Google search in court

In the story below, I am troubled by two things:

- the assumption that a diversity of items being available proves that each of them are rarer to come by (here a yellow hat). How a Google search can help assessing this baffles me. Statistics of sale would be more relevant. Education of judges in how to use Google and how Google gathers its information?

- why indeed a judge can 'google' but not juries?

Judges Allowed To Use Google To 'Confirm Intuition' In Cases (TechDirt, 23 March 2010)

Concerns of privacy

An interesting story that shows the gap between the world before and with internet. Although he has a point, that what is on the internet is not necessarily private, Justice Scalia did not understand the scale of communication and availability of details on people's life. To be offended by a research done by the US law professor Joel Reidenberg is not to understand that anyone can do so and retrieve facts with ease and within a few minutes.
I did it for myself and, having always been careful, I found what I knew would be there. The only odd thing was that there is another Audrey Guinchard living in Besançon (France) with a Facebook page and confusion of identity could be made
"Supreme Court Justice Scalia Given Lesson In Internet Privacy" (TechDirt, 5 May 2009)

Most people are more aware about privacy issues though and are notably conscious that when they use the net they leave tracks easily retrievable... But also most people (60% according to the poll) do not want to sacrifice privacy to security measures, which is quite reassuring and counteracts the Governments' claim that security measures ought to be implemented at whatever costs.
"Sécurité IT : l'ingérence de l'Etat inquiète les internautes" (JDN, may 2009)

Response to cybercrime: specialised investigation forces?

Recurrent debate of the UK, since the Government went against the trend to establish specialised forces for investigation of cybercrime. Whether the original decision was money-driven or not, what appears clearly now is that even businesses see they cannot afford to stay without effective enforcement forces. Thus, they even think of funding an e-crime unit. What about that? Sad that the Government which should be the leader in criminal policy chose to step back at a time when e-commerce is thriving.
More frightening really is the idea that businesses could have their say in the running of the unit. That police forces be accountable, fine; but police forces represent public interest and the State, not businesses' interests however important they may be. Accountability is to everyone and police forces should not be interfered with by anyone apart Government and fair accountability procedures. Otherwise, we are not far from private justice

"Businesses may be forced to fund e-crime unit" (18 March 2008)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39369101,00.htm


To contrast with Tories' approach? Well, when money is at stake, some always find more money to avoid the loss. Yet, cybercrime is not simply about avoiding loss of money for business. Individuals' suffering (from loss of job to that of reputation, or even arrest with no attempt from prosecution to find out more) can be fare more important in terms of values society wishes to defend through criminal law and criminal prosecution.

See the BBC documentary on April 3, 2008 "Identity Fraud: Outnumbered Thu 3 Apr, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm 60mins" http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/listings/programme.shtml?day=yesterday&service_id=4223&filename=20080403/20080403_2100_4223_10817_60

with the two related articles, one from Marc Sigsworth (3 April 2008) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7326736.stm and Sophos (3 April 2008) http://www.sophos.com/security/blog/2008/04/1255.html

and for the Tories "Tories attack gov't over cybercrime delay " (4 April 2008) http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39379892,00.htm