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Month: June 2008
5 Reasons Why Your Website Needs a Legal Checkup Now!
This month we welcome a guest contributor, Chip Cooper, a leading information technology, software, and Internet attorney with over 25+ years in practice. Chip operates http://digicontracts.com, a cost-effective, online contract drafting service for drafting website legal compliance contracts featuring “do-it-myself” and “do-it-for-me” options.
It’s extremely important for website businesses to stay on top of new legal risks, as well as new opportunities, as they develop. So, I highly recommend that you sign up for Chip’s FREE newsletter, Website Law Alert — I read it regularly (it’s a quick and easy read), and I wouldn’t recommend it if it weren’t the best I’ve seen. You’ll also get Chip’s FREE downloadable Special Report as a bonus. Click here to signup.
If you haven’t been following the legal developments on the Web in the last couple of years, you may not be aware of the significant upswing in litigation aimed at interactive and ecommerce websites — both large and small.
To help you stay on top of these developments, I’ve boiled down the 5 factors that are driving this wave of litigation.
5 Factors Driving The Litigation
No. 1: heightened concerns regarding privacy and data security.
You probably know what’s behind this — it’s everyone’s concern over identity theft. This overriding concern has government regulators hypersensitive regarding how you collect, use, share, store, and secure your customer data online.
No. 2: consumer (and consumer watchdog) concerns regarding online fraud and scams.
Online fraud and scams perpetuated on consumers is a growing problem. Consumers and their consumer watchdog organizations are on the lookout for perceived violators. State government regulators operating in the offices of state attorneys general are becoming very active with legal actions against out-of-state interactive and ecommerce businesses that sell into their states.
Example: Florida has recently created a new task force to deal with Internet-related fraud called the CyberFraud Task Force. The group is part of the Florida Attorney General’s Economic Crimes Division. The first case filed by the Task Force was against AzoogleAds US Inc., an online media buying company.
No. 3: the overly litigious society we live in.
Daily, we see examples of ridiculous suits brought for spite or possible financial windfall.
Here’s a good example — in 2007, Leroy Greer, a married man, sued 1-800-Flowers.com for $1 million for revealing that he was cheating on this wife. Greer bought flowers for his girlfriend through the 1-800-Flowers site. Greer stated that he was careful to review the site’s privacy policy, which indicated that customers could request that personal information not be shared with “third parties”. But 1-800-Flowers sent a receipt to his house, and his wife read it. She requested a copy of the receipt, and 1-800-Flowers faxed her a receipt that revealed that Greer had sent his girlfriend a dozen long-stemmed roses with a note that read: “Just wanted to say that I love you and you mean the world to me”. By Greer’s way of thinking, he wasn’t responsible for his troubles at all — 1-800-Flowers was. So, he sued.
No. 4: high visibility on the Web.
Think about it… your site is highly visible and accessible from anywhere in the world. It’s there for all to see! This means that government regulators, disgruntled customers, overzealous competitors, and content suppliers have easy access to your site… and with it, an open invitation to examine your site and content for legal violations.
No. 5: expansive legal interpretation regarding jurisdiction.
This is the least obvious to non-lawyers. Due to the worldwide reach of the Web… combined with expansive legal decisions extending the scope of jurisdiction, you are now subject to civil suits — even criminal prosecution — by out-of-state plaintiffs and government regulators.
Example: in a recent case, a U.S. District Court in New York ruled that a Missouri-based website operator, who sold 19 books to New York residents, was subject to personal jurisdiction in New York. This means that the case that was filed in New York by New York residents, will remain in New York, and that the Missouri-based website operator must travel to New York, hire New York attorneys, and defend the suit in the courts in New York.
What’s The Solution
Don’t ever forget this simple truth (and I’m speaking from over 25 years’ experience representing software, information technology, and Internet companies)… even if you win one of these suits, YOU LOSE. So, your overriding objective is to stay out of court.
The best way to begin protecting your website business is to get a legal check-up. Your basic protection begins with a well-drafted and coordinated package of website legal documents consisting of one or more of the following:
- Terms of Use;
- Privacy Policy;
- Customer Agreement (usually referred to as a subscription agreement, account agreement, terms of sale, or SaaS Agreement; and
- DMCA Registration Form.
You also need a way to stay on top of new legal developments as they arise. My FREE newsletter, Website Law Alert, is designed to provide this timely, “need to know” information to you. You can sign up at my digicontracts.com site.
Copyright 2008 Chip Cooper
This article is provided for educational and informative purposes only. This information does not constitute legal advice, and should not be construed as such.
Chip Cooper is a leading information technology, software, and Internet attorney who helps small ecommerce and interactive website businesses nationwide stay out of court with affordable website legal compliance. To sign up for Chip’s FREE newsletter, Website Law Alert, and his FREE Special Report, “12 Sure-Fire Ways Your Website Can Get You Sued”, visit Chip’s digicontracts.com site, and also learn about his “Do-It-Myself” and “Do-It-For-Me” service options.
NSIS Installer Maker and the HM NIS Edit IDE
The NullSoft Scriptable Installer System is a great open source package for building Windows installers. Recently I found an open source editor/IDE package that makes putting these things together a real snap!
First download the NSIS package and install. Then download and install HM NIS Edit and you should be all set.
Tethering a Treo 700w Under Kubuntu Linux 8.04
I have finally been able to get the USB modem feature with the Windows Mobile 5, Verizon Treo working under Linux.
Following is a detailed how to on getting it set up and running. In this case, I was doing it with an IBM ThinkPad T42 running Kubuntu 8.04.
This how to should help you figure out how to get other mobile devices to work as well.
- The first thing that you need to do is make sure that you have the latest version of Windows Mobile 5 on your Treo 700w/700wx. I won’t go through the details of that process as the docs on the Palm site cover it. This gives you the new Modem app on the phone that we’ll use once you get your linux box all setup.
- Install:
- synce-dccm (and all deps)
- synce-serial:
- When installing chose the following serial interface:
- /dev/ttyUSB0
- Use the default IP address for ppp to windows device:
- 192.168.131.102
- Use the default remote IP address for ppp for windows device:
- 192.168.131.201
- Edit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh:
- uncommented the following lines:
# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
domount usbfs "" /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb
- install latest version of wvdial
- Edit /etc/ppp/options:
- Comment out the following:
# lcp-echo-interval 30
# lcp-echo-failure 4
- Turn off other network interfaces (this didn’t seem neccessary once it was set up but was helpful for testing)
- Determine which driver/module you need to load (much of this information was gleaned from a howto on determining the correct module from scratch http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/linux_kernel/kernel_configuration/ch08s02.html):
- Make sure that you have the kernel source for your current kernal installed
- To figure out what version of the kernel you are runing type the following:
- cat /proc/version
- Figure out the specific vendor/product id for your device:
- Plug in device and run a lsusb command.
- You will get something similar to the following
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 045e:0301 Microsoft Corp.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
- Devices with an ID of 0000:0000 can be safely ignored as they are the USB host controllers for the usb bus. If you have a number of other USB devices attached you’ll need to detach each to isolate and figure out which one is your handheld. In the aforementioned example, I only have one USB device attached and entry is obvious. After the Bus and Device entries there is an ID entry that contains a string of numbers and letters separated by a colon. That is your vendor and product ID for your device respectively. You will need these when loading your module and will need that information to figure out which module you will need to load.
- Now that you know the vendor and product ID you will need to search through the linux driver files to find the driver that controls your device. To do so go to /usr/src/linux-source-YOUR.VERSION/drivers/
- In our case, our vendor ID is 045e so run the following command to find out which files contain that string:
find ./ -type f -exec fgrep -l 045E {} \;
- In my case, my driver source file had the "e" in upper case, and that took a bit of searching around to figure out. You may have to play around with the case of your search string to find the right source file.
- find output the following:
./usb/serial/ipaq.c
./usb/misc/emi62_fw_s.h
./usb/misc/emi62_fw_m.h
./video/matrox/matroxfb_maven.c
./atm/pca200e.data
- Since I know my device is a usb serial devide I started with the ipaq.c file.
- Open the file and do a search for your vendor ID. This brought me to the first of many entries with the MicroSoft vendor id:
{ USB_DEVICE(0x045E, 0x00CE) }, /* Microsoft USB Sync */
{ USB_DEVICE(0x045E, 0x0400) }, /* Windows Powered Pocket PC 2002 */
{ USB_DEVICE(0x045E, 0x0401) }, /* Windows Powered Pocket PC 2002 */
{ USB_DEVICE(0x045E, 0x0402) }, /* Windows Powered Pocket PC 2002 */
- What you would do then, is search for your product ID, in our case 0301 from our lsusb output. However, in this specific case, there doesn’t seem to be an entry for that model, but evidently the ipaq module contains support for another device that is similar enough that it works. So, technically, you would search for a line that contained the following (I have fabricated this for purposes of this tutorial):
{ USB_DEVICE(0x045E, 0x0301) },
- Drivers tell the kernel the devices that they support so that the kernel can bind the proper driver to the device. This is done with the struct usb_device_id variable that contains our device’s entry. The entries are a list of vendor/product IDs that are supported by the driver. So, if your vendor/product id is in the list, your device is supported by this driver, and you can conclude that you need to load the ipaq module.
- If that driver was not compiled in your distro of linux you will need to do a few extra steps. Basically:
- Find the USB vendor/product ID using lsusb.
- Search the kernel source tree for the vendor/product ID of the device. Both ids should be in a struct usb_device_id definition.
- Search the kernel Makefiles for the CONFIG_ rule that builds the driver: find -type f -name Makefile | xargs grep ipaq
- Search in the kernel config system for that configuration value and go to that location in the menu that it specifies to enable that driver to be built.
- Now that you know which module you need to load, load it in using modprobe specifying vendor/product:
modprobe ipaq vendor=0x045e product=0x0301
- Add the following to /etc/rc.local so that the module will be loaded on boot.
/sbin/modprobe ipaq vendor=0x045e product=0x0079
touch /var/lock/subsys/local
- Turn on the usb modem program on the phone.
- Plug in phone and check messages to make sure that the right driver is used when creating the device file for your handheld.
Jun 10 15:57:47 transient kernel: [ 7022.957111] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
Jun 10 15:57:47 transient kernel: [ 7023.142403] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jun 10 15:57:47 transient kernel: [ 7023.146207] ipaq 2-2:1.0: PocketPC PDA converter detected
Jun 10 15:57:47 transient kernel: [ 7023.149911] usb 2-2: PocketPC PDA converter now attached to ttyUSB0
- Assuming that you got the aforementioned (or something similar specific to your device) you are ready to configure the modem.
- run wvdialconf. If it runs properly you should get a confirmation message and a new file will be created in /etc/wvdial.conf.
- Now, try running wvdial and see what happens.
- In my case it connected but then lost the signal.
- I made the following tweeks to my wvdial.conf file. Simply add:
Stupid Mode = yes
- run wvdial and if successful you should get something like this:
–> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.60
–> Cannot get information for serial port.
–> Initializing modem.
–> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
–> Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
–> Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
–> Modem initialized.
–> Sending: ATDT#777
–> Waiting for carrier.
ATDT#777
CONNECT
–> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
–> Starting pppd at Tue Jun 10 16:05:33 2008
–> Pid of pppd: 30644
–> Using interface ppp0
–> pppd: ��[06][08]P�[06][08]��[06][08]
–> pppd: ��[06][08]P�[06][08]��[06][08]
–> pppd: ��[06][08]P�[06][08]��[06][08]
–> pppd: ��[06][08]P�[06][08]��[06][08]
–> pppd: ��[06][08]P�[06][08]��[06][08]
–> remote IP address 66.174.12.5
–> pppd: ��[06][08]P�[06][08]��[06][08]
–> primary DNS address 66.174.95.44
–> pppd: ��[06][08]P�[06][08]��[06][08]
–> secondary DNS address 69.78.96.14
–> pppd: ��[06][08]P�[06][08]��[06][08]
- Check ifconfig for a proper ppp0 entry and you are all set.
- To disconnect simply type Ctrl-C in that terminal in which you launched wvdial and it will disconnect your modem.