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      "parent_permlink": "privacy",
      "author": "lawless.tech",
      "permlink": "gdpr-vs-blockchain-the-saga-continues",
      "title": "GDPR vs. Blockchain: The Saga Continues",
      "body": "The popular French privacy watchdog, the CNIL, is on fire these days. After being the first EU authority to issue warnings for the GDPR violations to Teemo and Fidzup, it discovers new playgrounds – this time it’s all about matching blockchain technology and the GDPR. With the recently issued official English translation of the recommendation, let’s dive right in.\n\n**Data Actors, or Who’s Who in Blockchain**\nIn general, the GDPR talks about the following data actors:\n\n* data subjects – the ones whose data is processed,\n* data controllers, who determine how and why this data is processed,\n* data processors, who may act on behalf of a data controller in further processing.\n\nIn a simplest example, when a user signs up in an app, they submit their data, and thus, they are data subjects. A company that owns this app processes said data, thus, it’s the data controller. And if this data controller at any point outsources the software development to another company giving it an access to personal data, the latter company becomes the data processor.\n\nIt doesn’t sound like anything complicated, right? Yet, there are more questions to answer than it might seem.\n\n**Data Controllers**\nFirst things first, the CNIL, the French independent regulator ensuring data privacy compliance, tries to figure out the status of data controllers in the context of blockchain. Opposing the classical definitive model of governance, blockchain, as a technology, is decentralized in its core. This ultimately creates complications. Who decides the purposes and means of processing in the context of the GDPR, art. 4(7), and thus becomes a data controller? Can there be any data controllers at all since most blockchains do not have any commanding authority in charge? Well, the CNIL is quite sure the answers are not as problematic as they seem at first glance.\n\nIn the regulator’s opinion,“participants, who have the right to write on the chain and who decide to send data for validation by the miners, can be considered data controllers.” More specifically, it outlines 2 categories of data controllers:\n\n* a natural person that processes the data in a professional or commercial activity, and\n* a legal person that registers personal data in a blockchain.\n\nOf course, it’s not just a theory. For instance, Blocknotary allows a notary public to record a deed in a blockchain, which is a perfect example of a “professional activity” performed by a natural person. The KYC (know-your-customer) platform developed by Crédit Mutuel Arkéa bank and IBM where the bank acts as a data controller for its customers’ personal data, would respectively represent the second category.\n\nSo, this categorization for real-life scenarios is relatively easy, or so it seems. An entity that created a private blockchain, just like in the examples above, can be easily defined as data controller. But on the other hand, what about public blockchains? As there is no definite authority or entity, it can be argued that “the user who enters the personal data [in a block] is the Data Controller.” However, it also entails several difficulties, as it is not always possible to clearly define such a user and thus apply regulations accordingly.\n\n**Data Processors**\nThe CNIL is also confident about the position of data processors in blockchain. For instance, insurance company AXA has launched Fizzy, an Ethereum smart contract that provides for automatic indemnification for a delayed flight. According to the CNIL, the developer of the software in this case will be considered the data processor, while AXA is the data controller.\n\nThe CNIL also addresses the possibility of miners acting as data processors. Generally, miners cannot be recognized as such since they do not have any direct access to the personal data. Usually, it’s the code performing the evaluating functions without any active intervention of miners. To illustrate this situation, the CNIL uses the following example. A couple of insurance companies join a blockchain project allowing them to perform KYC compliance by accessing the customer data of other insurance companies. Here, the CNIL claims one of the companies can be designated as the data controller while others will act as data processors where a necessary contract should be established pursuant to the GDPR, art. 28(3). These other companies will be considered miners due to their validating functions.\n\nAt the same time, it is not completely true. In fact, any of these insurance companies can be considered a data controller, processor, and miner at the same time. An insurance company would become a data controller with regard to the personal data of their own customers, whereas being a data processor to the personal data of other insurance companies. And, since each of them would validate transactions, they would also essentially be miners at the same time.\n\nWhen providing this example the CNIL didn’t take into account that these roles will be mixed in such a relationship. In order to fully understand the position of the data processor, another, more isolated example, should be drawn.\n\nLet’s take an example of AXA insurance and make it a little more diverse. Say, there is a software development company which creates blockchain solutions for others on the basis on their private blockchain. Then, there is AXA that wants a smart contract to be developed for their customer based on this private blockchain. As in the situation before, AXA would be the data controller, and the development company would become the data processor, since it provides a particular solution. So, who can be regarded as miners in this light? Those miners will be other companies and their customers using the same private blockchain solution, who would simply validate transactions of this smart contract without any actual access to personal data.\n\n**What about the others?**\nFurthermore, the CNIL believes miners are neither data controllers, nor data processors. As for the the average cryptocurrency users, like the ones who buy Bitcoin, they would fall under the exemption of “a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity,” GDPR, art. 2(2)(c).\n\nIn case there is a certain group of participants, the CNIL recommends either to create a legal entity or to appoint one of them as the data controller. Otherwise, the regulator states they could be deemed as joint controllers under the GDPR, art. 26, which would also entail further definition of their respective roles. The clear definition of the data controller in this case would create an anchor for both data subjects and data protection authorities to contact with if necessary.\n\nAll in all, the CNIL considers two types of data controllers in a blockchain: a natural person when it is committed to any professional or business activity, and a legal entity. When it comes to data processors, the regulator uses an example of a development company to explain the their stance in data processing. As for the miners, as long as they don’t have access to personal data, they should not be considered data processors.\n\n**Think in Advance, or Do You Even Need Blockchain?**\nAllegedly, blockchain allows for secure data processing due to its suggested immutability. Yet, there are some inconsistencies that can possibly make blockchain and the GDPR incompatible due to the nature of the former.\n\nThe CNIL critically reflects on whether data controllers need to implement blockchain tech in the first place considering the privacy-by-design rule, the GDPR, art. 25(1). Basically, it addresses the inherent reliability of a certain technology used to process the personal data. Blockchain may seem to be a reliable tech in this sense, yet the CNIL is not really confident about it:\n\n> “Indeed, a blockchain is not necessarily the most suitable technology for all data processing; it can be a source of difficulties for data controllers in terms of compliance with the obligations set out by the GDPR.”\n\nThe regulator highlights the inability of data controllers to use appropriate safeguards in public blockchains when it comes to the personal data transfers outside the EU under the GDPR, art. 44. The European Commission is sure to define specific non-EU countries with adequate level of data protection, or other “appropriate safeguards for a transfer outside the EU [that] may be used in a permissioned blockchain, such as standard contractual clauses, binding corporate rules, codes of conduct or even certification mechanisms.” However, the CNIL points out, data controllers are not fully in control of the miner’s location, where the data to be validated may include personal information.\n\nSince it is difficult to ensure proper privacy-by-design compliance in blockchain, a number of  questions may arise, in particular regarding the data minimization and retention period.\n\nIn short, the data minimization principle says that personal data of processing must be adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary; whereas under storage limitation principle the data cannot be stored longer than it’s needed (“retention period”).\n\nThe CNIL believes the public keys owned by system participants cannot be minimized further. The retention period in this case is that of the blockchain itself. The question here is, can those be considered as private data at all since they are publicly available and hardly traceable to an individual? Since the GDPR mentions “the means reasonably likely to be used”, it is highly unlikely that a public key can be traced to its owner, thus making it not relevant to the GDPR.\n\nAnother issue of data minimization is the payload, or additional data attached to a block that may contain personal information. In order to suit the GDPR, the CNIL recommends to store such data in a form of “commitment”, that is only a proof of the data with the link to the actual data outside of the blockchain. Also, hashing or encryption can be used to provide an adequate level of data protection. Otherwise, the regulator underlines that it is possible to store the data as it is if proper precautions were taken (such as data impact assessment).\n\nAll in all, the CNIL suggests that even though blockchain is considered secure in terms of data protection, one should always carefully consider using it. Firstly, following the privacy-by-design rules it is not always possible to have full control over the data outflow, especially in a public blockchain. Secondly, the retention time and data minimization principle should be taken into account. One should always consider the extent of the data they are willing to put into a blockchain, even if the actual data is stored outside this blockchain or encryption is employed.\n\n**Effective Exercise of Rights**\nProbably the most interesting part of the recommendation considers the alignment of blockchain with data subjects rights pursuant to the GDPR §3. CNIL recognizes that blockchain tech “significantly strengthens individuals’ rights” and “facilitate[s] the exercise of individual rights.” However, the regulator also draws a possible map of problematique regarding:\n\n* the right to erasure (dubbed “the right to be forgotten”) — check our earlier feature on the topic,\n* the right to rectification (dubbed “the right to correction”), and\n* the right to restriction of processing.\n\nRegarding those, the right to correction (GDPR, art. 16) deserves a special attention. It has to face the same challenges as the right to erasure – once the information has been written on a blockchain, it can never be removed. Such impossibility, in the CNIL’s opinion, can be solved by “overwriting” the existing information with the updated one in a new block. Although the original transaction with technically still appear in the blockchain, it will be cancelled with the subsequent one.\n\nTo make this possible, an entire chain can be forked, either through a 51% attack, where the majority of miners agree to build a new valid chain, or via a hard fork carried out by the developers. At the same time, such branching will not completely change or delete the data, as it still will be there in the abandoned blocks. Additionally, this creates the threat to the integrity of the entire ledger.\n\nOne possible way out to consider is the tokenization of data. CNIL actually proposes this option in a form of commitment when addressing the additional data (payload) regarding the data minimization principle. Essentially, the data itself is not stored on a blockchain. Instead, there are only tokens serving as links to the actual data stored somewhere else. This way, the original source of the personal data can be amended anytime, and the link to it will be permanently stored on the blockchain.\n\nPrivate chains are a different case. Here, it is assumed that any block can be easily changed if a blockchain is controlled by a private entity. This obviously raises the concern of “defeat[ing] the point of using the blockchain in the first place.” If it so easy to change the private chain, then the immutability of such is very questionable.\n\nEventually, solving the issue of the right to correction has the same implications as with the right to erasure. The possible solutions to make the implementation of this right possible in a public blockchain is to either fork the chain, or to tokenize the data and store it outside. None of these solutions is perfect enough, as they imply other issues which then still need to be solved.\n\n**Conclusions**\nWith the GDPR is still a relatively new regulation, it is difficult to have particular standards on how to apply it in practice. Having blockchain in the background inevitably means that one will have to ensure its compatibility with the GDPR or just forget about the whole decentralized thing.\n\nAs we can see, it is still quite troublesome to define who’s who on a blockchain. How to exercise one’s right to be forgotten or to correction is another issue yet to be addressed. Even the actual necessity of using blockchain in certain areas may be questionable.",
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      "parent_permlink": "law",
      "author": "lawless.tech",
      "permlink": "internet-laws-south-korea",
      "title": "Internet Laws: South Korea",
      "body": "![ыыфвс-01.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmStaJJ29sfiMrVxUhXSvsZr68Esh2trmXokoSFHUYq85u/%D1%8B%D1%8B%D1%84%D0%B2%D1%81-01.png)\n\nWhile North Korea has the steady reputation of an oppressive authoritarian country, its southern neighbor, full of K-pop artists and glass skyscrapers, looks liberal and progressive. Yet, it seems that it’s liberal and progressive by sheer contrast. A succession of corrupt governments and a 60-years old standoff with the communist-nationalist regime across the northern border resulted in what looks like a litigation paranoia, but is in fact a set of exploitable rules to impose control. The internet, as the ultimate place to exercise one’s right for free speech, is not an exception from this paradigm. Moreover, it’s arguably the best place to look it in the face.\n\nWe’ve already analyzed the notorious internet regulations in the United States and Russia. In this feature, we’ll take a closer look at South Korea.\n\n**What’s Up With the Internet in South Korea**\nAbout 92.7% of 52.2 million people in South Korea are connected to the web. Many places, like train stations and community centers have public Wi-Fi and about 88% of people use connected smartphones. This makes South Korea one of the most connected countries in the world. \n\nAccording to the Freedom on the Net Report 2018, South Korea has “Partly Free” internet. The government has imposed strict control over what is posted online, and is actually enforcing these rules vigorously.\n\n> “Despite the fact that South Korea has one of the most advanced information communication technology sectors in the world, online expression remains under the strict legal and technological control of the central government. The country is the global leader in Internet connectivity and speed, but its restrictions on what Internet users can access are substantial,” the OpenNet research reads.\n\nArticle 21 of the Korean constitution stipulates that “all citizens shall enjoy freedom of speech and the press,” and censorship is not allowed. Yet, the very same article states that “neither speech nor the press shall violate the honor or rights of other persons nor undermine public morals or social ethics.” This statement is very vague, and basically gives the central government the ultimate right to decide whether something is right or wrong and punish any citizen who has ever posted something on the web. While this provision is not censorship per se, it can easily act as grounds for one if someone wants it to.\n\nApart from these somewhat contradicting statements in the constitution, South Korea has several pivotal laws that regulate the not-that-free speech online.\n\n**Key Laws Regulating Online Speech in South Korea**\nSubstantial part of the authorities’ effort to regulate the internet speech is aimed to fight the North Korean propaganda and anti-military moods. Since 1948, South Korea has the National Security Act (NSA), under which people can get prison sentences of up to 7 years for praising or expressing sympathy to the North Korean regime. The NSA has been reported as the way the authorities use to target their political opponents and dissidents for many years. Moreover, there is an illuminating story published by Time: a 24-year-old South Korean got a 10-months prison sentence for retweeting several posts from a Twitter account related to North Korea.\n\nAccording to the 1990 Act on Exchanges and Collaboration between South and North Koreas, South Koreans should report in advance about any interaction with any materials or websites maintained by North Koreans. If a citizen fails to report that they are going to visit such website, whether for research purposes, education, or just for the fun of it, they may face a fine of up to one million Korean Won ($900). \n\nTo be fair though, the neighbouring Korean regimes are looking forward to peaceful coexistence.\n\n> “Now that we’re moving from a framework of division and confrontation to one of peace and coexistence, we need to be considering institutions and laws that are suitable for that. I was saying that the National Security Act is one of those,” said South Korean Democratic Party leader Lee Hae-chan.\n\nJust like in the US and Russia, in South Korea there are several anti-terrorism laws that cover internet speech. Here the key piece of legislation is the Act on Anti-Terrorism for the Protection of Citizens and Public Security. This law empowers the National Intelligence Service (NIS), a Korean counterpart to the CIA, to order website operators to remove any content posted online, as stipulated by Article 12. Article 9 of the law allows the agency to access people’s personal travel and financial records, private conversations, location data, and other personal data, based on a simple suspicion and without any judicial supervision.\n\nDue to criticism by political opposition and civil rights groups, the law was amended to include a position of the counterterrorism human rights officer. However, the role is perceived as insignificant as it gives to little power over what the NIS is doing.\n\n> “I think that we are seeing these side effects because they started out with just the counterterrorism functions. If the human rights officer is to have any significance, the government needs to be committed to using a transparent process to appoint someone who will be acceptable to everyone. But I get the feeling that the government isn‘t even able to do that,” said Oh Dong-seok, a professor in the law school at Ajou University.\n\nIn general, similarly to other anti-terrorism laws, the Korean legislation is aimed more at suppressing the dissent within the country, rather than at protecting people from terrorism threat.\n\n> “In a broader sense, the legislation fits into a pattern of behavior which portrays a government far more interested in stifling dissent and placing limits on individual liberties than one which embraces the values crucial to sustaining a vibrant democracy. An administration which came to power with the assistance of a politicized intelligence service has gone about emboldening that same agency, rather than working to rein it in,” reads the article by Geoffrey Fattig, a researcher at UC San Diego focusing on South Korean politics and inter-Korean relations.\n\nAnother important law regulating the internet in South Korea is the Information and Communications Network Act (ICNA). In particular, Article 44(3) of the ICNA encourages companies to proactively censor problematic content posted on their websites. The companies that show enthusiasm in taking down illegal content will have a more favorable position in court, while others may be held liable for things posted on their platforms. All in all, it’s the exact opposite of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US.\n\nOne of the most notable subjects under the ICNA is defamation. In South Korea, online defamation is a criminal offence resulting in up to 7 years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million Korean Won ($9,000), even if the allegedly defamatory statements are proven to be true. In the first half of 2016, 6,137 defamation cases were filed, compared to 3,610 in 2007.\n\nIn 2011 South Korea’s Supreme Court found a popular political commentator Chung Bong-ju, 51, guilty of defaming then president Lee Myung-bak. Coincidentally, Chung Bong-ju is known for criticizing Lee Myung-bak.  \n\n> “In America, it’s almost impossible to prove defamation against a public figure. Here it’s easy. . . . When people open their mouths now, they are regulated,” Chung Bong-ju said.\n\nThis and other examples cited in media are pointing at quite exploitative approach of the Korean authorities to the laws that are meant to protect people. Unsurprisingly, these laws serve more to protect the acting administration. And the Korean government has shown a years-long streak of corruption and misfeasance.\n\n**Who’s Behind It**\nThe censorship machine in South Korea operates mostly through three cogs: the KCC ( Korean Communications Commission), the KCSC (Korean Communication Standards Committee), and the KISO (Korea Internet Self-governance Organization).\n\nThe KCC was founded back in 2008 as a watchdog for all the media, while the KCSC is its subdivision focused exclusively on the internet. The functions of those establishment mostly focus on monitoring the internet for the content that shouldn’t be there according to their policies, which includes nudity, materials considered harmful to the underaged, the notorious defamation, expressions of undying love for North Korea, and anti-military content. When they find what they were looking for they order for it to be removed. All in all, it’s more or less similar to Russia’s Roscomnadzor.\n\nThe KISO, on the other hand, is not a government organization. It is a roundtable of the country’s most prominent ISPs and Internet platforms internet platforms like KT, DaumKakao, Naver, or SK Communications. \n\nThe KCC consists of five commissioners, two of which are appointed by the president, including the chair. The rest are appointed by the National Assembly. Legally, the KCC is the subordinate of the president, and therefore directly enforced his or her policies. And those policies aren’t always fair and innocent, considering the corruption scandals around the highest officials in the country. Moreover, certain commissioners aren’t exactly fair players as well: thus, then-Chairman Choi See-joong had to resign back in 2012 as a result of a bribery scandal.\n\nHowever, he was a close associate of then-president Lee, and even though the court sentenced him to two years of imprisonment and a substantial fine of KRW 600 million (around $540 thousand), he was briefly pardoned by the president.\n\nIn 2013, the new president Park Geun-hye appointed her own associate, Lee Kyeong-jae as the head of the KCC, however, she was impeached in 2016, and charged with abuse of power, bribery, extortion, and leaking classified information.\n\nAll in all, the internet watchdogs are usually closely associated with those in the corridors of power, and have to obey their direct orders, which, considering the rich history of corruption in the presidential office might even be downright illegal. Though, in the conditions where any public statement online can be seen as a study in defamation or a passionate ode to Kim Jong-il if someone really wants it to, there is nothing illegal.\n\nMilitary people in South Korea face additional risks for being imprisoned. While the country still has compulsory army conscription, it is illegal to be gay in the military. In order to find gay people in their ranks, the country’s army chief, General Jang Jun-kyu ordered a nationwide swipe in 2017 where the soldiers’ personal phones were taken from them and inspected for any gay content. Moreover, the army set up several fake accounts on gay dating apps to catch their personnel who is willing to engage in same-sex relationship or just intercourse. The punishment doesn’t go away even if the intercourse in question happened off-duty. That’s because Article 92 of the Korean Military Criminal Act describes homosexuality as a sexual harassment.\n\nHowever, there is always hope. The newly elected South Korean president Moon Jae-in said:\n\n> “We need a national cleanup. We need to liquidate the old system and build a new South Korea. Only then can we complete the revolution started by the people who rallied with candlelight.”\n\nHowever, no exact plans of the cleanup when it comes to the censorship cobwebs are known for now, and all the factors that keep up the countrywide censorship are still there.\n\n**Conclusion**\nIt would be unfair to claim that the KCC is at the source of all evil in the Korean internet. The internet censorship in Korea actually began in good old nineties, and was conducted by the Ministry of Information and Communication. Basically, its functions were the same. And the tradition of censorship goes back to the source of all problems on the peninsula: the Korean War back in the fifties.\n\nBoth sides look at each other as prodigal children occupied by enemy forces. Both sides actually claim they wish the two countries to become one again, even though they have a different “one country” in mind. Since the end of the Korean War, which is still technically an armistice, the tensions between South and North Korea fluctuated, and the idea of peace talks between them surfaced only earlier this year, sixty-five years after the end of the active warfare. So, in some sense, the sensitivity of such questions as praising the literal enemy may be quite understandable.\n\nThe problem is that while North Korea is an autarkic dictatorship with ideology based on nationalist paroxysm, profoundly revised communism, and thoroughly rewritten history, South Korea has implemented its own sort of dystopia, not as Orwellian as their neighbour’s, but still comparably disturbing in certain regards.\n\n--------------- \n\nThis post originally appeared at https://lawless.tech/internet-laws-south-korea/\n\nlawless.tech is an online magazine devoted to covering the ongoing regulatory attempts to oversee and control the newest technologies\n\nJoin our [Telegram channel](http://t.me/lawlesstech), follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawless__tech) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/) to explore how regulations will impact the latest technological advances.",
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      "permlink": "premonition-s-toby-unwin-i-think-the-fundamental-problem-with-law-is-that-financial-incentives-are-misaligned",
      "title": "Premonition’s Toby Unwin: I Think the Fundamental Problem With Law Is That Financial Incentives Are Misaligned",
      "body": "![Безымянный-134414123-01 (1).png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdXFWzT9aPxULQehawTGD6bMdVww9jHw7PcnbmgUWwL1X/%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BC%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-134414123-01%20(1).png)\n\nThe legal industry is evolving. The mechanic routine tasks are now more often automated, leaving legal professionals with more time to work on complex problems and make strategic decisions. Or at least that’s what law firms want us to think. \n\nIn order to figure out what’s going on with the modern legal industry and legal tech, we’ve reached out to Toby Unwin, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Premonition. Mr. Unwin’s company is working with litigation data to evaluate individual lawyers’ success rates in dealing with certain case types before certain judges. We’ve discussed the main problems of the industry, as well as the potential solutions for them, and talked about the future of legal technology and the respective professions.\n\nlawless.tech: Please, tell us about your way to becoming a litigation innovator and how the concept behind Premonition came to be?\n\nToby Unwin: The short story is that I got sued a lot and it really pissed me off. The US has a ridiculous amount of litigation. 95% of the lawsuits comes from the 5% of the world’s population. I’ve been sued for things like not having an elevator in a one-story shopping center that I owned. I used to do things like collect the lists of the “best lawyers”. There was one particular lawyer I’d hired, whom I meticulously researched and who should’ve been the best. But they were actually horrible and the only one I ever filed a bar complaint against. I realized that I really didn’t know what I was doing, and neither did anybody else. \n\nThere was no objective measure of how good a lawyer is. Case management software usually doesn’t even have a field where you can put in the outcome of a case. I was talking to a person from one of these companies that’s been around for about 20 years, and asked why didn’t they have this outcome field. They just said that no one ever asked for it. It’s crazy that as a profession law doesn’t keep track of case outcomes, wins or losses. I figured that this is a data problem and if I can get the data and crunch it up, I can find out who’s winning which cases in front of which judges. Getting that data was very difficult. There’s no centralized source for this, it’s spread out across thousands of different courts. So we had to build a system that would gather this automatically, keep it all normalized and metrical quality stays up and so on. That was quite a complex undertaking which the industry at the time regarded as impossible. Therefore no one did it.\n\nWe wound up in the odd position where we’re the largest online litigation database and have more coverage than LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg combined.\n\nlawless.tech: Was the introduction of AI a part of the initial concept or was it a subsequent addition?\n\nToby Unwin: Unfortunately, we’re in this kind of industry where people call things AI that really aren’t AI. In its very basic definition AI is just a simple algorithm. We do have some things in our system that involve machine learning and such, but 98% of what we do can be tackled by a simple algorithm. You can use machine learning for the same task, but it would be a lot slower and less precise. AI is something we added later, but most of our work doesn’t rely on machine learning and it doesn’t need to.\n\nlawless.tech: In one of your interviews you’ve mentioned that legal tech is broken. Could you please elaborate on this notion? What are the persistent problems with legal tech and what are the potential solutions for those problems?\n\nToby Unwin: Legal tech is appalling. It’s a good 15 years behind fintech. I was giving a speech on legal innovation in Australia. On the second slide I had to say that there is not much of legal innovation at all. On the next slide I had the word “innovation” in speech marks, because people say that things are innovative, but they aren’t. We see all kinds of nonsense being touted around as being disruptive and innovative. There was one company that came to see us and they had the ability where they could videotape a deposition, and I was waiting for the punchline but there just wasn’t one, that was it. It’s just really really bad. There’s a number of reasons for that and if you want to get into detail, I wrote an article called “Why Is Legal Technology So Bad.”\n\nThe main reason I see for this is the law firms themselves. Law is still for the most part delivered on an hourly billing basis. The problem is that it actively discourages innovation and efficiency. There are people in law firms called “Innovation Officers” and they have a horrible job. Most of it is organizing window dressing type of activities, so the law firms can pretend to be the top of the game in terms of technology. Some of the firms even have incubators and make small investments in legal tech companies that just come out to reveal inferior products that no-one uses. After a few drinks on a Friday night they’ll tell you the reason. If law firms used a product that actually makes the process quicker and more efficient, the partners will refuse to use that product because their billing goes down. \n\nIronically, you wind up in a situation where a potentially successful product has no market. When we see legal tech projects and they are asking us for an advice,we tell them simply not to do business with law firms and focus on the real end users, such as corporate litigation departments.\n\nA lot of people are stuck on the idea that the work can be done better, so therefore it will be, but that’s not how it is. Simply because the financial incentives are completely misaligned.\n\nlawless.tech: In this regard, can you think of a different financial motivation system instead of the hourly billing, the one that would potentially incentivize innovation and efficiency?\n\nToby Unwin: On a plaintiff’s side it’s “they don’t get paid if they don’t win.” Also, I see flat rate as being a good incentive. People say that litigation is different from case to case and you never know for how long it’s going to be, but that’s not the real reason. Yes, cases are different, but if you litigate a lot, you know roughly how long it will take and how much it costs. Unfortunately, if you go to a lawyer and say “I have this lawsuit, how much will it cost?” they’ll tell you it will be, for example, $25,000. They know well that it’s going to be a $100,000, but they have to lie to you because they know that the truth isn’t going to get the case and they know the other lawyers will lie as well.\n\nEvery time I paid a lawyer by the hour, I was hugely disappointed. Every time I paid a lawyer a flat fee, I was very pleased. The other thing which we are working on with some of our clients is the TOBY number concept. If we know the case outcome and how much it wound up costing in terms of damages and such, and we know what the legal billing was, we can put all those numbers together and come up with what I narcissistically call the Total Operating Budget Yield, or the TOBY number. It represents how much value has that lawyer created for every dollar you’ve paid them. If you’re on a plaintiff side and someone gets a judgement and they’re taking a third of it, the TOBY number is going to be 3. They created $3 of value for every $1 they charged you.\n\nThis is great, because finally you have a defence lawyer, whose incentives are aligned with yours. Therefore a lawyer could say something like “I guarantee you a TOBY number of 1.8, and everything I get above that I split, how about that?” In this case they are incentivized to solve the case quickly so the billing is low. \n\nAlso, it means that if you have a case where the result was not good and you are looking at a TOBY number of 0.9, you gave them $1 and they created $0.90 of value, then you both know that that guy won’t be hired again. Let say, in a $10,000 case, it’s in their interest to call you and say “I don’t think I’ve had a good enough outcome for you as I’d like, so I’d like to give you $1,500 back.” Now they have a positive TOBY number and they can be hired again. The client’s and the attorney’s incentives are finally aligned for once. I think the fundamental problem with law is that financial incentives are misaligned and it causes practices which are against the client’s interests.\n\nlawless.tech: What applications can Premonition’s technology have outside the legal industry?\n\nToby Unwin: There’s actually a bunch. Once, we were going to hire a lobbyist. My CEO and I both had very bad feelings about him, but from completely different areas, though the candidate was well-recommended, and from a good firm and so forth. I said that if we replaced the word “lobbyist” with the word “lawyer” we would be laughing at ourselves. After all, there’s data out there, so we simply needed a proper dataset and some changes to the algorithms to see if we can crunch it. It wasn’t that hard and the results were quite illuminating, even though we didn’t do much in this area, now I can tell you which lobbyist get which bills passed with which committees, agencies and politicians. \n\nWe’re talking to some clients about doing more analysis of their workers compensations cases. The interesting thing here is that it involves a lot of medical data, allowing us to do the same we do for law: to see which physicians, procedures, drugs  and hospitals are the best. Is it worth for client to pay extra for a particular type of procedure, and so on. There’s a lot of things that can be done in this area.\n\nWe also work with insurance companies and they are starting to use us in risk and underwriting, figuring out how likely someone is to wind up in a lawsuit. Insurers underwrite risk based on historical data and most of the time they make a lot of money. But when the numbers change, things gets very expensive very quickly and that’s a big problem for them. With our data they can see what the risk is in real time.\n\nI have some ideas that because things like individual policies are linked with risk pools, to insurers and reinsurers, and to insurance-linked securities. By tossing a bit of machine learning at it you can figure out how someone getting an accident down in South Florida will affect a particular risk pool, then affect a particular company, then a re-insurer and then insurance-linked securities. You can actually see into the future, because it takes time for these effects to get felt throughout the market, so we would know where price is going to move in advance. It might sound a bit far-fetched, but we’ve already been able to do this in the stock market, proving that the banks foreclosure performance in litigation was predictive of future relative stock performance.\n\nlawless.tech: Premonition shows that certain lawyers have higher chances of winning a case before certain judges. Does it point to the fact that judges are always biased towards particular lawyers or certain lines of argument and are therefore somewhat unprofessional?\n\nToby Unwin: You could say that. But I’d take a slightly different approach and say that judges are human, like you and me. If we were judges we would have certain biases. I’m sure if I was sitting on the bench plaintiff lawyers would hate me, because I believe that most litigation in the US is frivolous and I’d be tossing cases like yesterday’s sushi. We also have people that are friends of ours and, as impartial as we try to be, we’ll always going to be nice to our friends. We also have a memory of what’s going on in the courtroom. If I remember a chap who is bullying and lying every time he is in the courtroom, I’d be less inclined to believe his so-called facts. And then there would be people that present in a certain way. So one of the things we look at when we are examining judges is their Pro Se win rate.\n\nIf people go before the judge to make an argument themselves, rather than hire a lawyer, how likely are they to win? There is a mantra in law that if you represent yourself you have a fool for a client and you should expect to lose. That’s not necessarily true. You usually have a Pro Se win rate of about 42%. It isn’t as good as hiring a lawyer, but it isn’t terrible. Yet, many judges have Pro Se win rates in the sixties. There’s a court in the UK with Pro Se win rate of 75%, so the non-lawyers are beating lawyers heavily over time. \n\nIf you are not a lawyer and you have taken a case through a court of appeals, that kind of says that you are quite an intelligent and organized person, but typically Pro Se people are going to make an argument from equity. They will say “this isn’t fair”, because they don’t necessarily know the laws, statutes, and precedents, whereas many lawyers will make an argument based on the law. There are judges that like to see arguments based on the law and there are also judges that are amenable to an argument based on equity, because they think it’s their job is to make sure things are as fair as possible. Measuring this plaintiff win rate can tell you whether that’s the way they think. Both of those arguments are actually true. \n\nSo, yes, the biases are in the legal system. We found that 30.7% of the average cases involved a relationship between the judge and the lawyer. Is that fair? No, but that’s where we are at the moment. I personally believe that every change of law will come from transparency in it. Eventually system like Premonition that bring transparency will make justice fairer. But it won’t happen quickly, it will take time.\n\nlawless.tech: What do you think about automation and introduction of AI-based solutions into the legal industry? Will there ever be absolutely unbiased robotic lawyers and robotic judges? \n\nToby Unwin: Automation in law is inevitable. At the moment, law firms are kind of dragging their heels on this one pretending to be enthusiastically adopting it. Law is way too expensive for what it is. There are only a couple of legal technology companies I have some respect for. One of these systems, Do Not Pay,  can do a thousand different things for free, that normally you would pay a lawyer for. You’ll see in-house counsel at corporations are rapidly accepting that. They can do the form-filling work internally, without having to go outside for a law firm. There are alternative providers that were able to raise funds to provide this kind of services to in house counsel. \n\nI definitely see the administrative part of the work going away. The value of filling out a few forms or checking a contract is going to fall to practically zero in the future. People will pay lawyers for the interpretation of what these systems do, rather than for filling forms and ticking in boxes. \n\nWill there be unbiased robotic lawyers and judges? I think there will always be some bias to them, but certainly far less than humans. We actually have a system called JustText, which can read a pleading or a motion and tell you who’s likely to win based on the precedents and statutes that are in it. When lawyers research precedents right now, the system will tell that a particular precedent has being quoted a certain number of times to this judge, but for some reason they haven’t kept track of what happens after that. So, it might have been quoted 70 times, but maybe the judge ruled against it 70 times, maybe the judge hates that. You need to know before you open your mouth. We came up with this persuasive precedent system that generates win rates for precedents, and applied for a patent for it. That system could easily be used to take a lot of the mechanic work out of the legal system.\n\nI don’t see human judges going away ever, but a lot of their tasks could be automated so they can focus on the stuff with the most value. By bringing this kind of transparency we are setting more reasonable standards, so the same case won’t go one way before one judge and another way before another.\n\nlawless.tech: How do you see further evolution of legal industry and legal tech in general? What will law firms look like in 5 or 10 years? How lawyers’ day-to-day job will change?\n\nToby Unwin: I think, in 5 and 10 years time the single-practitioner law firms will still be around. We are starting the see the death of brand in law. Most of our clients are insurance companies, because they get sued the most. We’ve come out with the new product called Panel Report. It looks at the panel, the lawyers that the firm is providing you. This is quite an interesting question to ask. Let’s say you call up your law firm and you say “I have a case before Judge John Kest in Orlando, Florida, it’s a contract case and I’m defending it. I want the best person for that case type and Judge” can your law firm give you that person? The answer is that it’s highly unlikely, because there’s over 5,000 lawyers in Orlando and over a thousand firms, so the odds that the best person is working for your firm are slim. \n\nWe actually have our own law firm now that can provide our clients with any lawyer on the local counsel basis, irrespective of what firm they’re in. That’s a big deal for large corporations because they don’t want to have to go onboarding thousands of new firms just to get the best lawyer. Getting back to the question, you can understand that the firm can’t give you the best person, but can they give you their best person? Well, they can’t do that either, because law firms don’t keep track of wins and losses, they keep track of hours and billing, so they have no idea who is their best person. They are going to give you the person who is sitting on a bench not billing enough hours right now. Is that person good? Maybe they are and maybe they are not. You don’t really know. What Panel Report does is it shows you the win rates of the lawyers in that firm and it shows who these firms have been sending over. Therefore, you are able to hire not by brand, but by people.  \n\nThat is where I see law going. As for the individual lawyers, you will have people that use automation and tools to put together paperwork and for that they will charge you practically nothing, but what they are changing you for is their advice. That where, I think, things are going to go.\n\nlawless.tech: In broad strokes, what plans do you have for Premonition?\n\nToby Unwin: Right from the start we had a three-part plan. Part one was to get the most data, which we have now done. Part two was to become the litigation benchmark, which we have now also essentially done. I gave a speech at PCI, the association of insurers, before 80 insurance companies CEO’s. These guys account for just over half of all litigation spending. Insurers basically own the litigation market. Afterwards they took a poll of the audience and asked what is the best way of finding a lawyer and 96% said it’s their win rate for that case type and judge. Before the presentation that would’ve probably be zero. There’s about 80 companies that do “legal analytics,” but they just don’t have a lot of coverage. If you have an expensive system, but whenever you type a case in there’s a 97% chance it’s not going to be there. That’s not that useful, no matter how pretty it is. We have overwhelmingly more data and coverage from everybody else. So Premonition is the litigation benchmark.\n\nThe third thing, which we are now starting to do in beta, is to become the litigation marketplace. Essentially, we’re the only people who know how good particular lawyers are for certain cases and certain judges. It’s foolish to hire a lawyer without knowing how good they are. You don’t have to pay more to get a good lawyer. In law there’s a standard referral fee for referring a case over. They pay an average of 25% for referring a case. We’re talking about a business where we could make $25,000 just for picking up the phone and referring a case which could also be automated. In the US that happens 41,000 times a day, so you can do the math. It is a substantial market and we’re the only player.\n\n--------------- \n\nThis post originally appeared at https://lawless.tech/premonitions-toby-unwin-i-think-the-fundamental-problem-with-law-is-that-financial-incentives-are-misaligned/\n\nlawless.tech is an online magazine devoted to covering the ongoing regulatory attempts to oversee and control the newest technologies\n\nJoin our [Telegram channel](http://t.me/lawlesstech), follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawless__tech) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/) to explore how regulations will impact the latest technological advances.",
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      "body": "Congratulations @lawless.tech! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :\n\n<table><tr><td>https://steemitimages.com/60x70/http://steemitboard.com/@lawless.tech/voted.png?201810281955</td><td>You received more than 100 upvotes. Your next target is to reach 250 upvotes.</td></tr>\n</table>\n\n<sub>_[Click here to view your Board of Honor](https://steemitboard.com/@lawless.tech)_</sub>\n<sub>_If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word_ `STOP`</sub>\n\n\n\n**Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:**\n<table><tr><td><a href=\"https://steemit.com/halloween/@steemitboard/trick-or-treat-publish-your-scariest-halloweeen-story-and-win-a-new-badge\"><img src=\"https://steemitimages.com/64x128/http://i.cubeupload.com/RUyB3u.png\"></a></td><td><a href=\"https://steemit.com/halloween/@steemitboard/trick-or-treat-publish-your-scariest-halloweeen-story-and-win-a-new-badge\">Trick or Treat - Publish your scariest halloween story and win a new badge</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href=\"https://steemit.com/steemitboard/@steemitboard/steemitboard-notifications-improved\"><img src=\"https://steemitimages.com/64x128/http://i.cubeupload.com/NgygYH.png\"></a></td><td><a href=\"https://steemit.com/steemitboard/@steemitboard/steemitboard-notifications-improved\">SteemitBoard notifications improved</a></td></tr></table>\n\n> Support [SteemitBoard's project](https://steemit.com/@steemitboard)! **[Vote for its witness](https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=steemitboard&approve=1)** and **get one more award**!",
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      "title": "A Busy Week for Data Privacy",
      "body": "@@ -6060,8 +6060,487 @@\n r power.\n+%0A%0A---------------%0A%0AThis post originally appeared at https://lawless.tech/a-busy-week-for-data-privacy/ %0A%0Alawless.tech is an online magazine devoted to covering the ongoing regulatory attempts to oversee and control the newest technologies%0A%0AJoin our %5BTelegram channel%5D(http://t.me/lawlesstech), follow us on %5BTwitter%5D(https://twitter.com/lawless__tech) and %5BFacebook%5D(https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/) to explore how regulations will impact the latest technological advances.\n",
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      "title": "A Busy Week for Data Privacy",
      "body": "![Безымянный-1-01-3.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZrDETTvNuFQcCzjGdDXEAv9PNzTbWRK7t8NQnVGaFE6x/%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BC%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-1-01-3.png)\n\nThere’s been quite a week for those keeping an eye on data privacy regulation. The Federal Trade Commission pushes to renew the Privacy Shield — a data transfer pact between the US and the EU. European lawmakers, however, are skeptical about it, arguing that some US-based companies aren’t fulfilling their obligations. Facebook is facing yet another wave of Cambridge Analytica repercussions: the UK fined the company for $644,000, while the EU Parliament members urged the company to agree to data protection audit. As a cherry on top, it’s worth noting, that since the introduction of the GDPR, Google has gained even more coverage in the EU, and smaller companies struggled. Here is a brief recap of the most notable cases. \n\n**The Privacy Shield**\nOn October 24th, at a U.S. Chamber summit in Washington Andrew Smith, Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said that the renewal of the Privacy Shield, is the top priority for the FTC. The Privacy Shield is a pact entitling the compliant companies to transfer data between the US and the EU since 2016. The EU is now deciding whether to renew the pact as some Parliament members are concerned about the US’s ability to fulfill its obligations. In this case the FTC is responsible for the certified companies’ compliance with the framework.\n\n> “It’s an extremely important arrangement that Commerce and the [European Commission] have agreed to, and it supports hundreds of billions of dollars in transatlantic data flows. We at the FTC have an important role to play because we are the ones who are responsible for enforcing that Privacy Shield framework against companies that fail to adhere to it,” Smith said.\n\nMr. Smith also mentioned the FTC’s enforcement efforts against the companies that lied about their commitment to the Privacy Shield requirements. He also brought up five particular enforcement cases that took place within the last year and noted that they support the US argument for the renewal.\n\nBy now the EU has clearly shown that it takes data privacy seriously. The US-based companies, on the other hand, sometimes appear to be much less concerned.\n\n**Facebook Gets Another Fine And It’s Somewhat Lucky**\nThe UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office fined Facebook under the now obsolete 1998 Data Protection Act for its misconduct in the Cambridge Analytica case. As the scandal occurred before the newer GDPR framework came into effect, the ICO imposed then maximum possible fine of £500,000 ($644,000). The regulator notes that the fine would be significantly higher, would the misconduct occur after May 2018.\n\n> “We considered these contraventions to be so serious we imposed the maximum penalty under the previous legislation. The fine would inevitably have been significantly higher under the GDPR”, said the UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham.\n\nMeanwhile, on October 25th, the EU’s lawmakers urged Facebook to “allow EU bodies to carry out a full audit to assess data protection and security of users’ personal data, following the scandal in which the data of 87 million Facebook users was improperly obtained, and misused.” The European Parliament members highlighted the urgency of preventing any possible manipulation with the EU elections and creating a new legal framework corresponding to the “digital reality.”\n\n> “This is a global issue, which has already affected our referenda and our elections. This resolution sets out the measures that are needed, including an independent audit of Facebook, an update to our competition rules, and additional measures to protect our elections. Action must be taken now, not just to restore trust in online platforms, but to protect citizens’ privacy and restore trust and confidence in our democratic systems,” said Civil Liberties Chair Claude Moraes.\n\nThe EU urges Facebook to cooperate and allow the respective regulators to perform an exhaustive assessment of the company’s data protection measures and cybersecurity.\n\n**The GDPR Boosted Google’s Outreach in the EU**\nA research by the joint team from anti-tracking browser Cliqz and the tracker blocker tool Ghostery shows that the GDPR had a negative impact on adtech companies in the EU, leaving Google with less competition. Over the first months since the GDPR came into force the search giant’s website reach gained about 1%, while smaller companies lost 18–31%. The study included top 2 000 domains visited by the US or the EU residents.\n\n> “Google benefits indirectly from the effects of the GDPR, which led the online advertising market in Europe to become more concentrated, as the majority of advertisers lose market share. Google seems to have successfully taken advantage of the uncertainty around GDPR to further solidify its leading market position. On the other hand, many smaller competitors have been steadily losing market share since the GDPR came into effect,” reads the researchers’ blog post.\n\nOne wouldn’t be wrong calling this ironical. The legal framework adopted and praised in part because of the big tech corporations’, such as Google and Facebook, systemic misconduct is now weeding out their smaller competitors. Simply put, it is much easier for a large company to keep up with the costs of complying with all the requirements stated in the GDPR.\n\n**Conclusion**\nTo sum up, the trend of stricting data privacy regulations and enforcement is getting stronger. The lawmakers react with more zeal to each subsequent evidence of noncompliance, especially since the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed what an impact it can have on quite important  things, such as presidential elections and nationwide referendums. However, the urge to enforce laws and restrictions for tech companies may as well lead to further market consolidation and giving the “big and evil” corporations unprecedented access to bigger data and thus bigger power.",
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      "permlink": "lean-thinking-and-the-legal-industry-where-we-are-today",
      "title": "Lean Thinking and the Legal Industry: Where We Are Today",
      "body": "![457щ9-01-01 (1).png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPRcqLfSSu4kjqcDUykVqbGRA5gNbbPQeoTysa4bCmyh5/457%D1%899-01-01%20(1).png)\n\nThe legal industry is facing historic challenges. Technology has reached the point where it is making an impact on legal services delivery. Outside the industry, people are experiencing rapid change in every aspect of their lives. New questions and issues arise that demand fresh ways of looking at how to do things. Yet, through all of this, the legal industry hangs on to high cost, lower quality, and slow service practices that fail to yield what clients want. This paradox raises a fundamental question: Is there a way, short of going through an expensive and complex technological revolution, to deliver affordable, high quality, and timely legal services?\n\nFor more than 25 years, lean thinking has offered the legal industry a way to answer that question with a resounding “yes”. It is 80-years old and the most popular of the process excellence methodologies. A PEX Network survey shows that lean thinking and Lean Six Sigma ranked first and second. Corporate clients across industries favor lean thinking to reduce cost, improve quality, and shorten lead times in their businesses.\n\nIn the legal industry, though, lean thinking has struggled to build a following. According to PEX Network’s 4th Biennial State of the Industry Report, process excellence (dominated by lean thinking) penetrated around 21% of corporate law departments in 2013. But, it dropped to about 9% in 2015, recovering to 11% in 2018. Law firms have shown more resistance. We don’t have reliable figures, but the consensus among lean thinking aficionados is that a far lower percent of law firms use lean thinking to a meaningful degree, perhaps less than 1%. Why has lean thinking dominated process excellence initiatives outside the legal industry?\n\nLean Thinking Magic Revealed\nAt its core, lean thinking offers a simple goal: remove waste from all that we do leaving pure value (perfection). Lean thinking uses a set of tools used to identify what a client values, streamline the transformation of inputs into outputs, and deliver those inputы transformed into what the client values. The challenge is not in understanding lean, it is in using the tools. It takes devotion to achieving what is best for the client and persevering with process improvement. This is where the legal industry has balked.\n\nEverything we do as lawyers, we do through processes. A process is a sequence of steps that takes us from start to finish. A process can be simple — I start my MacBook by grasping the lid and moving it to the open position. A process can be complex — preparing a contract involves gathering facts, doing research, drafting, editing, reviewing, negotiating, and executing. Lean thinking tools focus on removing waste from processes. To do that, one must study the processes and improve them again and again, with a relentless focus on delivering only value to the client.\n\nA lean thinking improvement team starts by creating a “value stream map”. It is a drawing showing inputs (e.g., documents) flowing through areas that add value (e.g., lawyers) until they reach the desired output (e.g., a signed contract). Using the value stream map, the team identifies constraints (choke points). It maps the processes used at those constraints. A process map is a type of flowchart showing each step in the process. The team gathers data on the processes — how long does each step take, quality misses, etc. Now the team makes an impact. Using the process maps and data, the team begins removing waste and standardizing on one process. The waste removal part is at the heart of lean thinking and deceptively hard. The second part is obvious — find the optimal way to do something and follow that process.\n\nLean thinking sorts waste into eight types. For example, one type is transportation and another is overproducing. Transportation waste happens when we move things around, but the movement does not add value. Think of carrying a draft contract from a central printer down the hall to your office. Overproduction waste happens when you do too much of something. For lawyers, it can mean doing more work than the client needs. One example is over-reviewing a contract when the client only needs one clause checked.\n\nThe team revises the proposed process removing as much waste as practical. It asks the lawyers to follow the new process and collects more data. The team repeats the steps, removing waste, standardizing on a new process, collecting more data. This cycle continues with each iteration yielding a tighter process—a higher value-to-waste ratio. Over time, the lawyers move from episodic team efforts to continuous improvement. They identify waste to remove, update the standard process, and collect data continuously. The goal is perfection—all value, no waste. The reality is no one gets there, so the focus is on continuously improving.\n\nWhen examining legal services, we find that processes vary greatly from lawyer to lawyer. Two lawyers, each given the same contract and asked to do the same review, will employ different processes and reach different results. The client faces a problem — which version to use? It gets worse. Asked to do the same task a second time, each lawyer uses a new process and gets a new result. The client has four versions from which to choose. The time it took to do each review varied (meaning four different amounts billed) and all four versions often miss key issues. The lawyers were not lacking in skills. But, because they did not follow a standard process the end results varied in cost, quality, and time to completion, all to the client’s detriment.\n\nConsider all of the processes involved in providing legal services. Imagine an entire organization engaged in continuous improvement. You can get a feel for the enormous changes possible in cost reduction, quality improvement, timeliness, and client satisfaction. Legal services organizations that have adopted lean thinking have seen contract review lead times drop from several weeks to a few days or even a few minutes. Contracts are just one example of how lean thinking can change delivery of legal services for the better. The steps outlined above are the tip of the lean thinking iceberg. Improvements in cost, quality, and delivery times are the beginning of the benefits obtained by lean thinking organizations and their clients.\n\nLean Thinking And The Push To Automate\nLean thinking fits well with the current push to use automation and artificial intelligence. Automation is one way of addressing constraints. The speed at which I can handwrite a contract draft is limited. The quality of my handwriting decreases as I approach my speed limit. By switching to shorthand notation, I could increase my speed, but even with that change I will hit a limit. Switching to a word processor, I can go faster and the quality (legibility) is higher. Automation (the word processor) helped move the process (creating the draft) past a constraint (my handwriting speed). But, it changed the process. Instead of a pen and paper, I need a word processor (hardware and software). Built into the software is a spellcheck feature. Handling spelling errors as part of the process has changed. The software automatically corrects some errors. By double-clicking on words flagged by the software, I can “erase and replace” others.\n\nAttempting to introduce automation without understanding current processes can increase waste rather than remove it. Processes interrelate. Decreasing waste in one process may increase waste in another. Mapping  processes helps you understand how they fit together. Artificial intelligence is another step in the automation continuum. AI must be worked into existing processes and integrated with interrelated processes. Both automation and AI must fit with people as well as processes. Moving from handwriting to word processing was a significant change. Early efforts to bring word processors into law offices did not include process mapping and consideration of the people-process-technology trilogy. They reduced productivity and increased waste for a time. Using lean thinking methodologies, lawyers could have avoided the waste.\n\nLean thinking has other benefits for automation and AI. By examining processes, standardizing them, and rigorously rooting out waste, adding automation or AI becomes easier and costs less. If you eliminate a step, you remove the need to automate it or add it to the AI algorithm. That simplifies the technology needed and can make the technology more flexible. It also reduces technology costs by reducing complexity of the software. Simpler software means lower training costs and less maintenance. It makes it easier to re-configure the software as processes change.\n\nIt is worth taking a moment to focus on a legal industry point of pride: quality. It is difficult to objectively measure the quality of legal services, though that barrier is crumbling. Lawyers have claimed, without data, that they provide high quality services. They have not felt pressure to improve it. Yet, to even the most novice lean thinking practitioner, the poor quality of legal services is apparent. More significantly, clients are beginning to challenge lawyers on their “high quality” assertions. A recent study of legal briefs submitted by well-known firms showed the documents were filled with errors. They ranged from typographical mistakes to citing cases which did not support the argument. Lean thinking tools could help lawyers root out those errors (waste). Doing so would also reduce costs and improves service delivery times. As more quality measures become available, lawyers using lean thinking will have a key advantage in the market.\n\nLawyers Must Change Or There Will Be Consequences\nWith all the benefits lean thinking can bring, why has the adoption rate in the legal industry been extremely low compared to other industries? Greater efficiency means lower revenue for law firms and lower compensation for lawyers (fewer hours billed per matter), assuming the law firm does not replace the billable hour with alternative fee structures. In law departments, it can mean reducing the number of lawyers (though that reduction typically is offset by an increasing demand for a wider range of legal services). In all organizations, it requires lawyers to focus not just on what they do, but how they do it. Unless clients (the real clients, business people) demand lower costs, better, quality, and lower lead times, and move work away from traditional legal services providers when those demands are not met, lawyers will resist efforts to change how they work.\n\nWhatever the reasons, the effect is clear. The legal industry has failed to take advantage of a low cost, proven methodology. Lean thinking addresses many of the industry’s current ills and would prepare it for the next economic downturn. General counsel say they need greater efficiencies and lower costs in their departments. At the same time law firms are coming under increasing pressure from alternative legal service providers (law companies). We are 10 years out from the last recession and history tells us we are overdue for the next major correction. Lean thinking offers tools to deliver what clients demand from lawyers. It also offers lawyers tools to protect themselves against the next, inevitable, financial downturn.\n\nOne thing should be clear to even the most recalcitrant lawyers: clients want providers who will meet their needs at affordable prices. If lawyers refuse to meet those requirements, clients have access to and are willing to move their work to other providers who will.\n\nDisclaimer: The text is published as is, does not include any amendments, represents the author’s point of view, which does not necessarily coincide with that of the lawless.tech editorial board.\n\n--------------- \n\nThis post originally appeared at https://lawless.tech/lean-thinking-and-the-legal-industry-where-we-are-today/\n\nlawless.tech is an online magazine devoted to covering the ongoing regulatory attempts to oversee and control the newest technologies\n\nJoin our [Telegram channel](http://t.me/lawlesstech), follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawless__tech) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/) to explore how regulations will impact the latest technological advances.",
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      "parent_permlink": "freedom",
      "author": "lawless.tech",
      "permlink": "between-freedom-of-speech-and-online-security",
      "title": "Between Freedom of Speech and Online Security",
      "body": "![Безымянный-1-Восстановлен-01-4.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdYJMrtCeHsHaGznPqyaGoWwLMwxxiBkxqvWSg7hHY9Yz/%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BC%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-1-%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD-01-4.png)\n\nIt seems like the news about internet laws are put on the conveyor belt. There are laws that demolish previously established internet regulations or copyright directives that kill memes and question further online creativity. There’s also the FCC’s move away from net neutrality which eliminates equal access to the internet. These and other laws aren’t obviously aimed at establishing total internet censorship, but the case is they kind of are.\n\n**Laws that Kind of Censor Internet**\n\nOne of the earliest pieces of internet regulation was Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Simply put, it protected online services from being held legally responsible for what users say and post on their platforms. Without it, service providers would have become targets for individuals, governments, and corporations willing to limit the freedom of expression for any reason. Nevertheless, 22 years later, people began questioning Section 230 due to the rise of online harassment, hoaxes, fake news, and hate speech.\n\nThe first step towards neglecting this legal “shield” was the introduction of the FOSTA–SESTA package in the US in April 2018. The essence of the package was to provide legal punishment for websites that are somehow related to sex trafficking.\n\nCongresswoman Ann Wagner said that “online trafficking is flourishing because there are no serious, legal consequences” for websites that profit from sex trafficking and that the “FOSTA-SESTA package will finally give prosecutors the tools they need to protect their communities and give victims a pathway to justice.”\n\nHowever, SWOP-USA, a sex-workers advocacy group, regarded the FOSTA-SESTA package as a “disguised internet censorship bill” that jeopardizes working conditions in online sex industry and censors Internet by removing the protection given to websites under Section 230.\n\n> “There’s a long history of states passing extremely broad censorship laws in the name of combating trafficking. Let’s unpack that. Under SESTA, states would be able to enact laws that censor the Internet in broad ways. As long as those laws claim to target sex traffickers, states could argue that they’re exempt from Section 230 protections,“ said Alex Andrews, SWOP-Orlando Representative.\n\nAround the same time, the EU ministers approved proposals from the European Commission aimed to fight inappropriate videos, such as those featuring hate speech or calls to terrorism, posted on social media platforms. The new Audiovisual Media Directive (AVMD) has given the full control over user-generated content to video-sharing platforms, such as Netflix, YouTube or Facebook. Even though AVMD contributed to the elimination of inappropriate and downright harmful content, it can be used to effectively censor the content, given that the right labels are in place. Moreover, the AVMD contradicts the E-Commerce Directive meant to protect the freedom of expression by ensuring that internet companies can’t be obliged to delete user-generated content.\n\nUnsurprisingly, the establishment of such contradicting laws questions the relevance of the E-Commerce Directive, the European analog of the US’s Section 230.\n\n“Reforming the E-commerce Directive is unavoidable,” said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch Liberal member of the European Parliament specialized in digital rights, “De facto steps taken by big tech platforms to tackle terrorist content, disinformation and copyright infringements already make their claims of being ‘neutral’ dubious.”\n\nRight now, both the US and the EU are effectively moving away from the free internet, regardless of how cruel, chauvinistic, and unfair it can be, to something completely different and definitely without the word “free.”\n\n**Freedom of Speech as Collateral Damage**\nCompared to China that banned Google, or Russia that has gone to great lengths to ban a messenger service with no actual avail, none of this laws comes even close to threatening the freedom of speech in such a direct manner. Most likely, they don’t have any oppressive agenda at all, though the freedom of expression might become a collateral damage in that case.\n\nWhile the idea of censorship looks inadmissible in the free world, the obvious truth that the freedom of speech is not limitless. One cannot go proselytizing terrorist agendas across the internet because the dissemination of such views brings more harm than their exclusion from the list of allowed topics. The same logic suggests that disseminating information on activities that are regarded as adverse not just by law but also by common opinion should not be included in the scope of freedom of speech. After all, it’s very unlikely that you or anyone you know would sincerely defend the right of some criminals to sell slaves online.\n\nWith that in mind, it is the government in the broad sense of the word who has the authority to deal with such matters. Policing is one of its functions. What we see in the US is that the government seeks to delegate some of its oppressive functions to businesses, which should introduce certain censorship measures at their own expense. Is it just lazy policing? It could be, considering who is the current resident of the White House. The contradiction between Section 230 and FOSTA/SESTA could be a result of equally lazy lawmaking, rather than an ominous attempt to subvert the fundamental democratic values through democratic processes. After all, Hanlon’s Razor suggests that one should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.\n\nSuch contradictions between laws, should they arise, are usually addressed by constitutional courts, or, in case of the US, by the Supreme Court. That’s one of the functions of the judiciary branch, and that’s one of the reasons why there is a Supreme Court in any country in the world. Still, this standoff between two laws could indeed result in certain problems for internet users.\n\nThe AVMD is, in some way, the way for the European authorities to delegate their policing function to the corporations that host and handle content online. Now, one of the potential scenarios is that the authorities will become able to silence the undesired voices without even getting blamed for totalitaristic approach. The businesses, on the other hand, will have to put additional effort into filtering the uploaded content, either automatically or manually, and balance on the edge between becoming censorship machines and being shut down by the government.\n\n**Conclusion**\nIn both cases, the very problem comes down to the interaction between governments and very big companies, while the end user interests are thrown to the back burner. This is a very strange thing for a democratic society that actually consists of end users, legally known as citizens. In both cases, the contradiction may lead to prolonged legal proceedings that would have to somehow sort things out. Where would it lead us as end users? Of course, only time (and possibly the court) will tell.",
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      "title": "Is Autonomous Car Data Subject to Copyright?",
      "body": "![knight_rider.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWfUhtZwiMZjbGZHmBAASnLbHVqXxmLJW9DBbth7BKY5W/knight_rider.png)\n\nAutonomous vehicles, or self-driving cars, are getting conceptually closer to smart gadgets, rather than mere means of transportation. Such vehicles are equipped with a multitude of sensor arrays, such as LIDARs, conventional radars, cameras, accelerometers, and thermometers. Over a single ride to work your smart car would generate an exhaustive log featuring every bump on the road, every brake check, and every turn, bundled with geolocation data and weather reports. Within our praised data-driven economy such data simply couldn’t remain outside of someone’s control, so the respective regulators began thinking about the rules for the game. \n\nRecently, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs voted down an amendment that would have made it impossible to make telemetric data from an autonomous vehicle subject to copyright. This has outraged media and certain users. But is there an actual reason for being that alarmed?\n\n**EU Can’t Let Go of Copyright Issues?**\n\nThe European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) summed up its perspective on the matter of autonomous vehicles in a draft opinion for the Committee on Transport (TRAN) and Tourism, emphasizing the topics such as civil liability, data protection, and access to the data generated by autonomous cars. Subsequently Max Andersson, member of the Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs, proposed several amendments to the draft opinion, including one specifically addressing the possibility of copyright protection of the autonomous cars data.\n\n> “Data generated during autonomous transport are automatically generated and are by nature not creative, thus making copyright protection or the right on databases inapplicable,” reads Andersson’s proposal.\n\nOn October 10th, the Legal Affairs Committee voted against this amendment, essentially opening the possibility for the captured data to be subject to copyright legislation. The vote results alarmed the media about the widening scope of copyright law. There are certain allegations that the center-right EPP politicians who blocked the amendment from passing don’t believe that “[the] data belongs to the owner of the vehicle,” and may be acting for the benefit of autonomous cars manufacturers.\n\n**Why It Is Important**\n\nConsidering the EU’s widely criticized additions to the Copyright Directive, Articles 11 and 13, already dubbed as the “link tax” and “upload filter”, the response from the media and certain internet users doesn’t come as a surprise.\n\nThat being said, the data generated by thousands and thousands of autonomous cars in the EU is valuable. Apart from the obvious use in public safety analysis, consumer rights protection, security researches, and many other applications for the benefit of the whole community, these logs are invaluable to corporate interests. A manufacturer may sell it to wealthy insurance companies, marketers, or simply to a highest bidder who would benefit from concealing such data from public. And owning the copyright will allow just that.\n\nAn impressive example of somewhat exploitative data handling is that of John Deere, a large farming equipment manufacturer. While at field, their modern tractors log a whole bunch of information about the soil conditions and generate accurate maps of their owners’ fields featuring soil humidity and numerous other important parameters. Sounds great, but the point is that John Deere locks all these data behind its DRM. The farmer who owns the tractor can access only the fragments of information about their own land collected by their own equipment, and only through the app bundled with certain purchases. The company, in its turn, profits from selling the data to the crop futures market.  \n\nSuch a scenario smells undoubtedly foul, but before believing that data-thirsty corporations indeed strive to have every speck of every sort of information at their grasp, we should think twice. Is everything really as bad as it seems?\n\n\n**Why It Is Not Important**\n\nThe media circus around the JURI decision, however, is at very least premature. First of all, it’s a draft for a draft: particularly, a Draft Opinion of JURI issued for the Draft Report of TRAN. It means that it might not even have any effect on the anticipated resolution.\n\nSecondly, it is a resolution that we are talking about. It is a non-binding document by its very nature. It is a mere proclamation of some sort of a political will to act accordingly in the given area with no means of enforcing it. However, since copyright issues in the EU seem to be controversial in the light of notorious Articles 11 and 13 of the similarly notorious Copyright Directive, the question should be: even if both drafts become clear recommendations; even if the resolution is passed; and even if it’s somehow made legally binding, is it really capable of making the data in question subject to copyright?\n\nFirst of all, the information gathered by an autonomous vehicle is not very different from that gathered by a fitness tracker. However, while your heartbeat or blood pressure might be considered your personal data and therefore require some legal protection, there’s nothing personal in the actual curvatures of a road or the weather conditions on the day in question. Furthermore, those data are as impersonal as possible. Most importantly, no data gathered by a fitness tracker are considered a creative work that needs copyright protection. And, by the same logic, neither should the autonomous car telemetric data.\n\nHowever, surprisingly, there is no law in the EU that clearly defines what should be subject to copyright, and what should not. The EU itself defines copyright as a set of rules that allows the authors or other subjects to exercise their economic rights to control the use and moral rights to claim the authorship of a particular work. There is no actual list of features that a work should have in order to become subject to copyright.\n\nIt seems, though, that there is an unspoken understanding suggesting that whatever needs copyright protection should be creative or even artistic, just as Mr. Andersson noted. However, an unspoken understanding is not a law. Not until a court ruled accordingly, at least.\n\n**Conclusion**\n\nTo sum up, it seems very unlikely that telemetric data will ever be considered subject to copyright as it would defy the very definition of a creative work and erase the legal difference between Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick and an actual brick. This would have had the potential to disrupt the well-established world of copyrighted content, and not in a good way. And, most importantly, for no reason at all.\n\nThat being said, the downvoted amendment was to become a part of a resolution, which is by definition a document that doesn’t have any legally binding power. For example, the UN General Assembly resolutions can contain very powerful words but they have very little effect, to put it politely. So, even in the unlikely event that the EU Parliament’s resulting resolution will expressly state that telemetric data should be copyright-protected, this ‘should’ will be light years away from the weakest ‘shall’ in the house.\n\n---------------\n\nThis post originally appeared at https://lawless.tech/is-autonomous-car-data-subject-to-copyright/\n\nlawless.tech is an online magazine devoted to covering the ongoing regulatory attempts to oversee and control the newest technologies\n\nJoin our [Telegram channel](http://t.me/lawlesstech), follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawless__tech) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/) to explore how regulations will impact the latest technological advances.",
      "json_metadata": "{\"tags\":[\"legal\",\"technology\",\"tech\"],\"image\":[\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWfUhtZwiMZjbGZHmBAASnLbHVqXxmLJW9DBbth7BKY5W/knight_rider.png\"],\"links\":[\"https://lawless.tech/is-autonomous-car-data-subject-to-copyright/\",\"http://t.me/lawlesstech\",\"https://twitter.com/lawless__tech\",\"https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/\"],\"app\":\"steemit/0.1\",\"format\":\"markdown\"}"
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      "parent_permlink": "legal",
      "author": "lawless.tech",
      "permlink": "ico-regulation-a-competitive-advantage",
      "title": "ICO Regulation: a Competitive Advantage?",
      "body": "![Безымянный-1-Восстановлен-01-3.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaeJ334kxaoJVefe51M66ZCs9L5XcozRa21HthkhGzEua/%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BC%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-1-%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD-01-3.png)\n\nThis article was previously published on heconomist.ch in French. Some minor changes have been made by the author.\n\nThe Chamber of Digital Commerce, the world’s largest professional association representing the blockchain industry, recently published a 108-pages document that analyses the regulation of ‘Initial Coin Offerings’ in 5 leading common law countries. Meanwhile, the blockchain/ICO working group of the Swiss Government invited stakeholders in Switzerland to participate in a consultation procedure on this very subject. While waiting for the final report of this working group, it is a good opportunity to share some thoughts on the subject of regulations.\n\nDefined very broadly, an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is a fundraising method during which organizers issue digital assets (‘tokens’) in exchange of other digital assets and/or fiat currencies. However, there is no unanimity among regulators and experts on definitions, typologies and standard characteristics of such digital assets, nor of the fundraising method itself. It is however a phenomenon which has attracted a lot of interest since mid-2017.\n\nSwitzerland, where the ‘Crypto Valley’ (the city of Zug) is located, hosted just under 10% of all ICO projects in 2017, ranking the country fourth in the world, after the United States (first), the United Kingdom (second) and the Russian Federation (third). Nevertheless, this ranking was based on the gross number of projects. In fact, Switzerland was the world leader in terms of funds raised with just over 25% of the total of $6,213,002,958.\n\nToday, one might ask whether this small nation is still the world leader despite the steps set by FINMA (the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority), mainly following the Guidelines of the latter published on 16 February 2018.\n\nAccording to this year’s figures, Switzerland hosted only 7% of projects and is now ranked third in terms of funds raised. The so-called ‘Crypto-nation’ seems to have lost some of its attractiveness for fundraisers; however, it remains in the top 3! What are the reasons for this? What makes a country attractive to potential ICO organizers?\n\nThe reputation within the finance and the business world as well as the degree of political stability, the infrastructure in place and the ecosystem of already existing actors, are very important elements to take into account when opting for the ICO ‘drop’ location. Up to date, Switzerland remains a prestigious financial center and is considered a strong global ‘brand’. As for the infrastructure and the ecosystem, the cantons of Zug and Geneva are uncontested pioneers in the world of blockchain. Despite the direct democracy system in place, ’emotional’ populist initiatives often fail and have relatively little impact on the country’s policy on financial matters. These reasons might shed a light on why Switzerland remains one of the most popular countries for ICOs.\n\nAnother dominant element is, however, related to the legal framework. Often, ICO organizers will, above all, worry about the cumbersomeness of regulations. Some will prefer total freedom, others being ‘regulated’. Regulators will thus have to make a choice: they cannot satisfy everyone, so they try to find the right balance and juggle with the political agendas of their respective countries and the opportunity for a possible competitive advantage within the ICO industry.\n\nWhile some countries have taken the opportunity to ‘market’ themselves as ‘crypto-havens’, the People’s Bank of China, for example, has decided to ban ICOs by declaring that token sales are “illegal and disrupt economic and financial stability”. Other states – including Switzerland – have adopted a moderate approach trying to promote an innovation-friendly environment while keeping in mind considerations of investor protection, the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism, and the redistribution of wealth (taxes).\n\nOne might wonder whether this regulatory trend has a negative impact on the blockchain industry, or not? As raised before, there are two types of fundraisers: those who prefer total freedom and those who prefer to be regulated. Nevertheless, uncertainty is rarely an ally for businesses. Therefore, a sincere ICO organizer with professional manners and trustworthy work ethics should and would prefer to operate in a regulated environment rather than being engaged in ‘misty’ structures (which often include ‘off-shore’ activities). In addition, the general track record of the ICO market is not brilliant: many investors have lost funds due to fraudulent projects in the past. As a result, settling in a regulated ecosphere will necessarily reassure today’s investors. Moderate regulation, which effectively meets the needs of stakeholders, is therefore a significant long-term competitive advantage for a State.\n\nToday, Switzerland offers this regulated environment… Yet an ICO can be dropped without having recourse to ‘offshore’ structures (e.g., regarding ‘cash-out’ and bank accounts). It is therefore not surprising that the volume of ICO financing in Switzerland is still high despite the relatively low gross number of projects in the country. Many projects hosted here are serious and professional. By using the blockchain technology, they generally offer real added value and bring innovation in their respective fields. They thus attract large investors.\n\nDisclaimer: Statistics on the number of ICO projects organized and funds raised are approximate and may differ from one source to another. They are used to illustrate the general idea of this article.\n\nThis article does not claim to be exhaustive. It does not constitute legal or business/strategic advice. Given the fast-changing nature of the discussed matter, the author refuses all liability.\n\nThe text is published as is, does not include any amendments, represents the author’s point of view, which does not necessarily coincide with that of the lawless.tech editorial board.\n\n--------------- \n\nThis post originally appeared at https://lawless.tech/ico-regulation-a-competitive-advantage/\n\nlawless.tech is an online magazine devoted to covering the ongoing regulatory attempts to oversee and control the newest technologies\n\nJoin our [Telegram channel](http://t.me/lawlesstech), follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawless__tech) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/) to explore how regulations will impact the latest technological advances.",
      "json_metadata": "{\"tags\":[\"legal\",\"technology\",\"tech\"],\"image\":[\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaeJ334kxaoJVefe51M66ZCs9L5XcozRa21HthkhGzEua/%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BC%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-1-%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD-01-3.png\"],\"links\":[\"https://lawless.tech/ico-regulation-a-competitive-advantage/\",\"http://t.me/lawlesstech\",\"https://twitter.com/lawless__tech\",\"https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/\"],\"app\":\"steemit/0.1\",\"format\":\"markdown\"}"
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      "author": "lawless.tech",
      "permlink": "world-wide-web-as-a-heavensent-struggles-and-challenges-of-global-internet-access",
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  "trx_id": "e4bfefff75cfbd86e135ddd48500214ab429ceb6",
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    {
      "parent_author": "",
      "parent_permlink": "space",
      "author": "lawless.tech",
      "permlink": "world-wide-web-as-a-heavensent-struggles-and-challenges-of-global-internet-access",
      "title": "World Wide Web as a Heavensent: Struggles and Challenges of Global Internet Access",
      "body": "![спутник2-01 (1).png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTvtgQSqbdyKvuGT81TJePk3eHjHckzem7EJLJs5TJt5U/%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA2-01%20(1).png)\n\nThe dream of having internet access wherever you go, be it the heart of Sahara desert, an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific, or even the South Pole is still a dream. But groups of very ambitious and equally rich people have been trying to make it a reality for decades now. Basically, all it takes is launching enough satellites into orbit and make sure every corner of the Earth is covered by their signals.\n\nWill these efforts eventually succeed? Will the world change as a result? What actually prevents global internet access from becoming a reality today? The very concept faces numerous difficulties. In this feature, we’ll take a look at everything there is to know about global internet access: where the idea came from, how it works, how it can be implemented, and what stands in its way.\n\n**What Global Internet Is and How It Began**\n\nIn 1994, Teledesic, a company backed by Bill Gates himself, proposed a $9 billion solution to the problem of global internet. In collaboration with Boeing, the company planned to send a constellation of 840 active satellites into 700 km orbit. Teledesic’s Daniel Kohn wrote an essay for the Internet Society, where he described network of satellites at low-Earth-orbit transmitting at 26.5–40 GHz.\n\nIn Kohn’s vision in any part of the world the network would provide internet speeds comparable to fiber-optic cables. Yet, he misjudged the applicability of said fiber-optics.\n\n> “While there is a lot of fiber out there in the world—and the number of places is growing—it is used primarily to connect countries and telephone company central offices. Even in a country like the United States, little of that fiber will be extended for local access to individual offices and homes, which represents 80 percent of the cost of a network. In most of the world, fiber deployment likely never will happen,” the essay reads.\n\nToday, most of us enjoy fiber-optic internet connections, much more than Daniel Kohn forecasted. Moreover, the conventional cable access is now fast enough to put satellite internet to shame. But keep in mind, that it works only for populated areas — large cities and well-developed countries — while certain parts of the world remain disconnected.\n\nBy 2002, in total disregard for a substantial financial support and thoroughly worked-out plans, Teledesic abandoned their ambitious goals.\n\nHowever, the idea didn’t die along with them. In 2011, Google started developing its Project Loon which aimed to provide global internet access via air balloons floating at the height of up to 25 km. Eventually, the company scrapped the idea of a “global” network and decided to utilize the devices only in particular regions where the need for internet access was the most urgent.\n\n**Global Internet Is Affordable Satellite Internet**\n\nOf course, the idea of using outer space to gain access to the internet isn’t new as satellite internet has existed for years, even though it’s not as widespread as good old fiber-optic lines. \n\nSimply put, one needs a satellite dish pointing at a satellite on a geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above the equator. When you click on a link, the request travels to a satellite that relays it to a Network Operations Center back on Earth that is connected to the actual internet via conventional means, such as fiber-optics. So, the NOC sends your request to the internet, gets the response and sends it back to a satellite that sends it back to you.\n\nIn general, there is not much of difference for a user between satellite and landline connections: you can still get your memes and news, and use the same services. But there are certain technical limitations.\n\nFirst of all, in order to communicate with a satellite up in the sky you have to have what’s called a clear line of sight. In layman’s terms, it means that an obstacle, like a landscape feature, a building, or even a tree, can interfere with the signal, so you have to make sure there’s nothing of that kind anywhere between the satellite and yourself. Moreover, local weather, such as clouds or storms, will affect the quality of your connection as well.\n\nAnother problem is the latency. Latency, also known as “ping time,” is the time required for a signal to travel to the satellite, then to the NOC, then back to the satellite, and finally back to your device. Presuming that you are at the equator and the satellite in question is positioned at the geostationary orbit right above your head, the signal will travel 22,300 miles up, then 22,300 miles back to the NOC, then 22,300 miles up to a satellite, and 22,300 miles back to you. This is 89,200 miles to travel. As the signal spreads at the speed of light — 186,000 miles per second — the entire journey will take about 500 milliseconds, or half a second, which you will definitely notice the next time you try to chat with someone on Skype.\n\nSuch a delay can be neglectable for simple web-surfing and even downloads, but for things such as VPN, VoIP communication mentioned above, or real-time online gaming, it is crucial.\n\nFinally, the amount of data a satellite can transmit at once is limited, so the more the number of devices trying to communicate with the satellite in question, the lower the internet speed gets for everyone.\n\nСonsidering those downsides, modern satellite internet offers a considerably inferior experience compared to what most of us got used to have. But there are initiatives aiming to make it just as good and just as affordable as a simple landline.\n\n**Key Players Aiming to Build the Global Internet**\n\nBy now, there are at least two major initiatives tackling the affordable global internet challenge: Greg Wyler’s OneWeb and Elon Musk’s Starlink.\n\nOneWeb’s initial idea is to place a network of 648 satellites in low-Earth orbit at the 750 miles altitude. As the satellites will be much closer than those at 22,300 mile-high geostationary orbit, the latency is going to be much lower and closer to 20 milliseconds, comparable to conventional landline connection. \n\nThe system is also expected to be easy to use. While a regular satellite dish connected to TV has to be aimed precisely at the satellite to get good reception, OneWeb’s device simply needs to be placed on a roof proper side up. Meanwhile, a large number of satellites in orbit will provide reliable connection without the need to aim at one particular spot in the sky. Also, OneWeb will act as a backup link to the internet in case land-based connections in a certain region go out of order.\n\nAccording to OneWeb CEO Greg Wyler, the deployment of the system will see 7 terabit throughput at stage one, 120 terabit at stage two, and 1000 terabit at stage three.\n\nHowever, there are concerns about the costs of building such a system, as they may exceed all reasonable expectations. OneWeb President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Béranger told SpaceNews that a single satellite is expected to cost “below $1 million,” which is arguably heart-warming, yet quite vague.\n\nOneWeb’s major competitor is Starlink, a project led by Tony Stark following the Green Goblin path, the great and terrible Elon Musk. Starlink has a substantial edge over OneWeb, since it has access to SpaceX’s own rockets and a plethora of cost-cutting technologies.\n\nIn many aspects Starlink’s plan is similar to that of OneWeb, but its total cost is known and is in fact somewhere around $10 billion. One of those billions has already been raised thanks to Google and Elon’s friends. Mr. Musk has already established a satellite lab in Seattle and is serious about making first prototypes and eventually hitting a mark of a total 4,000 units.\n\nEarlier, the company stated that all the satellites will be placed in orbit at the altitude of about 715 miles, and each unit will weigh less than 400 kg. However, after SpaceX filed an application to the FCC, it became known that most of the satellites will be orbiting about 200 miles above the Earth. The units in lower orbit will provide better connection to the most populated areas, while those at higher orbit will cover wider areas. The expected latency is around 25 to 35 milliseconds, and the connection speed will be up to 1 gigabit per second.\n\nIn February 2018, the project launched its first two test units named Tintin A and Tintin B to prove the concept viable, but these two satellites won’t necessarily become a part of the actual network. Recently Starlink got an FCC approval, which legally allows them to offer their services “in the U.S. and worldwide.” However, it will matter only when there are at least some services to offer.\n\n**Should We Expect a War of Bills?**\n\nEven if any (or all) of those plans ever come to fruition, the biggest challenge a global internet access might face is likely to be about regulations, not about the technological problems.\n\nThe very technological complexity and expensiveness of an effort to deploy a network of satellites around Earth means that, should it succeed, the entire market will either be monopolized, or split between a handful of enormously rich corporations.\n\nOn the other hand, the availability of internet access in any place on the planet would become a direct threat to ISPs and, most importantly, mobile carriers. After all, why would you bother to buy a SIM card and pay for your calls if you can just use some messenger app for the same purposes but at significantly lower price? The same goes for your home internet access: who would bother buying internet from a local provider if there’s internet everywhere, and some say it’s even free?\n\nOf course, mobile carriers and ISPs understand that very well. And it doesn’t look very likely that they would just sit there doing nothing and watching space satellites drive them out of the market. There are several possible scenarios here.\n\nFirst of all, they all can join efforts and try to lobby a bill that completely bans heaven-sent internet under some pretence. Considering the amount of money at stake, chances are we might even see some international consortium of big communications businesses waging legislative war against satellites and free global internet access. Alternatively, mobile carriers may skip the close-the-ranks part and start lobbying for lots of individual bills that put certain restrictions on global internet.\n\nBut of course, those guys who want the internet to become universally accessible are also seasoned entrepreneurs, and probably find the mobile carriers’ lack of faith disturbing. They are well aware of the possible legal resistance they may face in case the space internet access plans stop looking like a pipedream and start looking like something inevitable.\n\nAs a result, the fate of global internet access would be in the hands of two or more gangs of lobbyists waging war on each other, so it all comes down to the battle of wallets. Those who have more money are likely to succeed in the end, unless they manage to find some middle ground where everyone is equally happy (or equally unhappy).\n\nThe real problem here is that the parties would pursue their own corporate and commercial interests, so the objective needs of their potential and existing customers would go on the back burner.\n\nThere is also the second level of concerns: politics. Countries like Russia don’t really care about keeping up their reputation of fun places and have already announced the plans to develop devices that would jam the global internet access signal on their territory, should it ever be deployed. The reason for that is arguably obvious: global internet access cannot be controlled by a government entity, and it has no options of blocking websites or otherwise messing with online content and users.\n\nAs for China, another incredibly happy place, Elon Musk believes it would be easier never to try to deploy space internet access there in the first place.\n\n> “If they get upset with us, they can blow our satellites up, which wouldn’t be good. China can do that. So probably we shouldn’t broadcast there,” he said.\n\nBut again, instead of shooting satellites out of the sky, China could use its international influence to push through an international regulation that imposes restrictions on global internet access. And countries like Russia, North Korea or other people who don’t like the notion of uncontrollable media could join their efforts.\n\nWhichever course the events would take, the appearance of certain regulations for international internet access is inevitable. Even politics and business feuds aside, there are many things that require proper international standardization, like security or broadcasting parameters. Putting certain regulations in place seems like the only way to attain such goals.\n\nFinally, there is the question of privacy. Even today, when down-to-earth internet is quite standardized and the market is relatively stable and calm, abuse of user privacy hits the headlines every now and then, mostly thanks to enormous corporations like Google or Facebook. Ironically, those are the same people who want to launch those giant space WiFi routers to the orbit.\n\nIn this regard, there are two basic opinions, and you probably guessed them. Some say that there’s no need to worry about privacy once global internet access is launched.\n\n“Most security issues are concerned with the ability of hackers to break into your business system and retrieve data. While many companies today employ tools to protect their file servers and emails, it’s still important that your ISP is secure as well. With a satellite connection beaming up to some random and unknown spot in the sky from your office it’s quite difficult to imagine some hacker being able to intercept this laser beam,” says Yoav Vilner, co-founder at Ranky, a marketing agency for space-bound companies.\n\nStill, the researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum have a different opinion about satellite internet:\n\n“A huge amount of information is sent unsecured via satellite broadcast data channels. By applying straightforward data analysis it is possible for any attacker equipped with a digital satellite dish and a DVB card PC to derive extensive confidential information on single users as well as to hijack the user’s web identities (e.g., online auction accounts). Many users do not seem to know or to care that broadcasted data can be easily intercepted; moreover even commercial users let high confidential customer related data (e.g. tender calculation details, negotiations with military customers) be sent unsecured via broadcast channels.”\n\nThis problem has several possible solutions. Starlink, for instance, is expected to be totally IP-less, and instead, according to Elon Musk, will use something “simpler than IPv6 and have tiny packet overhead.” However, on a grander scale, this again would require some proper standardization.\n\nFinally, if some company manages to prevail over their competitors, completely suppress the resistance from mobile carriers and landline ISPs, and launch all satellites as planned, this would put it in a monopolist position, and therefore will enable it to dictate whatever conditions it finds appropriate or even fun. In order to prevent that from happening, we would probably need a new kind of anti-monopoly legislation that takes all those novel matters into account, and treats data and access as a fundamental resource.\n\n**Conclusion**\n\nEven though the idea of space internet has gone through several failed attempts, it just seems too good to be thrown away. However, new solutions pose new challenges that span from technological difficulties to international politics and economy.\n\nStill, if the network of satellites around the Earth is deployed, it could become the first step towards establishing reliable internet access in space, which could come in handy when the humankind starts colonizing other celestial bodies, most obviously the Moon and Mars. This, however, is not on the table yet, unlike internet access available in any terrestrial location.\n\nThis would irreversibly turn the internet access into one of most fundamental utilities, like water supply or electricity. And, most notably, will make it the first of such utilities to be truly available in any location, provided political ambitions and business interests don’t throw the idea under wraps forever.\n\n--------------- \n\nThis post originally appeared at https://lawless.tech/world-wide-web-as-a-heavensent-struggles-and-challenges-of-global-internet-access/\n\nlawless.tech is an online magazine devoted to covering the ongoing regulatory attempts to oversee and control the newest technologies\n\nJoin our [Telegram channel](http://t.me/lawlesstech), follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawless__tech) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/) to explore how regulations will impact the latest technological advances.",
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      "body": "The dream of having internet access wherever you go, be it the heart of Sahara desert, an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific, or even the South Pole is still a dream. But groups of very ambitious and equally rich people have been trying to make it a reality for decades now. Basically, all it takes is launching enough satellites into orbit and make sure every corner of the Earth is covered by their signals.\n\nWill these efforts eventually succeed? Will the world change as a result? What actually prevents global internet access from becoming a reality today? The very concept faces numerous difficulties. In this feature, we’ll take a look at everything there is to know about global internet access: where the idea came from, how it works, how it can be implemented, and what stands in its way.",
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      "title": "Commercial Space and Its Role in the World Today: an Expert View",
      "body": "![sdacz-01 (1).png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZvbrQV8UL88X1taa7ZNNaXm25DmfLnipzBwCC9UMfetE/sdacz-01%20(1).png)\n\nRussian cosmist philosophers of the 19th century believed not only that humankind’s future lay in the stars; they said that we were destined to reach beyond our planet like a child eventually leaves the cradle. What looked like a pipedream in the coal and steam world, led to the launch of the first human being into space back in 1961. Since then, lots of things have happened: a space race; collapse of the bipolar world that ended it; and the emergence of commercial space flights that defied the space monopoly governments used to have.\n\nStill, commercial space exploration is yet nascent. Its promise is huge, yet it has lots of unresolved problems. What should the commercialization of space be like? How should spacebound companies compete, given that outer space is like the high seas, at least in legal sense? How should it be regulated, considering that space law was devised as a gamebook for two superpowers, not privately-run companies? What about the increasing space militarization that worried the U.S. government to the extent of creating a separate branch of the military to handle it? \n\nEarlier, we’ve learned about a space company called Axiom Space developing the first commercial space station that will be launched into low-Earth orbit over the next decade, and made an article about it. Considering the expertise of those people, we decided to address our questions to Amir Blachman, Vice President for Strategic Development at Axiom Space.  \n\n**How Outer Space Becomes a Commercial Domain**\n\nThe reason for commercialization of space can’t be narrowed down to mere reduction of spaceflight costs. While it has indeed seen some decline in cost, it still remains high enough to drive away most of those who would have engaged in it under different financial circumstances. Thus, according to a study by NASA Ames Research Center’s Harry W. Jones, the cost of launching objects to low-earth orbit dropped from $1 million per kilogram to $1,400 per kilogram over the years of human presence in space.\n\nThe real reason behind this emerging trend possibly lies in the realization that the needs of humankind in space cannot be catered to solely by government-backed programs and organizations that pursue their own agendas that do not necessarily coincide with popular or commercial needs of other parties.\n\nSpeaking about how Axiom Space came to be, Amir Blachman recalls:\n\n> “At the time there was an ongoing discussion about the retirement of the International Space Station, so it became quite clear to [Axiom founders] that the next natural evolution is a commercial space station and they knew that with their human space-tech management experience and their ISS management experience they were uniquely capable of building a commercial space station. And so that was the origin of the business.”\n\nBack in the 19th century, the U.S. government decided to abandon any attempts to regulate the emerging railroads market, which arguably resulted in a thriving industry. However, when the government decided to get back in the game in early 20th century, the industry started suffering from excessive regulations and eventually shrank. While this story might be a great parable for the fans of extreme economic liberalism, it also may serve as a plausible example of natural evolution of major technological endeavors in terms of their private status and their interaction with the government.\n\nMr. Blachman believes that commercialization of space isn’t only natural for the industry, it’s actually something that would benefit national governments as well.\n\n> “Today one of the reasons that government pushes for research to happen on the ISS is to demonstrate the necessary utilization of such an expensive asset and to give justification to its continuous existence. The demand side of space is growing and it’s going to significantly outpace any attrition that would come from government not having to prove out that need, that justification for the government-owned platform. I’m very confident that we’ll see an increasing demand, not a decreasing demand, as the station services are commercialized,” he notes.\n\nHowever, regardless of the actual practical use for commercial spaceflight, it has to draw funds in order to evolve and become successful and sustainable. Most importantly, though, Mr. Blachman suggests that profiting from commercial use of space does not necessarily mean that the scientific value of such work would be driven to the background. On the contrary, he argues, profits and scientific advancement might be a perfect pair.\n\n> “There are six revenue sources: the first is national astronauts, or astronauts sent up by their country’s space agency; the second is private astronauts, so they are individuals who pay for their own way to space or people who are sponsored by companies; the third revenue stream is research; the fourth revenue stream is manufacturing; the fifth revenue stream is deep space exploration systems demonstration. The sixth revenue stream is advertising and outreach,” Mr. Blachman says.\n\nOf course, having national governments pay for launching their astronauts to the low-earth orbit is a great stream of revenue, considering not every country willing to do so has technical opportunities like their own launch areas. Space tourism also has great promise, especially considering the serious cheapening of launches over time mentioned above. Yet, what is not obvious is the scientific and commercial value behind demonstrating deep space exploration systems. If a company, say, SpaceX, wishes to launch a crewed vessel to Mars, they need to be sure that life support or guidance navigation systems would work properly. However, such systems cannot be thoroughly tested down on Earth thanks to its inherent physical properties like gravitation. In space, where only microgravity is present, substances tend to behave differently: as such, life support systems consist of multi-phase systems in three different states (solid, liquid, gas). Testing systems in microgravity has both commercial and scientific value as it, on one hand, helps SpaceX ensure their systems work as intended and are unlikely to fail during a long journey to another planet, while also driving forward the technological perfection of such systems.\n\nAs for advertising in conjunction with commercial space use, Mr. Blachman believes there’s great room for profit-making as well, as exemplified by Axiom Space’s business intentions.\n\nAdvertising splits up in a few areas, Mr. Blachman believes. According to him, one is those areas is people that are doing work on station. For example, if somebody is pulling fiber optics or manufacturing alloys on station and the company sponsoring that wants to advertise themselves, they can do that as part of their work on station. Another is branding partnerships, such as Axiom’s partnership with Philippe Starck for design of components of the interior of the Axiom Station’s crew quarters, and also branding partnerships for any other number of reasons, whether it’s for food, electronics, or materials, those are all natural branding partnerships.\n\n> “And lastly, and quite important, on the outreach front is education. This dovetails with the national astronaut work and private astronaut work. One of the most important effects of human spaceflight is the inspiration of the next generation of engineers, scientists, artists, and mathematicians. We want to make sure that the activity on ISS, and later on Axiom Station, is broadly advertised to youth, to people who are in elementary school, in high school, or college, to promote a more technically qualified workforce around the world,” Mr. Blachman elaborates.\n\nStill, it seems that successful commercialization of space would prompt different companies to work together in order to achieve the desired result.\n\n> “Rocket manufacturing, for example, is the railroad, and without it we can’t get to space. What we’re building is the real estate in space. So what’s more important: the railroad or the real estate when you get there? Well, you can’t have one without the other,” Mr. Blachman explains.\n\nWhile launching vessels into space has proved to be a large-scale and profitable business, there are other promising areas of commercial space use that may bring their operators literally astronomical profits, like space mining. It’s been discussed for a while, and its potential implications for the Earth’s economy can be game-changing, considering the amounts of precious metals and other valuable substances found on asteroids. For now, the only real problem is to actually get to the asteroids, excavate the desired matter, and somehow dispose of it.\n\n> “Space mining is going to serve two purposes: one is space mining for resources that are to be used for applications back on Earth, and the other is space mining for materials that will be utilized in space,” Mr. Blachman says.\n\n“For example, precious metals or industrial metals can be mined in space and brought back for use on Earth, but there are also resources in space such as hydrogen, oxygen, and certain metals that can be used for fuel, life support, and for the construction of structures in space. The capability does not exist yet, but companies are investing in developing it. It is far more cost-effective to test these capabilities in Low Earth Orbit than further out, and this is another factor driving demand for a testing platform in LEO.”\n\nWhile cooperation seems to be paramount for successful space exploration, commercialization of space, just like any other profitable ventures, inevitably brings up the question of competition.\n\n**Commercial Competition in Space**\n\nOliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said that competition is worth more to society than it costs. Until recently, the only major competition in terms of space was the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States, which, while having political issues on top of those economical, still proved the old Supreme Court Justice right by bringing human beings into space (USSR) and then landing them on the Moon (USA), so far the only extraterrestrial object where our species has ever set foot.\n\nYet, after that, the space race focused more on satellites and robotics as further exploration of our closest cosmic vicinity proved economically challenging even for the world’s two superpowers. That is not the case for private companies, though, who don’t have any political agendas on their minds, and are mostly focused on making profits along with achieving scientific advancement. Still, for decades after we landed on the Moon, launching people to space remained in the purview of governments.\n\nThat is not the case today, when private companies like SpaceX have delivered a reliable and relatively cheap technology capable of carrying out space launches for much less money than aging Russian rockets, obsolete shuttles, or the Antares–Cygnus complex.\n\nStill, even though space-related operations might be cheaper than before, it’s still too expensive for smaller companies to make it to this emerging market, so it’s quite likely that they will be controlled by a handful of major companies, or even corporations. This, in turn, brings up the question of fair competition and other anti-monopoly measures that would seek to thwart any attempts by a company to single-handedly control the entire space market.\n\n> “I think antitrust legislation should and will be applied to the space business just as it is applied to any other business — with the same tests of competitive access. Advancement would be better served by focusing on how to nurture demand rather than on fretting over antitrust,” Mr. Blachman believes.\n\nStill, antitrust legislation isn’t by far the only legislation that private space exploration would need.\n\n**Regulating Commercial Space**\n\nRight now, the rules for space behavior are generalized, as they were created at a time when private companies had limited involvement in outer space, but two superpowers were. The Outer Space Treaty, the Moon Agreement, or the Liability Convention are still in effect, but there’s a chance some of them would be revised, or some new international agreements would replace them over time. However, there’s also a possibility that future detailed guidelines for private operations in space won’t supersede those agreements thanks to the inherent conservatism of jurisprudence, but would actually supplement them in such a way as to bring the legal framework in line with the actual needs of the world.\n\n> “Space law will continue to develop, but the basic regulation about the use of space and the intention of the use of space is already there,” says Mr. Blachman. “There is really quite a well-defined framework for the use of space already, now law needs to evolve around the application of the existing treaties’ tenets.”\n\nHowever, just like with any major endeavor, it’s the cooperation between entities and the government that would play the crucial role in moving the progress forward.\n\n> “For example, at Axiom Space we want to have sufficient overlap between the ISS final years and the first years of our commercial station. For that to happen and for other reasons that support commercialization such as maintaining the momentum of commercial use of LEO, it’s important that NASA and its partner agencies move quickly to enable the progress of ISS’s commercial successor. And that means working with us and the other commercial entities to plan for the transition, to provide resources, such as a port connection to the ISS. Those are the things government and its agencies need to move on quickly,” notes Mr. Blachman.\n\nSo, as it seems, regulation and agency commitment might drive businesses forward, but it would take businesses to drive forward the regulation. Fortunately, as it seems, this process is already underway.\n\n**Militarization of Outer Space**\n\nAnother important issue related to the future fates of outer space is its militarization. While the military use of celestial bodies is forbidden by numerous international treaties, they don’t mention a thing about space itself. As most of those treaties have been created back in the pinnacle days of the Cold War, they were drawn along the compromise lines found between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. However, as the Soviet Union is no longer in existence, and governments no longer have a space monopoly, which, though unofficially, they certainly had back in the day, the issue of space militarization also concerns commercial companies who wish to have their objects and vehicles up there. If outer space is the new sea, the interaction between military and merchant vessels becomes important again, so the question of space militarization is never off the table, even when we speak in terms of peaceful commercial exploration.\n\nThus, the recent announcement about the Space Force made by the Trump administration has caused a noticeable turmoil in the media. However, while fantasies go well beyond realistic patterns and draw a picture where the space force bears uncanny resemblance to the imperial stormtroopers from Star Wars, the reality might be very different from that.\n\n> “This is just the repackaging of work that’s already going on. I don’t think we’ll see much additional or different activity in space because of the reorganization. What we’re more likely to see is changes in decision making hierarchies, and in technology and service procurement processes. Military side procurement now happens by a combination of the Air Force, intelligence community and other organizations, it’s now going to be somewhat more centralized. Even that is still going to be quite intertwined with other military branches. It’s kind of inextricable. You can’t have a tactical intelligence system or a strategic planning system making acquisitions without deep input from the branches that end up using it. So, I don’t think we’ll see a huge difference in the actual activity going on in space because of this. I think what you’ll see is changes to structure in the decision-making on Earth,” says Mr. Blachman.\n\nHowever, while this doesn’t seem to be such a big deal, at least hardly a Death Star-level one, perception-wise, it might be something completely different.\n\n> “The psychological problem with the announcement of a Space Force is that it accelerates the competition between nations for the militarization of space. Hopefully, countries outside the US will understand that this is more of an administrative reorganization than a call for battleships in orbit. But it’s almost impossible to make an announcement stating that we’re going to set up a new branch of the military and not through that incentivize other countries to accelerate their militarization of space,” Mr. Blachman elaborates.\n\nThis issue obviously goes well beyond just space law questions and delves straight into the realms of so-called post-truth era, where the quill is not only mightier than the sword, it might be mightier than the nuclear missile. The perceived effect might have greater importance than the actual one.\n\n> “The attempt here, essentially, is to maintain military superiority in space and to make more efficient procurement processes for everything associated with use of space. Whether or not those two elements will be accomplished by establishing the Space Force is yet to be determined,” Mr. Blachman concludes.\n\nThat said, it’s obvious that military and commercial use of space could go hand in hand, for good or ill. After all, underlying them are the same technologies, and their interaction in some sense is quite likely.\n\n> “The same technologies that are developed to refuel or service satellites can be used for grappling onto an enemy country’s satellite and disabling it. Now imagine that countries are developing this technology to service satellites but their commercial developers will not be permitted to use those because it is known that the technology can also be used for military purpose to knock out a satellite,” says Mr. Blachman.\n\nSo, as it usually happens, only time will tell which shape this cooperation might take, if any.\n\n**The Future of Commercial Space Exploitation**\n\nAs technology progresses and the price of launching mass to space gets increasingly lower, we are getting closer to the point where going to space won’t be the job of highly-trained and selected astronauts and the privilege of those rich enough to afford it as a leisure. Casual spaceflights or vacation on the moon are still far off, yet they sound less and less fantastic, at least according to Mr. Blachman.\n\n> “Private commercial spaceflight will start occurring on a regular basis in the beginning–middle of 2020. That’s a year and a half from now, so we’re not talking about 20–30 years out, it is around the corner. Depending on what you call ‘casual’. People going up every month, every two weeks, every day, that pace is going to pick up gradually, consistently over the next two decades, until living and working in space will be commonplace, and not just for professional astronauts,” he believes.\n\nThe biggest part of our progress towards space is obviously the technology. Technology is what pushed the first artificial objects and then the first humans into the orbit. Better engines, more efficient fuels, and lighter materials allowed humans to reach further. But the costs of such technological marvels as Saturn rockets or the Space Shuttle are astronomical (no pun intended). Mr. Blachman, as well as many other professionals engaged in this industry are counting very much on reusability as a way to cut costs and eliminate hiatus needed to manufacture and assemble new pieces of expendable spacecrafts.\n\n> “Today, SpaceX, for example, has its first stage reusable. That saves significant cost — and their capsule is reusable. Today, the middle part of the rocket, the second stage, is not reusable, but we’ll get to a point where either the second stage is reusable or get to a rocket that utilizes a single stage to orbit, where the entire rocket is reusable. Any of those things can bring the launch costs down by tens of millions of dollars,” he says. “That’s what’s going to drive a broader demand in the market, so when it costs $55 million for a private astronaut to get to space today, and you see that cost drop down even just to half, just to mid-20 millions, that’s already going to drive a much bigger market. But in 20-25 years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the costs to get to space drop down to the $1 million level per person, per seat, per mission. And after that, potentially even less.”\n\nEvidently, in order to get to that scenario it is important to polish our technology. It is also important have the incentive for both governmental and non-governmental operators to get higher, safer, and cheaper.\n\n> “What’s driving it is a combination of research towards deep space missions, it’s the colonization of the Moon and later colonization of Mars, it’s more and more robust work in low earth orbit, that’s  the nearest-term driver. You take all those together along with plans, like ULA’s Cislunar 1000 and some of these other programs that talk about many, many people in space simultaneously within two-three decades, that drive is having private astronauts, and commercial astronauts, and governmental astronauts going to space on a weekly basis within two and a half to three decades timeframe,“ Mr. Blachman notes.\n\nUltimately, we will eventually achieve everything we need to make space travel just a bit more cumbersome than travelling by an airplane. The way might be long, but some of us may even see it happening in their lifetimes. Nobody knows for sure how will it look like, but we all have our right to dream. And some of us have the actual experience required to make an educated guess.\n\n> “At that point point in time we’ll start seeing “casual space travel” be something that becomes a weekly occurrence. I think it will take time. If I was to lay it out on a timeline we’ll probably see batches of private astronauts going up every six months within a year and a half to two years from now. We’ll see people going up every two or three weeks within ten years from now. And we’ll probably see private astronauts going up on a daily basis within 25-30 years from now,” remarks Mr. Blachman.\n\nThis seems quite a pleasant prospect, yet, even according to the most optimistic predictions, there’s a long way to go.\n\n**Conclusion**\n\nUltimately, space will become much closer. It will be something akin to the seas and the sky we’ve managed to use to our benefit. Of course, there is still a lot to do before we get there, but the solid foundation is already in place. Private operators are already launching their rigs into orbit, the first space tourists have already visited low-Earth orbit and got back safely to share their experiences, and, after all, there are dozens of satellites out there already generating revenue for their owners while making our daily lives better. \n\nConceptually, humanity’s to-do list isn’t as overwhelming as it had been decades ago. We would need better tech, but cheaper reusable rockets already fly there and back again, while the ISS proves that we can sustain human life in the unearthly conditions of microgravity, harsh cosmic radiation, solar wind, and the freezing vacuum of space. Of course, we would need proper laws to regulate extraterrestrial business, but the ones we have for terrestrial activities, whether for taxation, antitrust control, or resource extraction, can be augmented and amended to properly function up there as well, while the fundamental space-related treaties are already in place. The same goes for the material incentives for businesses as the opportunities for commercial operations in orbit and beyond are already understood and in some cases even seized. \n\nThe only thing left in limbo is our own willingness to work together and keep our intentions peaceful while making humans a truly multiplanetary species.\n\n--------------- \n\nThis post originally appeared at https://lawless.tech/commercial-space-and-its-role-in-the-world-today-an-expert-view/\n\nlawless.tech is an online magazine devoted to covering the ongoing regulatory attempts to oversee and control the newest technologies\n\nJoin our [Telegram channel](http://t.me/lawlesstech), follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawless__tech) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/lawlesstech/) to explore how regulations will impact the latest technological advances.",
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