Phishing For Ideas: A Fresh Look Into Cyberlaw

Beyond the dusty book stacks of Stanford's law library, furrowed brows furiously study cyberlaw by the light of their glowing laptop screens.

It's a popular new subject on Stanford's campus, and students are looking to be cutting-edge Silicon Valley lawyers. For one class, the “Difficult Problems in Cyberspace” seminar that is a joint effort with Harvard Law School, some students presented potential cyber-solutions in a technology forum Tuesday night in Paul Brest Hall.

The likes of Twitter, Honestly.com and the U.S. government technology advising staff played critics to the students' work in the forum, “Four Ideas for a Better Internet.”

Industry professionals represented included Alex Macgillivray, general counsel of Twitter; Peter Kazanjy, founder of Honestly.com; and Andrew McLaughlin, former U.S. deputy chief technology officer.

The students presented potential solutions to four online problems involving cybersecurity, crowdsourcing, WikiLeaks and online reputation.

As this geek-fest advertised its Twitter hashtag (#4ideas) to a social media-obsessed crowd, more than 100 tweets about the forum were posted within two hours of the forum's start.

In fact, these tweets summed up the night's events rather efficiently (if I only had 140 characters, I would, too):

@natenatenate: First idea is out there: 'the social cabinet'. A sort of social verification system. #4ideas

Nate's talking about a group that suggested having a “social cabinet,” or an appointed team of online friends that companies like Facebook could go to when they thought someone's account had been hacked.

The idea is to weed out criminals who practice “phishing” by asking friends to verify that it is really you advertising a new weight-loss drug on their Facebook wall or e-mailing them about Viagra. According to the presenters, your social cabinet should be familiar with your online behavior and be able to tell when something has gone awry.

@davidhornik: Deeply annoyed at @Zittrain for being so funny. If he's in charge of funny, I've got nothing. #4ideas

It's true. Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain, who moderated the discussion, was full of wisecracks that kept the audience laughing and distracted.

@ryanko: One of #4ideas-- credibility scores for online identities, like credit scores. Enables pseudonymous activity while limiting trolls

An impressively correct spelling of pseudonymous aside, Ryan is referring to presentation No. 2, “Credibility in Context: Bolstering Good Faith Web Discourse.” Students proposed the “Moderrater” program, which would monitor those pointless comments on public pages by giving commenters “credibility scores.”

“Moderrater gives sites the freedom to set the bar where it ought to be,” so sites like YouTube can determine what grade of commenters would be allowed to post on their sites, according to the students.

@peterhlewis: #4ideas best quote: Giving power and money to government = giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

This was said by McLaughlin, the former deputy CTO, and though the reference has been lost, it is by far the best quote of the evening.

@brianbernard: Interesting tension b/w anonymity + ubiquitity in Pharos: org that enables protects promotes human rights media #4ideas 

Brian is writing about Pharos, the human rights video publication of presentation No. 3. “CNN and The New York Times actively filter the content that they publish, so some important human rights videos go unpublished,” said one presenter.

The group suggested that the nonprofit Pharos fill the gap by allowing the anonymous publication of more human rights videos—though, like idea No. 4, Pharos would not go unchallenged by a watchful government.

@vwadhwa: #4ideas now discussing a Wikiwhistles group--independent group that redacts leaks...don't think this idea is practical. Great discussions...

The motto of the student presentation on "WikiWhistles" is "Leak Responsibly." The idea is to act as the mediator between those with information to be leaked and the general public, establishing a crew to spend more time than news media naming "good" and "bad" leaks and how to appropriately leak them. The group received the least enthusiasm of the four ideas.