IP: 2000 THE YEAR OF THE LAWYER -- from Edupage

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Edupage, 29 January 1998.
2000 -- THE YEAR OF THE LAWYER 
It looks like the Year 2000 problem is going to be good for at least one 
segment of society -- the legal profession. A presentation at a recent 
underwriter's conference sponsored by Lloyd's of London estimated that $1 
trillion or more will be at stake in Y2K litigation. "Almost every 
reputable law firm has established some Year 2000 law practice," says one 
attorney, and computer companies that sell systems to local governments are 
among the first vulnerable targets, says another. (Investor's Business 
Daily 28 Jan 98)
SLEUTH FINDS PLENTY OF PLAGIARISM ON THE NET 
Cancer researcher Marek Wronski used the National Library of Medicine's 
PubMed to find instances of 30 allegedly plagiarized medical papers 
ostensibly authored by a Polish chemical engineer. PubMed offers a 
push-button function labeled "find related articles," which uses statistical 
algorithms to identify root words in an article, and then searches for 
similar instances of the root words in other articles. Additional research 
by Wronski has unearthed 29 more suspect papers. The engineer, who claimed 
to have authored 125 articles in a 13-year career, now faces charges of 
plagiarism. (Science 23 Jan 98)
INFORMATION REVOLUTION 
Canada will live and die by the information revolution, says a gloomy 
federal report that came to public light yesterday. The authors of "Growth, 
Human Development, Social Cohesion" say that Canada will solve long-standing 
economic and social problems if it manages a clean transition to the 
knowledge-based economy, but will come out divided if the transition 
falters. Their main fear is that a rise in societal inequality, stemming 
from the rise of computer, electronic, aerospace and other knowledge-based 
industries at the expense of technological illiterates, will prevent Canada 
from facing up to other challenges. The study paints a dark picture of 
Canada's present, and offers dim hope for the future. It predicts that 
knowledge-based industries will have a great impact on Canada's economic and 
social development, adding they could help reverse the trends that brought 
unemployment, debt, stagnating wages and a growing inability to afford a 
welfare system since the early 1970s. The authors of the report warn that 
the transition from a resource-based economy to a service economy will be 
painful. (Ottawa Citizen 29 Jan 98)
CANADIAN EFFORTS TO ENSURE PRIVACY ON NET 
The Canadian government says it will introduce legislation this fall to 
protect the privacy of individuals who conduct business on the Internet. 
The law, which the government wants to have in place by 2000, will also 
apply to other forms of computer-based e-commerce and personal data transfer 
in sectors under federal jurisdiction, including the banking sector. The 
law will try to ensure that personal data collected by businesses for one 
purpose are not used for other purposes without the consent of the 
individual, and will prohibit managers of medical databases from notifying 
insurance companies that a person had down-loaded fact sheets about AIDS or 
other diseases. (Toronto Globe & Mail 27 Jan 98)


Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl () educom edu) and Suzanne Douglas 
(douglas () educom edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017