Standing Committee
on Legal Technology
October 2000 Vol. 8, No. 1
(Notice to librarians: The following issues were published in Volume 7 of this newsletter during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2000: November, No. 1; May, No. 2; June, No. 3.)
Statements or expressions of opinion or comments appearing herein are those of the editors or contributors, and not necessarily those of the association or committee.
Contents
* Using the undo feature to salvage documents in WORD™ and WORDPERFECT™
By Roger L. Rutherford
No one will argue with the fact that technology has changed our lives. History will probably record technology at the forefront of the significant accomplishments of the 20th century. As one who has just become a grandparent for the first time, I cannot help but think about the role that technology will play in the life of our five-month-old granddaughter and in the lives of future generations.
The legal field has been no exception. Think about life before Microsoft, the Internet, email and Palm Pilots--such things have invaded our lifestyles. Now, think about going back to working without being able to create and edit your own Word or WordPerfect files; without the benefit of an electronic calendar/docket, task and notes lists; without being able to email fellow workers and clients. Laptops, Palm Pilots and, therefore, files travel with you between office and home and appointments. Think about life without these tools. While there are days of frustration as well as days of great productivity, document creation and editing, file management and timekeeping have all been enhanced by the advent of technology.
We have many charges as the Committee On Legal Technology (COLT) of the ISBA. Our umbrella charge is to serve as a clearinghouse for the entire ISBA on issues relating to technology. Stated another way, our mission is to support the ISBA membership regarding the implementation and use of technology within the legal community from the law office to the courthouse.
We are doing several things to carry out this charge. First, we are sponsoring a series of seminars in Chicago and Springfield called "Boot Camps" for attorneys that will provide lawyers with basic understanding of how computers work, what systems and programs to use and how to use them to make your practice more efficient, profitable and, most importantly, enjoyable. Stay tuned to the ISBA and COLT for information about the exact locations of these seminars.
In addition, we recently published the Lawyers Guide to Using Computers. This will serve as a resource book for the beginner and the expert alike and is available from the ISBA for $25. We have started a "Geek Column" for our members relating to technology issues where you can ask questions and receive answers on issues relating to technology. Adrienne Albrecht has volunteered to serve as our lead person for addressing such issues.
COLT will continue to provide useful information on technology issues and accept articles from our members and our readers for publication. David Clark has agreed to serve as our newsletter editor this year.
In addition, please dial into www.isba.org, which is the ISBA's home on the Web for a wealth of information available to ISBA members. Each of the ISBA's 37 sections has its own section-members-only-home on the site, complete with full text of newsletters and, for many sections, members-only discussion groups. This site also features one of the best collections of research links for Illinois lawyers you'll find anywhere, plus a growing selection of online CLE programs and much, much more.
COLT is working with the Ad Hoc Committee on Electronic Filing that is chaired by one of our own members, David Yavitz, providing technical guidance and policy formation on how to bring electronic filing to Illinois courts. This is an ambitions project but one that will benefit attorneys and the public by providing greater access to our judicial system.
We hope you will share your experiences as the year progress, whatever you current level of computer technology skills, to make your working hours and your free time both more enjoyable through the use of technology.
______________
Roger Rutherford, of Rutherford Law Offices, Springfield, is the Chair of the Committee on Legal Technology (COLT)
By Jim Bumgarner
Would you like to share the files and programs on your computer with millions of other computers? Just connect it to the Internet. To explain how this happens, a non-technical description follows.
Simply put, you can exchange files with others so long as they have similar software. For example, a file from my Word Perfect program should be readable by anyone who has the same program. You would recognize the file's wpd extension indicates that it is a Word Perfect file. The files from the same program speak the same language. With that in mind, move to considering how the Internet functions.
The Internet is composed of a vast number of computers that can converse with one another with a language or protocol that has been established for that kind of traffic. If you use a File Transfer Protocol "ftp" you can move files around the Internet. This is normally the way you upload files from your computer to the directory (now more often called a folder) to which your Internet provider has given you access. This directory is located where it is hosting your home page. If you wish to send and receive email, the Internet provides Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, SMTP, or, for file attachments, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, MIME, a uniform language for email.
While the foregoing Internet protocols connect your computer to other computers on the Internet, it is connecting to World Wide Web that presents the most opportunity for others to access your files. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, familiar to all of us as the "http" in the addresses is used every day to access the World Wide Web (www). Log on to your Internet provider, bring up your browser, and type in a domain name. Your browser will communicate with your provider's computer, that will contact one of the computers on the Internet that keeps track of the addresses of all the domains in existence. That computer will supply the address of the desired site in the Arabic numerals, and your request is on its way to the site you want to visit.
That connection is what gives others access to your computer, but a simple description of the process should help in understanding why. All anyone needs to put a server onto the Internet is to have two fast computers with fast modems and a domain name. Originally, you had to get your domain name from InterNIC, but now a number of providers can furnish this service. Try to explore the way to do this.
As an interesting side note, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is taking over management of the Internet from the United States. This international organization is having difficulty collecting money from the approximate 250 nations that have their own address systems. For this reason, it may not be able to survive. This corporation has devised an arbitration system for domain name disputes and has assigned a United Nations agency to do the arbitrations. Julia Roberts, the film actress, just recently got control of the domain name that bears her name from a person who was found to have exercised bad faith in registering it for himself.
I have registered "bumgarner.org" as my domain name. I could not get "bumgarner.com," as, is so often the case nowadays, it was already in use. To register that domain name, I needed the two computers and a numeric address for each. Rather than acquire these servers and keep them constantly on line, I got an Internet provider to do so for me. That provider set up virtual servers for me by hosting the two numeric addresses of my domain and by accepting all traffic directed to my domain and forwarding it to my Internet provider. This host is Infobahn Outfitters, Inc. They accepted from InterNIC the two numeric addresses assigned by InterNIC to my domain name. In other words, if you wished to visit my home page on the Internet, you would type into your browser. Your browser would go to my host, and my host would send the request to me. The latter is the true address of my home page on WorldNet, my Internet provider. Many providers will do this for you so that you need not use a host other than the one that has your home page, but I needed an ultimate provider with a telephone number local to my home.
In addition, should you wish to send me an email, you would address it to me and the email would be forwarded from Outfitters to my true email address.
Actually, having a separate host for your domain is rather convenient. At any time I wish to do so, I can change Internet providers and merely email that change to Outfitters who will make simple forwarding changes on their software. In fact, at one time I had one provider for email and another for my home page.
Interestingly, if you have a domain, you never need to change your stationery, your business cards, or any other information that lists your email and home page. Prices now vary, but I paid $70 for two year's registration, followed by $35 per year. Not a bad price for this convenience. In addition, I pay $50 per year to have the domain hosted.
You will remember my reference to numeric addresses. They are four combinations of three or less digits taken three or less at a time, separated by periods, or dots. Mine were originally: 199.120.118.2 199.120.118.135. You can find the names to which these numbers belong by accessing any of several sites that provide this information. Try http://. Operators of Web sites you visit can simply utilize lookup sites to determine the business names of visitors. This ability to determine the owner of the domain through its numeric address, is part of the reason that other computers can access yours. AOL and other large providers assign random number combinations for you each time you log on. For that reason, it is difficult for others to track your origin.
As is probably apparent from the foregoing, when your browser contacts a provider an exchange ensues which identifies you and takes the address of the site you wish to visit. Your identity is required so that you will be able to receive the information you request. In this way you are sending information and receiving information. If the site that is sending wishes to do so there is no reason why it cannot peer into your computer. If you are a single computer, in Windows go to Control Panel, click Network and File, and Print Sharing, and make sure you are not set up to share files.
If you are on a network, your administrator will have solved that problem. You will also be using firewalls and secure socket layers, but at least one computer would be Internet accessible. In instances where computers are connected to a company network, enter a site name on your computer. When you press "enter," the signal will go through a firewall through which all the computers on the network pass to reach the Internet. That gate has a numerical address that will be the return address used by the site you visit.
It was not always so. In the beginning, exchanges between sites and your browser kept no records and had no interest in who you were. Once the exchange of information had taken place, the site would move on to satisfying other requests. Even if you made a second request, the site would not have a way of connecting it with the previous one. It is true that you could hypertext from the site your browser was displaying, but the original site which gave it to you had no way of identifying you. If the site wanted sell you something, you would have to maintain the original connection and buy one item at a time--no shopping carts, or records of addresses and credit cards. To solve this, Lott Montulli, an employee of Netscape, invented the cookie.
The cookie is a file placed on your hard disk that identifies you to the site that put it there. The next time you access that site, it recognizes you from that file. This capability lets the site count hits and distinguish between one person visiting several times and a number of persons visiting once each. To see your cookies on Windows go to Windows Explorer. Then to the Windows directory and find the Cookies directory. In that directory is the file "index.dat." Use Notepad (Start, Programs, Accessories) to view this file. If you wish to delete it, you can highlight the text and delete, after which you should save it in its deleted form and overwrite the original cookie file. After doing this, you may have to reenter passwords and other information on the sites that you have used in the past.
If the cookie is something that the places you visit can look at, it is obvious that they can look at all the entries on that " index.dat." This is in addition to the information that you voluntarily furnish a site from which you download or purchase something. Now click one of the advertisements on a site and give the owner of the advertisement a look at your files. Better still, utilize any one of the free email and Internet services and share them with world. Suppose a company has bought your profile from mail order catalogues and has made a database of profiles. If that company puts adds on multiple Internet sites and consolidates the information it receives in this way with its database, it will have something important to sell to advertisers and other commercial entities. Hint. We have just described what Double Click proposes to do.
With respect to free Internet service, Predictive Networks, Inc. has developed software that will track your visits when you use the free service. In this way they can log enough information to construct a profile for you that will disclose your interests, purchases, and any other information useful to their purpose. This profile can then be sold to companies who wish to solicit your patronage. Advertisers will also buy this information to avoid expensive blanket untargeted advertising. IDT Corp. will use this service on its free Internet service, freeatlast.com.
Back to cookies. If you open Windows Explorer and go to "View," "Folder Options," "View Tab" and click "Show all files," you can use the "Find" command under the Tools menu to look for "index.dat" files. As I do not use Internet Explorer, I have only the cookie file and the C:/windows/temporary Internet Files/content.IE5. I can only find it on "Find." It does not appear if I try to find it on Windows Explorer.
Suppose the site you visit wants to let another site track you in the same way that it does. It will put a Web bug on your hard disc. That bug is also called a "clear GIF," as it is an invisible tiny icon imbedded in what you are viewing, and it permits the other site to set a cookie and begin tracking. If you go to the directory that holds your cache files, you can click a few and see what similar icons look like. The cache files are usually too cryptic to decipher unless you actually bring them up on your browser and look at them. With Netscape they can be found at Programs, Netscape, Users, (your name), Cache.
Now add the way that attachments to email can access your computer. An attached file with an "exe," "con," or "vbs" extension, if opened, could establish itself on your hard disc, institute a delay of further activity, and then corrupt your operating system and wipe out files. Worse, it could use Outlook to send email messages to everyone on your address book. Those messages could do the same as the one you received. Time delays could be coordinated to have all the destruction to occur at the same date and time. The "love bug" virus was typical of these.
If you obtain cable or DSL service, you must name your computer and a "work group" to which it belongs. This may not give hackers access to your files but it gives valuable information to those who would try to access them. Any one interested can go to and find out how to avoid this. At this writing the software was free but may not be by publication date. Internet DSL and cable modem users who have always-on connections are at particular risk. Black Ice claims to have one of the programs that detects, identifies, and stops hackers and malicious employees both inside and outside of firewalls. The program flashes an icon if your computer is under attack. It also keeps a log of the number, duration, and intensity of the incursions.
In addition to the personal information gathered by the site you have visited, Microsoft not too long ago found that hypertext code could be inserted in Web pages by hackers. That would permit siphoning off information as it was received even though it was being transmitted over a secure connection. The transmission was secure, but the information received was not. This would permit stealing sensitive information such as passwords or credit card numbers so long as the imbedded links were not discovered. Microsoft reported this to the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), which is a group with government funding. A similar flaw in Web site software permitted hackers to gain access to certain files on the servers. According to the experts, the file is "dvwssr.dll" and probably can be safely deleted.
Another flaw appeared in Microsoft's Web browser that would permit hackers to view the contents of any cookie file on a computer. The hacker would embed code in his Web address that would make your browser respond as though the request for the cookie came from the site that originally placed it on your hard drive. Patches are available to cure this.
What should you do when surfing? You can set your browser to refuse all cookies, but most sites won't let you on if you do. Setting the browser to alert you to the site's attempt to set a cookie, will let you consent or deny. Again, if you want on you must consent. Probably the best solution is to just forget about it and surf. There is hope that the FTC will get authority to require all sites to give you access to whatever information they collect about you so that you can see for yourself whether you wish to visit them. The sites should also post their privacy policy, including what use they will make of the information they gather.
What should you do when emailing? Don't open any attachments unless you know where they came from, who sent them and what they contain. Remember, the person who sent them may have done so innocently, and have no idea that they contain viruses. Unless the sender is an experienced computer user, tell him to highlight, copy, and paste the text of what he wants to attach into the body of the email. If you have Microsoft Office, go to the tools menu, select macro and then security. Choose the setting that says, "High."
Another solution is to use encryption. Both Netscape and Internet Explorer provide for this. For Netscape go to Communicator, tools, Security Info, Messenger, Certificates. The page will let you check your certificate, the certificates you have accepted from others, those from Web sites, and those from signers. The first three are self explanatory, and the last is what signers you will accept. To get a certificate go through the above to "Yours." Scroll to bottom and click "Get a Certificate." If you are online, for a small charge, you will receive a certificate from a trusted repository that will guarantee your authenticity.
Once obtained, you can use your certificate to sign, or encrypt, or both sign and encrypt messages. By signing, you ensure the integrity of your message. Any alteration becomes immediately apparent to someone who has your public key, although anyone can read the text. By encrypting your message, you ensure that no one can read it unless he has your public key. If this seems complicated, it is not. Just follow the procedures and read the accompanying explanations. If you would like to try out encryption with no initial expense, just go to Entrust Technologies Limited and download their "Solo" program at http://www.entrust. com/solo/index.htm.
______________
Hon. James Bumgarner is a retired Illinois Circuit Judge from Hennepin, IL.
Using the undo feature to
salvage documents in Word™ and WordPerfect™
By Marilyn Monrose, Legal Word Processing "Doctor"™
We've all done it. Working hours on a 200-page, heavily edited document, only to realize half way through (or at the end) that you forgot to make a new version!! Who hasn't done this? Most of the time, the only way to recover the original file is to try to find it in the backup folder on the local drive of the last machine it was worked on. But what if that machine is the one you used to make the edits? Well, you might as well kiss that file goodbye, because it's been replaced with the revised copy.
If you're firm has an up-to-date network facility, then your IT department should be able to get the original document back to you within a couple of hours. But what if you don't have a couple of hours? Then that's where the Undo feature in Word and WordPerfect comes in.
The next time you forget to save a new version of your document and time is of the essence, perform this technique.
Using the undo feature to salvage documents in Word 97/2000
One thing that's very important and must be stressed is that in Word you should NEVER CLOSE THE DOCUMENT AFTER THE CHANGES HAS BEEN MADE. Once you save and close the file, then the edits are there forever and there will be no possible way to undo them. So remember to KEEP THE FILE OPEN during this procedure.
1. Copy the revised file with all of its changes into a new window, then save it to the local drive as a new document. (Leave this document open, you will be going back into it later.)
2. Go back into the revised document.
3. Use the <Undo> feature to undo all of your changes by either pressing <CTRL+Z> or the hitting the <Undo> button on the toolbar. Keep pressing <CTRL+Z> or hitting <Undo> until all edits have been removed and the document is back in its original state. (Tip: For a really super-quick way to undo your changes, click the <dropdown> arrow next to the Undo button; highlight all of the changes in the box and press <Delete>. )
NOTE: As long as you haven't closed and saved your file, you will be able to undo every edit you made in the document.