My home page is at http://nathenson.org.

This site, digital garbage, is my academic blog on law and technology.

I also run a personal blog at http://nathenson.org/blog.

Course pages are available to STU students through Blackboard at http://webcourses.lexisnexis.com.   You’ll need to get your Lexis ID from the law library.

UPDATE: Lexis is in the process of updating its main law school homepage.  The update has led to problems for users of Internet Explorer 7.  If you have difficulty logging into Blackboard, try using Mozilla Firefox.

Shortly afterward, he received an e-mail message from Comcast, thanking him for the feedback and adding that it was working on a new interactive guide that might “illuminate the issues that you are currently experiencing.”

[He] found it all a bit creepy.  “The rest of his e-mail may as well have read, ‘Big Brother is watching you,’ ” he said.

A woman’s Twitter complaint about Comcast led to a quick but unexpected response:

“It’s one thing to spit vitriol about a company when they can’t hear you,” she said in an interview.  It’s another, she said, when the company replies.  “I immediately backed down and softened my tone when I knew I was talking to a real person.”

I can see why some people might be creeped out by Comcast’s outreach efforts, but they shouldn’t be.   People keep assuming that the relative anonymity of the web will keep their postings effectively invisible.  That’s naive.  There’s nothing anonymous about the Internet when postings are quickly found by those who want to see what you’re doing (such as prosecutors, as Kaimipono Wenger blogged about recently), or by companies who want to know what you’re saying about them.  The sooner people realize that “relative” web anonymity is not really anonymity at all, the more savvy they’ll hopefully become about their online postings.

Plus, done tactfully and personally, direct outreach by companies might be a good thing.  Direct emails?  Sure.  Public comments on blogs or Facebook walls?  Not so good.  It might embarrass already-angry customers and put them on the defensive.  Worse, it might trigger flame wars involving others.  But a direct email is far less confrontational, and far more likely to lead to satisfied, albeit occasionally creeped-out customers.

It’s our blog and so we made an editorial decision, like we do every single day. We didn’t attempt to silence Violet. We unpublished our own work. There’s a big difference between that and censorship.

We hope you’ll respect our choice to keep the reasons behind this private. We do understand the confusion this caused for some, especially since we fight hard for openness and transparency. We were trying to do the right thing quietly and respectfully, without embarrassing the parties involved.

Clearly, that didn’t work out. In attempting to defuse drama, we inadvertently ignited more. Mind you, we weren’t the ones splashing gasoline around; but we did make the fire possible. We’re sorry about that. In the meantime, Boing Boing’s past content is indexed on the Wayback Machine, a basic Internet resource; so the material should still be available for those who would like to read it.

Oddly, BoingBoing speaks in terms of “unpublishing” rather than deletion.   (Their policy page states “We reserve the right to unpublish or refuse to unpublish anything for any or no reason.”)  Sure, “unpublishing” sounds less big-brothery than deletion, but I don’t really see the difference.

Moreover, “unpublishing” isn’t quite accurate: BoingBoing doesn’t mean “unpublished” in the sense of a book (or blog posting) that has yet to be published.  They mean disabling public access to something that has already been posted, like in the DMCA 512(c) sense where material is removed or access to it is disabled.  (WordPress does have an “unpublishing” function, but that’s still a misnomer.)  A more accurate term might be deposting, depublishing, or good ‘ol deletion.

Nevertheless, it’s useful to explore a potential distinction between deletion and depublishing, and other questions raised when a blogger wants to remove posted materials:

• As a starting point, what is the meaning of “publication” in an age where materials can be changed or removed?
• Under what circumstances is depublication justified?
• What practices are needed to distinguish “depublication” from “deletion?”  Is a reservation of rights declaring a right of depublication sufficient?  Should a notice be posted where the materials used to be (as Dan Markel suggests)?
• BoingBoing notes that the removed materials remain on the Wayback Machine web archive.  Do web archives help to justify depublication?
• Does depublication serve an important social function by severing the association between author and depublished content?

Hat tip to Noam Cohen.  And a disclaimer: I did make some edits to this post after posting.

That’s a fantastic idea, and one that solves the problem of what to do with interesting reads that are worth pointing out, but for which I don’t want to write a full blog post.

I’ve created a microblog for this site here.  A mini-feed can be found in the sidebar, and I’ve also created a dedicated page on this site with an expanded list of recent tweets here.

Commenting on the quick availability of his blogs, Kristof observes that it’s impossible for China’s 30,000 censors to keep up with 120 million Chinese netizens. This might be correct: the sheer quantity of internet information makes absolute control pretty much impossible. But Kristof further concludes that “the Web is beginning to assume the watchdog role filled by the news media in freer countries.” As Ethan Leib notes at PrawfsBlawg, he’s not as optimistic as Kristof, and I agree. The fact that Kristof’s postings went online mostly unscathed likely says more about the ineffectiveness of filtering programs than about governmental permissiveness. Getting things on the web and keeping them there are not the same.

To his credit, Kristof recognized that his postings might not last long, predicting that “[w]hen State Security reads this, it may finally order my blogs closed.” His prediction was proven correct, and quickly. Though the blogs were online last night, when I checked this afternoon they were gone. One, http://jisidao.blog.sohu.com/, now apparently says that the user does not exist. (Caveat: I don’t read Chinese and used Babelfish to translate.) The other, http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1238333873, now redirects the user to the main page at http://blog.sina.com.cn/main/. Almost certainly it was humans — and not programs — that removed the sites. Automated and human censorship in China apparently work hand in hand.

Kristof’s observations do contain some seeds of optimism that Chinese censorship can be circumvented by technological and human countermeasures. He writes that young people use proxy software to reach forbidden sites and Skype to make phone calls. He also writes about Chinese blogger Li Xinde, “who travels around China with his laptop, reporting on corruption and human-rights abuses.” Xinde’s sites are closed down constantly, but “the moment a site is censored he replaces it with a new one.” Xinde uses an overseas site, http://www.lixinde.com, to inform readers of the best current internet address.

Nonetheless, I have to wonder how many Chinese citizens engage in these activities or risk imprisonment to blog about politically charged subjects. Even though automated and human censorship might be circumvented by technological and human countermeasures, the will to take such risks must exist as well. As Ethan Leib notes, “it is hard to blog from a Chinese prison.” How does one counteract fear?

Sunday’s New York Times includes a really interesting article by Alan Finder on how some companies now investigate job applicants on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, and Friendster. See “For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Résumé.”

The article underscores a simple but important fact: users of social network sites shouldn’t assume that their postings are private. Although names like “MySpace” paint an image of personal spaces, personal doesn’t mean private. It’s not difficult to get into these sites – as the article notes, for some sites such as MySpace, you generally only need to register. For Facebook, to view entries for a particular college, you only need an e-mail address from that college.

That means an awful lot of people can view Facebook entries: alumni with email addresses (which could include potential employers), professors, even campus police. Despite this, at an emotional level, many people assume that their personal websites, blogs, and social network postings are relatively personal spaces that won’t be noticed or invaded by others. These assumptions are wrong in at least two ways.

First, people might assume – incorrectly – that they’re not going to be noticed. True, most postings to personal websites, blogs, and social networking sites are probably viewed by hardly anyone, and at best by only a few of the poster’s friends. Because of this, people get a sense of false security that they’re broadcasting only to their personal crowd. That’s probably true for the most part, unless somebody’s looking you up. As said by Susan Crawford in an excellent posting on social networking, “Oddly, people using these spaces may feel that they’re just having a conversation with their friends, not thinking about large-scale, perhaps automated searches/hunts about them carried out. This is like being on a live TV interview, and seeing only the guy across from you, and not realizing that anyone can see you in the world.”

Susan’s right. Many posters assume that internet infoglut makes them invisible; after all, how will they stand out from the millions of other postings? But infoglut doesn’t create invisibility. At best, posters are relatively invisible. But when you combine social networking sites with indexing and searching capacities, relative invisibility can be fleeting.

Second, posters seem to expect – dangerously – that outsiders shouldn’t and therefore won’t intrude into their spaces. In the blogging context, Mike Madison recounts an instance where he forwarded to a Pitt Law colleague a link to a blog posting about that prof and another faculty member. One of them then casually mentioned to the student blogger that he or she had read the post. As Mike says, “The student was a bit surprised, I think; students generally expect that their blogging is their ‘space,’ and faculty (and others) shouldn’t intrude.”

But outsiders do intrude, and they might include law enforcement authorities. Ed Felten has described the use of social network sites by Princeton’s Public Safety officers (i.e., the Princeton campus police) in investigations into alcohol use and campus building-climbing. Particularly interesting is the controversy that ensued after it was revealed that Facebook was used in the investigations. In the end, Ed reports that “Public Safety stated that it would not hunt around randomly on Facebook, but it would continue to use Facebook as a tool in specific investigations. Many people consider this a reasonable compromise.” Ed further noted, “It feels right to me, though I can’t quite articulate why.”

Mike’s and Ed’s postings both touch upon a sense of some and perhaps many students that outsiders – professors, campus authorities, etc. – are not particularly welcome at student sites. That’s somewhat understandable: think of the family reunion where an older, uncool uncle hangs around a bit too long with the younger folks. I’d call this the creepiness factor. The creepiness factor is amplified when it’s law enforcement authorities who come visiting. But expectations that outsiders will stay away are dangerous. Considering the relative anonymity of web surfing, it’s doubtful that social norms will emerge to deter others from browsing student sites. If anything, the tremendous attention being given to social networking guarantees that more people will check these sites out.

Nonetheless, Ed’s posting suggests at least one way in which institutions might be pressured into adopting norms that limit their review of social networking sites. As Ed notes, after student outrage, the Princeton Public Safety director promised to use Facebook only in specific investigations. The Daily Princetonian reports that under new guidelines, “Officers can continue to use Facebook as a supplementary source for investigations, but cannot scour the site for parties or other activities. In addition, officers are prohibited from identifying themselves as students in their Facebook accounts.” In discussing the compromise, Ed notes the difficulty in trying to articulate why it’s reasonable for campus police to use Facebook as part of a specific investigation but not as a tool for random hunting.

Ed’s right that it’s difficult to articulate what’s reasonable and what isn’t. Maybe the distinction goes back, at least in part, to the creepiness factor noted above. Even if social network sites are public or semi-public, it’s creepy to think that law-enforcement authorities are trolling student sites on a general fishing expedition for inappropriate behavior. (And the creepiness is magnified a thousandfold-plus when the materials being perused are private. NSA, anyone?)

But it’s hard to conclude that it’s equally creepy for authorities to look up public materials as part of a specific investigation. (Which begs uncertainty, however, over just what is meant by a “specific” investigation…) And the same can probably be said, I think, about employment recruiters who use social networking sites to research specific applicants.

Thanks very much to Robhyndman.com, where I discovered the link to the Times article.

What happens to . . . web logs if a person dies and their executor notifies [the weblog's host] of their demise. Can one leave their account, username, password and API key number to another person in their will?

What a great question! It reminds me of the case last year of Lance Corporal Justin Ellsworth, who died in Iraq. After his death, his family asked Yahoo for access to his emails. Yahoo refused. After a court ordered Yahoo to hand over the contents of the account, Yahoo complied. But the parallel to Ellsworth has its limits. With emails, there are significant concerns over privacy: it just cannot be assumed that every deceased person wants his or her executors and heirs poring through their private and potentially embarrassing emails.

In contrast, blogs are intended for some level of public consumption and the privacy issues generally don’t run as high. (Though even with blogs, privacy concerns can exist, such as with David Lat, the formerly anonymous “Article III Groupie” who writes Underneath Their Robes.) Indeed, although many blogs are quickly abandoned, others are intended to serve as lasting statements of authorship, whether professional or personal (or both). As timethief noted in a later post, “Blogging is now and will remain part of what defined me as a unique individual.” But blogs aren’t books or magazines. After we’re gone, existing copies of books we wrote can continue to exist without additional effort on the part of our estates or heirs. And our estates and heirs can’t force consumers to return legally acquired copies of books.

But the book analogy is hard to apply to blogs. Blogs aren’t material objects and they’ll disappear without maintenance or preservation. But long-term maintenance isn’t really practical, at least yet, for blogs whose owners have passed away. If hosting accounts aren’t kept active, or applicable payments stop, or hosting providers go out of business, or computers fail, or blogging code & databases become incompatible with future technologies, our blogs — like other web-only publications — may disappear or break. Plus, a blog might be shut down by an author’s estate or heirs, unless perhaps some sort of enforceable provisions can be made by the author that the blog be maintained posthumously.

Communal blogs like The Volokh Conspiracy stand a better chance of lengthy lives, since maintenance tasks can be undertaken as new members arrive. But most other sites, even highly successful ones like Howard Bashman’s How Appealing, are run by only one person. For an estate or heir, long-term maintenance after an author’s demise is not necessarily simple or — excuse the pun — appealing. In a rare case, successful blogs like Bashman’s could be valuable estate assets that would encourage continued maintenance and even eventual profitable transfer, but most blogs will utterly lack any such kind of maintenance incentive. (Of course, this is all illustrative, and Eugene and Howard should be blogging for many decades to come!)

This raises the question of digital preservation. Because long-term maintenance may not always be feasible, digital preservation of old sites becomes really important, and the utility of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine can’t be overstated. But I think that Wayback Machine is just the beginning of a dialogue over how — and when — to preserve web-only materials. Putting copyright issues to the side for the moment, the Internet Archive doesn’t archive all sites, and when it does, it archives some sites more often than others. Plus, it’s not entirely clear whether the Wayback Machine is currently capable of properly archiving all types of blogs: the Internet Archive states that sites that are database-driven or that generate dynamic web pages can’t be archived. I’d think this limitation could apply to at least some blogs (such as this WordPress blog, which is driven by a PHP & MySQL database).

But a quick review of the Wayback Machine suggests that, despite the disclaimer, the Internet Archive may be improving its ability to archive blogs — here’s links to a WordPress-run site that was archived incorrectly in March 2004, but appears to be much better represented in an archive from November 2004. Hopefully, the Internet Archive is continuing to improve its capability to archive different kinds of webpages. Needless to say, as web publishing technologies evolve, it will remain a struggle to find ways to accurately and authoritatively preserve such materials. My quick review of a number of blawgs suggests that some appear to have been pretty nicely archived, whereas others have not. I’ll address this more in a future post.

Thus, I think that timethief’s question — a really good one — leads to additional questions about whether web-only materials should be kept online, and if so, to even more questions about how, where, and by whom they should be maintained or preserved. I don’t think the answers to these questions are easy or obvious.

Quick answer #1: Because he wrote so much more beautifully than I ever will.

Quick answer #2: Because I wanted a placeholder.

Not-so-quick answer #3: When working on the blog’s design, I wanted something — anything — to serve as a placeholder. Shakespeare seemed like a good idea: because I’m interested in the technical, policy, and legal problems of preserving information, Shakespeare’s works seemed a textbook example of what should be preserved.

So I found a Shakespeare website and gleefully exercised my right to copy, clip, and paste from the public domain. Sidebar: it would have been even more interesting if I had clipped from a DRM’d CD-ROM of Shakespeare’s works, but that’s another post and another day . . . .

And an admission: Although I was an english & philosophy major in my undergraduate days, it’s been a very, very long time since I thought about Shakespeare. (Notwithstanding Shakespeare in Love, which was great). Having absolutely no idea what might be relevant or useful, I simply looked at the the first thing I found, Shakespeare’s first sonnet.

But serendipity is a funny thing. Considering that I’m currently writing about digital preservation, and further considering that so much of what we electronically preserve is forgettable noise and infoglut — or digital garbage! – I thought Shakespeare’s language was a keeper. Which, of course, it is.