newtech.law - legal aspects of new technologies

Any new technology that gains universal application changes the existing world. The reconfiguration occurs imperceptibly but thoroughly. But in this new reality, how should the rule of law, values essential to the civil society and human rights be protected?

A new economic reality functioning in cyberspace has arisen before our very eyes. Human activity, both positive and negative, is moving to the virtual arena that functions above and beyond state borders. Consequently we must develop the skill to adapt familiar legal institutions to this new reality.

The interdisciplinary New Technologies practice has functioned at our law firm for several years. The lawyers on the team share a passion for examining technical issues and their influence on the possibility of effectively protecting the rights of citizens and the civil society—and a belief that lawyers must raise their awareness of new technologies.

The physical reality around us is transforming almost imperceptibly into augmented reality (AR). So far, most of us associate the latter mainly with the entertainment industry (such as, say, PokemonGo). Meanwhile, augmented reality may become ubiquitous and permanent – something that cannot be switched off by closing an application or removing AR glasses.

In the beginning, blockchain technology’s sole use was for Bitcoin. This first truly decentralised digital currency launched an accelerating stream of innovations. For several years now, it has been leading the way for alternative means of payment (the summary of our 2014 crypto-currencies report is available here), through to smart contracts and DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation – our report on this is available here), up to, perhaps, a revolution in how the internet operates.

Hardly have American and EU legislators enshrined the principle of net neutrality in law, when developments are already gaining strength and openly threatening its survival. The spread of the internet of things will give rise to new challenges to the neutrality principle. However, we should expect that this time the reaction of governments and parliaments will be different. This is because the internet of things makes it impossible to ensure equal treatment for each transfer of data. It is likely that there will be three speeds for data transfers over internet links. Data traffic from specialised services will be privileged, other services will enjoy neutral treatment, while transfers of data from the internet of things may be slowed.

The world of blockchain technology does not cease to surprise and fascinate. Over the last year, one of the most frequently discussed blockchain-associated concepts has been tokens.

I wrote about tokens for the first time in “Legal Aspects of Initial Coin Offerings and Token Crowdsales” in the report on blockchain, smart contracts and DAO of 2016.

Let’s take a closer look at tokens. We can consider them from three perspectives: technological, economic and legal.

One of the many uses of hash functions is the identification and verification of computer files.

Everyone has experienced having to frantically search for an important document that was saved “somewhere in the computer” but is needed immediately. In such situations, we usually resort to the search function built into the operating system; but in the end, we just have to browse through the files, one at a time, until we find (or not) the right one. But what if we need to find a file among hundreds of thousands of others?