Monthly Archives: March 2009

UM Students Win Bankruptcy Moot Competition

The Bench Brief: Miami bankrupts competition at Duberstein

The University of Miami School of Law topped 45 other teams at the 17th Annual Conrad B. Duberstein National Bankruptcy Memorial Moot Court Competition this past weekend.

Congrats!

Posted in U.Miami | 1 Comment

Obama DoJ May Revive Anti-Trust Enforcement

I found this blog posting by Jamie Love to be very interesting — Knowledge Ecology Notes » Meeting at DOJ on the Ticketmaster /Live Nation merger — especially if its optimism turns out to be justified.

There were several interesting things that came out during the 90 minute meeting. One was that the DOJ clearly understood that the opposition to the merger would not be satisfied with a few divestitures, and this was really an up or down decision for the merger as a whole.

One early question put to us was, would consumers be better off with two vertically integrated companies, rather than one (a not too hypothetical case of TM and LN vertically integrating both promoting and ticket sales). This was not a difficult question for anyone.

My own take was the DOJ is willing to stop the merger, and is devoting resources to build a case against the merger.

This isn't anywhere near the most important merger in history, but could be a major sign of things to come.

Posted in Law: Everything Else | 8 Comments

ISGIG 2009 – the Internet of the Future

I’ve gotten myself drafted for the organizing committee for ISGIG 2009, which promises to be an interesting conference on governance issues in information technology, to be held in Prague the 15th-17th of September. I invite readers to respond to (and to forward) the call for papers.

We’re also still filling the last few slots on the Program Committee, which will be reviewing the submitted papers. If you know someone who belongs on that committee (that person in the mirror?) please phone or email me.

Call for papers

Second International ICST Symposium on Global Information Governance (ISGIG): Conflict and Collaboration in Compliance, Governance and Risk

ISGIG 2009 – the Internet of the Future: Prague, Czech Republic: 15th, 16th and morning of 17th September 2009

www.isgig.org

The explosion in the use of broadband over the last 5 years has connected people, organizations, commercial firms, and government agencies throughout the world. The large number of devices connected to the networks has changed the Internet to a “network of things and computers”. These trends, plus the rise of collaborative technologies, virtual worlds and tele-presence raise issues of privacy, management, compliance, governance, and risk.

The Internet of the Future is the theme of ISGIG 2009. Specifically, its goal is to improve communication among academics, regulators, compliance officers, business managers and IT managers by exposing problems, and uncovering potential problems, in the areas of privacy, compliance, governance, and risk. Each of these issues creates situations for both conflict and cooperation between different constituencies. This conference is an opportunity to advance models of effective management and collaboration.

The conference will rely on a judicious mix of research papers, invited speakers and structured discussions to extend the communities’ communication and identify opportunities for mutually beneficial outcomes.

Topics of Interest

We invite researchers, academicians, practitioners, and others to submit original papers describing new research, applications, or case studies. Papers covering technical, legal, societal, or other aspects of these areas are solicited. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Frameworks and Overarching Issues of Network Governance
    • Privacy – a pervading issue
    • Attribution and identify management; anonymity and ID
  • Physical and policy infrastructure of the Internet, and its role governance:
    • Designing, building, and managing changes to the Internet infrastructure;
    • National and regional frameworks for IT governance
    • Compliance with government regulations for multi-national corporations and networks;
  • Emerging issues, including
    • Cyber-terrorism and cyber-crime;
    • Virtual worlds, and the development of new modes of social and economic interaction that challenge how we translate physical world structures into virtual worlds;
    • Green computing;
    • Collaborative tools, and their use in politics and e-government.
  • Security and anticipating and responding to attacks that cross international boundaries; cyber crime
  • Other emerging areas for conflict and cooperation in the evolving Internet

Important Dates

Abstracts due (optional but encouraged): March 20, 2009
Full Papers due: April 17, 2009
Author notification with reviewer’s comments: May 22, 2009
Final revised papers due in camera-ready format: June 12, 2009
Conference: September 15-17, 2009

How to Submit

Papers should be submitted to www.assyst-online.org by April 17. Papers of any length are encouraged, but a preferred length is 10 pages (not including citations) on letter or A4 with one inch margins and 11 point font.

All submissions will be peer reviewed, and acceptances will be provided by May 22.

Publication

The Proceedings from ISGIG 2009 will be published in LNICST and appear in SpringerLink and ICST’s digital library, the EU-DL.

Organizing Committee

Jeffrey Hunker, General Chair, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Michael Froomkin, Co-chair, University of Miami, USA
Matt Bishop, Co-chair, University of California Davis, USA

Posted in Talks & Conferences | Comments Off on ISGIG 2009 – the Internet of the Future

Firms Prefer Suckers

Source: Office Depot Associates Routinely Lie about Notebook Stock reports that if you don't want the overpriced add-ons and warranties, that notebook is suddenly going to be out of stock.

What I'm wondering is whether (1) this stuff has always been going on; or (2) it's a result of improved information technology, which makes micro-monitoring of sales and profits easy; or (3) it's due to the recession.

If it is an information technology thing, then presumably consumers should be able to fight back with counter-information, but that seems like a terribly wasteful pair of transactions, a real Prisoner's Dilemma result as regards efficiency.

Posted in Shopping | 5 Comments

Another First

AFL-CIO NOW BLOG reports on another small first:

Last month, when first officer Stephanie Grant of Atlantic Southeast Airlines got the call to replace the co-pilot scheduled to crew Flight No. 5202 from Atlanta to Nashville, she didn't realize she and the rest of the crew were about to make history.

But Grant, along with Capt. Rachelle Jones, both members of the Airline Pilots (ALPA), and flight attendants Diana Galloway and Robin Rogers, both members of AFA-CWA, became the first all-female, all African American crew to operate a commercial flight.

Someday, perhaps, we'll run out of these.

Posted in Etc | 1 Comment

Congress Moves to Rescue Law Schools

I know that a number of Deans, Law School admissions directors and even professors have been worrying about a possible slump in the future demand for legal education if and when it appears that law firms are more interested in firing than hiring associates. Well, no fear, I read that Congress is coming to the rescue: Year Of Law School Now Mandatory For Nation's 25-Year-Olds :

Under the provisions of a bill approved by Congress and signed into law Tuesday, every 25-year-old American, regardless of prior life commitments, is now legally obligated to enroll in a full year of study at one of the nation's accredited law schools.

Yes, it's only The Onion – America's Finest News Source, but that doesn't mean its a bad idea. Also many Onion headlines about the Bush administration turned out to be true a few years later, so why not this one?

Posted in Law School | 1 Comment