INFORMATION & COMMUNICATIONS IN CYBERSPACE:

The Internet

R. BLAKE FARENTHOLD

The Law Offices of Blake Farenthold

Farenthold Consulting

802 American Bank Plaza

711 North Carancahua

Corpus Christi, Texas 78475

Telephone: +1 512 882-5253

Fax: +1 512 887-6207

E-Mail: blakef@cts.com

WWW: HTTP//www.cts.com/browse/blakef

6TH ANNUAL PRACTICAL COMPUTER & PRACTICE SEMINAR

San Antonio, Texas

R. BLAKE FARENTHOLD

Education

  1. INTRODUCTION Internet fever is sweeping the world. Is it time for you to get on the Information Superhighway?
    There are hundreds of books about how to get on the Internet ranging from the simple, such as Internet for Dummies, to the highly technical1. There are also many books and articles describing the content of the Internet, including an excellent guide, The Legal List2, describing law-related content. The American Bar Association has also published The Lawyers Guide to the Internet3. There are also other papers in these materials on law and the Internet.
    This article, in as few pages as reasonable, is intended to give you a non-technical overview of the Internet (using no more than seven computer nerd words) so you can decide if you want to "surf the net" for fun and profit.
  2. WHAT IS THE INTERNET? The Internet is the granddaddy of all computer networks. It is a network of networks. It is a communications tool. It is a research tool. It is a publishing tool. It allows people, via their computers, to communicate with others, retrieve information, and publish their ideas -- all at little or no cost.
    The Net's popularity stems from its low cost and wide reach. Anyone can connect a PC or Mac with a modem for less than $30 per month. Most universities, many businesses, and the federal government are connected to the Internet. Once an organization's internal network is connected to the Internet, the incremental cost of adding users is almost nothing, so students and employees of connected institutions often enjoy free access to the Net.
    To satisfy a techie that you are actually on the Internet, your computer has to be running special software that gives you what is called an (Computer Nerd Term #1) IP (internet protocol) connection to the network. In the past, this connectivity software has been hard to install and maintain and even harder to understand. Today, there are off-the-shelf packages4 that purport to allow you to connect to the Internet easily. Despite these new products, connecting directly to the Internet is not for the faint of heart. Even experienced computer users often find themselves calling for help to get their first Internet connection working. Fortunately, however, you do not have to have an IP connection to the Internet to enjoy many of its features. Almost all the on-line services, like CompuServe (which you can have access to when you subscribe to the State Bar's new BarLink5 service), America On-Line, Prodigy, ABANET, and Lexis/Counsel Connect provide gateways to many Internet services. The commercial electronic mail providers, including MCI Mail and AT&T Mail, and some local computer bulletin board systems6 also provide electronic mail links to the Internet
  3. WHY DO YOU NEED TO BE ON THE INTERNET
    1. Overview In order to decide if you want or need to be on the Internet, you must know what's there. It is tempting to consider the Internet a huge library of information, but it is more than that. It is a communications medium. For the library analogy to work, you must also give all the patrons a typewriter (to add to the library) and a telephone (to communicate with others in the library). You'd also have to fire the librarian (so there'd be no one to say Shhhhhh! and organize the material).
      No one has been able to come up with anything close to a complete index of the Internet. There is simply too much information on the Net and that information is rapidly changing. One of the Net's attractions is that it is cheap and easy for anyone to publish anything electronically. There is no central authority saying what should be placed where, how it should be cataloged, or how its presence on the net is advertised.
      The Net is governed by tradition and an informal set of rules, known as netiquette, that dictate what should be put where. Though the rules are informal, not following them is a mistake. An out-of-state immigration law firm posted an advertisement in thousands of inappropriate places on the Net (an offense known as "spamming" in net-speak) and was inundated with so many nasty responses in electronic mail (called "flames" in netspeak) that the firm's disk drive filled up and crashed its network. The Net is a lot like a frontier town organized and run by civil libertarians.
    2. Using the Net to Communicate
      1. MAIL One of the most popular, and probably most useful, features on the Internet is electronic mail. Because there are so many computer systems connected to the Internet and almost all commercial on-line services have gateways to the Internet, lots of people have an electronic mailbox that has an Internet address associated with it. If you have a PC and modem, or are connected to a large local area network, chances are you have an Internet address and don't know it. With electronic mail you can send both messages and computer files, like WordPerfect documents, electronically.
        It is relatively inexpensive for a mid-size law firm to set up a gateway between its internal electronic mail system and the Internet. Schools routinely assign all students an Internet mail address upon registration. The federal government and large corporations, especially technology companies, often give employees free access to Internet mail. All subscribers to Lexis Counsel Connect, CompuServe, America On-Line, Prodigy, GEnie, MCI Mail, AT&T Mail, and many other services have access to Internet mail. Internet mail can also be sent to a fax machine, so virtually all lawyers can receive Internet mail.
        Internet mail uses a relatively simple addressing scheme like: blakef@cts.com. The name to the left of the @ sign is the user name of the person to whom the message is being sent. To the right of the @ sign is the name of the computer upon which that user has an electronic mail account, followed by its (Computer Nerd Term #2) domain name which helps the computers on the Internet that transfer mail find that user's host system.
        Exchanging mail with the Internet is technically simple, and very widespread. Sending and receiving mail via the Internet may be all the Internet connectivity you and your firm need for the next couple of years.
        Electronic mail via the Internet is a good way to keep up informal contact with clients, a way for partners to stay in touch with their children in college, and to exchange all sorts of non-sensitive information. Electronic mail is also a good way to cut to the top. Almost everyone (except maybe the president@whitehouse.gov) reads their own electronic mail. It is generally an informal and intimate way of communication. A few e-mails back and forth with a client are a good way to cement a relationship. Electronic thank you notes are also a way to earn goodwill.
        One extremely popular use of electronic mail now is mailing lists. Users subscribe to topical mailing lists where they can both send to all recipients of the mailing list and receive messages from all recipients of the mailing list on topics of interest. The Computer Section of the State Bar is considering a mailing list to distribute its newsletter and other information electronically.
      2. DOWNSIDE OF INTERNET ELECTRONIC MAIL
        1. Getting Your Messages Read. Even though you can reach almost anyone via Internet mail (especially considering fax gateways), you typically have no way of knowing if the message was received and when it was read. Because Internet mail passes through a network with no central authority, is run by volunteers, and relies on many computers run by different people, a fair amount of mail gets lost. Also, many times a person's Internet mail gets delivered to the recipient's host computer (like CompuServe, for example), and waits there for weeks before the recipient logs in and reads the mail. Larger companies, some law firms, the government, and educational institution's Internet mail, however, is delivered on the mail system the recipient uses every day for normal incoming electronic mail. When an organization has a good automated mail link between the Internet and their in-house mail system, Internet mail is often delivered and read in a matter of seconds.
        2. Finding Addresses Unfortunately, there is no authoritative "phone book" of electronic mail addresses. There are a variety of directory services that Internet users can use to find someone. Many of these locators require an IP connection to the Internet or a good gateway service.
          The best way to find someone's address is to ask them. Many people are printing their addresses on their business cards. In the future, directory standards like x.500 (Computer Nerd Term #3) will simplify locating people on the Net.
        3. Security Another serious problem with using electronic mail to communicate with other attorneys and clients over a large public network like the Internet is that the messages are susceptible to being intercepted. There are so many messages traveling the Internet, the chances of someone accidentally intercepting a message and bothering to read it are low. However, someone intentionally trying to intercept your message, or hackers trying to intercept all sorts of messages, can do so from anywhere in the world. Though electronic mail is protected by federal wiretap statutes 18 USCA §25118 and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USCA §2701, et seq.9, the consensus among Internet experts is that unencrypted messages on the Internet are vulnerable to interception. Someone seeking to intercept information about you or your clients would be as successful breaking into your office and scouring through your files as intercepting Internet electronic mail.
          There is technology that allows you to encrypt electronic mail and files before they are transmitted over a public network, but encrypting and decrypting messages add several highly technical steps to the process of sending electronic mail. Until an encryption standard is agreed upon in the industry and that standard is widely incorporated into the electronic mail programs on both sending and receiving computers, only techno nerds, spies, criminals, and extremist organizations take the trouble to encrypt their messages10. It certainly does no good to send an encrypted electronic mail message to someone who doesn't know how to, or can't, decrypt it. It is likely, however, that within the next four to five years, encryption will become common on network mail products. In the meantime, imagine any electronic mail sent over the Internet being more like a postcard than a letter.
      3. NEWSGROUPS Similar to mailing lists discussed above are newsgroups. Newsgroups are very similar to mailing lists in that they are divided topically and users can send and receive information on subjects of interest. There are newsgroups for just about every topic imaginable. The main difference between newsgroups and mail is that you use different software to read them, they do not get interspersed with your regular electronic mail, and they typically reach millions of people worldwide.
    3. Using the Internet to Find Information
      1. Logging on to Other Computers
        If you have an IP connection to the Internet, you can log on to other computers connected to the Internet using remote log-in programs like telnet. By logging onto a remote computer, you can run programs and access data on those remote machines. Westlaw, for example, can be accessed via the Internet11.
      2. Obtaining Software and Other Files via Internet
        Because the Internet started out as a home for academics and computer scientists, one of its original uses was transferring computer programs and research files between computers. It is possible to upload and download computer files, textual information, sounds, pictures, movies or just about anything imaginable. Computer techies often use the Internet to exchange public domain and shareware programs, receive updates from software publishers, transfer their digital information, and download nudie pictures. It is possible, with some patience, to transfer these files using electronic mail as well. Typically, on-line services like CompuServe, Prodigy, Delphi, etc., allow you to FTP (file transfer protocol) (Computer Nerd Term #4) from their Internet areas. The techies in your firm will like having access to FTP
    4. Getting Information From the Internet
      1. OVERVIEW. There is a wide variety of information available on the Internet. Because it costs almost nothing to put something on the Internet, government agencies, universities, and individuals are putting more and more material on-line.
        What you are less likely to find on the Internet is material that is not in the public domain, is published for profit (i.e. newspaper and magazine articles), and information that is difficult to compile and maintain. The reason for this lack of material is that traditionally there has been no way for content providers to make money selling information on the Net. When something is posted on the Internet, it can be copied from computer to computer and there has been no reliable methods to collect "pay-per-view" fees. Some information providers (Westlaw included) are providing access to their commercial services to Internet subscribers, but you must go through an additional log-on process to access these, and you are billed by the service provider. Westlaw services, with the exception of their Legal Directory, are not accessible with normal Network tools. You must log on to a provider's system to use these services.
        There is, however, a wealth of government, academic, and public domain material to be found for free.
        J. Steven Ryan's paper, supra, briefly discusses some mechanisms for searching on the network and provides a list of starting points for legal research on the Net. The location of something on the Internet is described by (Computer Nerd Term #5) a Uniform Record Locator (URL). A URL is roughly analogous to a legal citation, and looks something like this: HTTP://www.cts.com/browse/blakef. The letters to the left of the colon indicate how your computer retrieves the information; the name between the double slashes and the first slash thereafter indicates the name of the computer containing the information; and the remaining information is where on that computer the information is located.
        If you know the URL (cite), you can easily find anything on the Net. If you don't know the URL, just like if you don't know a case cite, you have to start looking. Many of the URLs J. Steven Ryan lists in his paper are to law schools or other indexes of legal or government information on the Net. These cites often contain digest-like information about other information on the Net. Unlike the West digests, which lawyers assume are relatively accurate, complete and prepared by professionals, network pages, usually compiled by volunteers, are sometimes incomplete and out of date because information on the Net is constantly changing. If you can't find the information you want through some of the lists of resources, you have to result to a brute force search using Internet search programs, such as "Archie", "Veronica", and "WAIS", that search the Net for what you are looking for, sometimes one word at a time.
      2. USING GOPHER TO FERRET OUT INFORMATIONOne of the two primary means of finding information from the Net is through a network tool known as Gopher. This is a text based menuing system and database retrieval method that allows you to search through a great deal of textual information. It can be considered as the card catalog in the Internet library analogy. Typically, colleges will have a student electronic mail directory that you can search through Gopher. Many libraries make their card catalogs available in a Gopher retrievable format. Government agencies catalog their documents with Gopher, and Gopher can be used to find and transfer computer programs and other files. There are hundreds of things Gopher can be used to find.
      3. WORLD WIDE WEB
        The second method for retrieving information on the Internet is through the World Wide Web (WWW or the Web). This is the highly graphical interface that is credited with spreading the popularity of the Internet.
        Using relatively inexpensive software known as a browser (Computer Nerd Term #6), you can "surf the net" by pointing and clicking with the mouse. A browser takes you where you want to go and brings the material back to you. With a good browser you can use a single piece of software to access almost anything on the Net, including mail, newsgroups, FTP, Gopher, and the World Wide Web. Material on the World Wide Web often includes text, sounds, pictures, and videos, so you need a browser to access it.
        Many businesses, government agencies, schools, and individuals prepare Web "home pages" that provide information about the pages' owner. These home pages also contain hypertext (Computer Nerd Term #7) links to information about products and services of the owner and often links to the creator's favorite places on the Web.
        The White House has a home page, as do a diverse groups of individuals and companies (including Apple; Microsoft; IBM; Pizza Hut; PBS; Small, Craig, and Werkentin, P.C.; and Southwest Airlines)12, which are connected to other pages via hypertext links. Hypertext is a concept with which many lawyers are already familiar. When a lawyer reads a case, it contains numerous cites to other cases. Lawyers often stop reading a case to go look up the new cases cited if these cases are of interest. The cites are like hypertext pointers steering the reader to something else. On the Web, when something with more information, like a citation, is referred to, it appears on the browser screen in a different color. By double clicking on the colored hypertext link, the related material is instantly displayed.
        Because you can move so fast from place to place on the World Wide Web, it is like being swept away, where the term "surfing the net" probably originated.
        Web pages linked together with hypertext can contain a variety of information. Southwest's home page allows you to check schedules, read about the company, and will allow you to make reservations. You can order a pizza through Pizza Hut's page. A law firm might put a firm resume and links to other marketing material on the home page.
        The problem with the World Wide Web and these highly graphical interfaces is that, until the last few months, an IP connection to the Internet was needed to use them. Though the IP connection is still the fastest and most cost-efficient way to travel the World Wide Web, several on-line services, like Prodigy, CompuServe, and America On-Line, have recently introduced, or are in the process of introducing, software that allows you to use their services to access the highly graphical World Wide Web.
  4. GETTING ON THE NETThough detailed technical instructions for getting onto the Internet are beyond the scope of this paper, a brief overview and some pointers to resources are not.
    Many large law firms are on the Internet now, will full IP connectivity, although only the librarian and computer people know about it or use it. Ask. Your firm may be on it. It is also possible that your firm has a gateway between the Internet mail and your internal mail system.
    To connect your entire firm's network to the Internet could easily cost in excess of $10,000. There are significant security issues that should be discussed with someone knowledgeable about the Internet before connecting. The Internet is a two way street. As you are able to get out and retrieve information from the Internet, others are able to get onto your network and retrieve information from your network. There are, however, security steps, like intermediary computers and software known as firewalls, that turn your connection into more of a one way street. Firewalls should be set up by someone who knows what they are doing13.
    From your home computer or PC at work, you can get onto the Internet for around $30 per month. The costs involved are an account with an Internet service provider, most of whom are listed in the Appendix to J. Steven Ryan's article herein, and modest shareware fees for software. The October 11, 1994,     PC Magazine has several good articles on how to connect to the Internet, including a section on getting on for free.
    Perhaps easier than trying to put together a do-it-yourself Internet package from public domain and shareware software, is to buy an off-the-shelf Internet product like Internet-in-a-Box or other starter kit available at most computer stores and some book stores. Typically, these come with a subscription to an Internet service provider, but it will almost always be cheaper for you to attempt to find a local service provider.
  5. WHERE DOES THE INTERNET FIT INTO YOUR LEGAL PRACTICE? Because it is inexpensive and requires little technical skill to get an electronic mail account that has access to the Internet, there is no reason every lawyer should not have electronic mail access to the Internet. Larger and mid-size firms should consider a gateway to connect their internal mail system to the Internet so that lawyers and staff can send and receive Internet mail. At the very least the partners will like being able to send electronic mail to their kids at college.
    Even though Internet mail is inappropriate for sensitive information, it is useful and inexpensive to stay electronically in-touch with other lawyers, clients, family, and friends.
    Going beyond electronic mail for a lawyer is a tougher question. Though there is a wealth of research material available on the Internet, it is poorly organized and almost always available from another source. Information on the Internet is, however, substantially less expensive than the same information from more conventional sources, including Westlaw and Lexis. Further, rather than establishing an IP connection to the Net, many Internet services are accessible through consumer oriented on-line services.
    The Internet is also a lot of fun. There is a lot of information to find and people to communicate with. It is so much fun that Sandi Coker14, the Computer System Manager at Kleberg & Head, P.C., worries that if the attorneys in her firm are turned loose on the Net, they'll spend so much time exploring, their billable hours will drop too low to pay her salary.
    Being live on the Internet is very cool. It's fun to surf the Net. If you are the kind of person who likes to explore and consider yourself at least a little computer savvy, take the plunge.