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IP: 2000 THE YEAR OF THE LAWYER -- from Edupage
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 07:24:28 -0500
Edupage, 29 January 1998. 2000 -- THE YEAR OF THE LAWYER It looks like the Year 2000 problem is going to be good for at least one segment of society -- the legal profession. A presentation at a recent underwriter's conference sponsored by Lloyd's of London estimated that $1 trillion or more will be at stake in Y2K litigation. "Almost every reputable law firm has established some Year 2000 law practice," says one attorney, and computer companies that sell systems to local governments are among the first vulnerable targets, says another. (Investor's Business Daily 28 Jan 98) SLEUTH FINDS PLENTY OF PLAGIARISM ON THE NET Cancer researcher Marek Wronski used the National Library of Medicine's PubMed to find instances of 30 allegedly plagiarized medical papers ostensibly authored by a Polish chemical engineer. PubMed offers a push-button function labeled "find related articles," which uses statistical algorithms to identify root words in an article, and then searches for similar instances of the root words in other articles. Additional research by Wronski has unearthed 29 more suspect papers. The engineer, who claimed to have authored 125 articles in a 13-year career, now faces charges of plagiarism. (Science 23 Jan 98) INFORMATION REVOLUTION Canada will live and die by the information revolution, says a gloomy federal report that came to public light yesterday. The authors of "Growth, Human Development, Social Cohesion" say that Canada will solve long-standing economic and social problems if it manages a clean transition to the knowledge-based economy, but will come out divided if the transition falters. Their main fear is that a rise in societal inequality, stemming from the rise of computer, electronic, aerospace and other knowledge-based industries at the expense of technological illiterates, will prevent Canada from facing up to other challenges. The study paints a dark picture of Canada's present, and offers dim hope for the future. It predicts that knowledge-based industries will have a great impact on Canada's economic and social development, adding they could help reverse the trends that brought unemployment, debt, stagnating wages and a growing inability to afford a welfare system since the early 1970s. The authors of the report warn that the transition from a resource-based economy to a service economy will be painful. (Ottawa Citizen 29 Jan 98) CANADIAN EFFORTS TO ENSURE PRIVACY ON NET The Canadian government says it will introduce legislation this fall to protect the privacy of individuals who conduct business on the Internet. The law, which the government wants to have in place by 2000, will also apply to other forms of computer-based e-commerce and personal data transfer in sectors under federal jurisdiction, including the banking sector. The law will try to ensure that personal data collected by businesses for one purpose are not used for other purposes without the consent of the individual, and will prohibit managers of medical databases from notifying insurance companies that a person had down-loaded fact sheets about AIDS or other diseases. (Toronto Globe & Mail 27 Jan 98) Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl () educom edu) and Suzanne Douglas (douglas () educom edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017
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- IP: 2000 THE YEAR OF THE LAWYER -- from Edupage Dave Farber (Jan 30)