-Ravid's research focuses on the theoretical and comparative aspects of Intellectual Property, Employment Law and Equality. Her forthcoming book, titled "Intellectual Property at the Workplace", concerns the rights of authors and inventors with respect to IP works developed within the workplace. She recently published pioneering research on IP and gender, exposing the interaction between the gender analyses of patent laws and lack of accessibility of women to IP rights. Her research also includes understanding Intellectual Property rights according to economic and social theories as well as rethinking the justifications to Intellectual Property.  Prof. Yanisky-Ravid's research at the ISP considers the question of the accessibility of persons with print disabilities to Intellectual Property products, Traditional Knowledge (mainly culture) and Freedom of Association of workers from the entertainment field. Over the past few years, she has continued researching and lecturing about novel topics related to Intellectual Property (IP), such as: IP ownership, employees' IP rights, incentive to invent and considerations, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) of IP conflicts, and IP and gender. She is about to further her research and publish her findings and analysis of such topics in a book addressing nontraditional topics which will be titled "Beyond IP". The subjects of her work aim to influence reforms on local and international levels using international convention tools.

Prof. Yanisky-Ravid is involved with policy making as the academic representative and member of the National Governmental Committee of Fair Trade in Israel; Board Member, Israel Association for Labor Law and Social Security; consultant to the Knesset (Parliament) Committee of Women's Rights and to Israel's Knesset Members and Deputy Minister for Women and Students; Member, Intellectual Property Law and Technology Forum, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem; committee chairperson for the Legislation Amendments Committee, the committee responsible for amendments in legislation, as a part of the Israel Bar Association as well as in the international level as, for example WIPO's member of the Inert- regional Experts of Traditional Knowledge.

= = =

"Comparing Management-Based Regulation and Prescriptive Legislation: How to Improve Information Security Through Regulation"

Information security regulation of private entities in the United States can be grouped into two general categories.  The first category is prescriptive legislation, which lays out performance standards requiring regulated entities to achieve (or avoid) specified conditions.  The most notable examples are state Security Breach Notification statutes.  The second category is management-based regulatory delegation, under which administrative agencies promulgate regulations requiring organizations to develop (and sometimes adhere to) security plans which must be designed to achieve specified aspirational goals.  Notable examples include the Privacy and Security Rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the security regulations in Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and the enforcement actions of the Federal Trade Commission.  
 
This paper examines these two categories and presents the results of an empirical study comparing their efficacy at addressing organizations’ failures to protect sensitive consumer information.  It uses quantitative data on security breach incidence and qualitative data gathered from interviews with key Chief Information Security Officers.  The quantitative analysis reveals that a combination of the two types of regulation is four times more effective at preventing breaches than is prescriptive legislation alone.  It also suggests that this combination is substantially more effective than is management-based regulation alone.  The qualitative analysis suggests that prescriptive legislation weakens the role of security professionals within organizations, while management-based regulation strengthens their role.  Additionally, the qualitative analysis suggests that a lack of guidance as to what constitutes “reasonable” security hampers security professionals’ ability to advise organizations properly on achieving regulatory goals.
 
These results suggest that a blend of prescriptive legislation and management-based regulatory delegation is optimal, and suggest three specific policy recommendations.  First, regulators should increase the use of performance-based standards, specifically standards not tied to specific means of implementation.  Second, management-based regulatory models should be expanded to other industrial sectors beyond finance and healthcare, perhaps through the promulgation of proactive regulations by the FTC consistent with its history of enforcement action.  Third, regulators should provide more proactive guidance as to the definition of reasonable security, so as to avoid a “race to the bottom” in the development security plans to address management-based regulatory goals.
 
David Thaw is a Research Associate at the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science and the Maryland Cybersecurity Center. He is also an Affiliated Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.  David's research examines the effect of regulation on information security practices, cybercrime, practical (usable) cybersecurity, and other issues at the intersection of law, technology, and policy.  David received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's School of Information and his J.D. from Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall).  Prior to joining the faculty at Maryland, David practiced privacy and data security law in Washington, DC.

= = =

"Analyzing Russian Social Media"

We'll take a look at the evolution of the Berkman Center's work on Russian weblogs and Twitter, as it has developed over the last two years. Early work required grappling with unique features of the Russian blogosphere, which is distinctly different from many other national networks. Recent work had focused on Twitter (see the newly released paper: http://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2012/mapping_russian_twitter). The next stage involves 'multilayer' analysis of weblogs and Twitter, tracking a set of key issues in both online genres over the course of a year.

John Kelly is the founder and lead scientist of Morningside Analytics. His research blends social network analysis, content analysis, and statistics to solve the problem of making complex online networks visible and understandable. Kelly has directed studies of numerous domestic and international social media networks. He has a Ph.D. in Communications from Columbia University, and has also studied communications at Stanford and at Oxford's Internet Institute. He is an Affiliate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, where he works with leading academics to design and implement empirical studies of the Internet’s role in politics and social action around the globe.