6 ms·

It would be a good idea to put the legal documents in a version control system. Then all the revisions can be tracked. It's time to adopt the ideas we've lear

by ww520 12y ago

It would be a good idea to put the legal documents in a version control system. Then all the revisions can be tracked. It's time to adopt the ideas we've learned in CS to other professions.

rayiner 12y ago
In the future I imagine this will be the case, and official versions will be indicated by a published MD5 hash, etc. As for why it hasn't happened already . . . why does the web still run on JavaScript, a language that was obsolete the day it was designed two decades ago? Even within the tech industry, tooling moves at a glacial pace. We'll get court opinions stored in version control when we get a generation of judges that grew up with word processors with integrated version control. As it stands, version control isn't even well-implemented in mainstream word processors.
- lavamantis 12y ago
  In an ironic twist, this tool uses Node - which is based on JavaScript (the allegedly obsolete two-decade-old language).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Nothing allegedly about it.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  As it stands, version control isn't even well-implemented in mainstream word processors. Maybe we should be teaching version control first when we introduce students to word processing. If they know they can always go back to an earlier version and compare changes, they might be more willing to explore and learn faster.
- Perseids 12y ago
  > In the future I imagine [...] MD5 hash > Even within the tech industry, tooling moves at a glacial pace. Oh the irony...
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > official versions will be indicated by a published MD5 hash That would be proof positive to me that they have no intention of leaving the documents unchanged. MD5 has been unusable as tamper-proof signature for a long time now. http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/rogue-ca/ http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/rogue-ca/
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Hello downvoter, please explain yourself. http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~selinger/md5collision/ http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~selinger/md5collision/
    - forgottenpass 12y ago
      You're not wrong, you're just putting the conversation on a pedantic tangent. I mentally replaced "MD5" with "a cryptographically secure hashing function" because even though I knew it was wrong hash to use, I know what the poster was trying to say.
  - heroprotagonist 12y ago
    Although MD5 has known collision issues, using an MD5 collision to alter the text of the document in a specific manner is highly unlikely. This is not as trivial as simply generating some random bits of data that result in the same signature when hashed. In the use case where you want to change the document for your own purposes without leaving evidence that you've tampered with it, you would not be searching for just a single other file which generates the same hash value. You would be looking for another file which results in the same value when hashed, has the same format (text is easy, I suppose, but it's conceivable they could switch to a binary format at some point), makes grammatical and syntactical sense, and also contains the desired content that you are looking for (or some approximate.. the 'exact' desired content would result in a different hash in most scenarios). That said, I agree that there are better hashing algorithms out there. Multiple signatures from several common hash functions could be provided for quick confirmation purposes while still making it relatively easy to validate quickly. (Edit: Also, since you are concerned: I am not the downvoter)
SoftwareMaven 12y ago
That's called content management, and it's been used in most large companies for 15+ years. Unfortunately, it's a really ugly problem, not because of technology, but because of people. I spent five years working with higher ed on content management issues, and the technology is the easy part. Getting people to change habits, getting business processes to align with technology, integrating in with all of the various systems that documents interact with, now those are hard problems. Whoever solves that problem will be a very wealthy individual, but, like many organizational people-problems, it may be intractable from a technology perspective.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  If it's intractable how did personal computing ever begin? I think it's possible they'd all switch to the better tool under some circumstances.
  - tokenadult 12y ago
    What made "personal" computing possible was being able to do your own thing. What makes content management difficult is learning to do what fits in with what other people in the organization are doing. Human interpersonal behavior problems are often particularly hard problems to solve by software, because the first issue is getting people to use the software at all.
  - delinka 12y ago
    Define "better" such that subjectivity is eliminated. People have different desires, different habits, different mental models of the world. One man's "better" is another man's "wtf is this pile of dren?"
  - saraid216 12y ago
    > under some circumstances Qualifications like these are highly, highly problematic when you don't actually enumerate what they are.
- ww520 12y ago
  Thanks for the info and experience. Very interesting. From what I know, the content management sector has a problem of being too generic, trying to handle any form of content, including digital media content, which has very different requirement than documents. Version management is low in the requirement list. Also indexing and searching are a big part of the requirements, which lead to the emphasis on OCR and different format conversion. Archiving and document retention are pretty big with emphasis on the compliance with the various laws. This leads to bloated products that the customers find hard to use and hard to fit into their process and workflow. I heard of effort by law firms trying to implement content management systems but couldn't because of diverging requirement. At the end just threw the printed PDF into the system and called it for the day. I heard of contract version management system, just to track the changes to the text of a contract, which was pretty successful because of focused effort. Contract can have numerous versions during negotiation and small changes can have huge impact. What we need is a system with a small well defined feature set focusing only on the version control of text documents. Outsource the format conversion, OCR, index and search work to other systems.
phy6 12y ago
Or put it in a blockchain that everyone has access to, forever. :)
- astrange 12y ago
  A system where a 51% majority could rewrite all laws. True direct democracy!
  - ww520 12y ago
    But the court is supposed to act as a counterbalance to mob rule, against the tyranny of the majority. :)
  - gizmo686 12y ago
    Assuming the total computation power of the swarm is constant, it would take a 100% majority a year to rewrite a law that was passed a year ago. It would also be relativly easy to detect (noticing that you just resolved a gigantic fork, or that the law just changed), and easy to prove, as someone with a copy of the old blockchain could still prove it has a years worth of work on it. Once this is done, you can explicitly blacklist the offending chain and get on with life.
    - saraid216 12y ago
      For some reason, I am suddenly finding myself imagining the island of Paxos. (For anyone who isn't familiar with the reference, here's a primer: https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/ZZ9wDbLDr3A https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/ZZ9wDbLDr3A )
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
I quite like the UK's statute website, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/8/body/2013-02-28?timeline=true http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/8/body/2013-02-28?t... - it gives an overview of changes that are made. But, decisions are fixed entities, a decision is made by the court and handed down, stat. The decision doesn't change, a court can sit again and make a new decision (eg rescinding or amending the former decision) but the former decision still stands, as is, as the decision that was made. If post-facto amendments aren't substantive then they're unnecessary, if they are substantive then they shouldn't be made without the court sitting and issuing a further decision. Seems logically that amendments should never be made; clarifications might be issued later but the decision as handed down to the parties in the proceedings should stand unaltered.

by ww520 12y ago

It would be a good idea to put the legal documents in a version control system. Then all the revisions can be tracked. It's time to adopt the ideas we've learned in CS to other professions.

rayiner 12y ago

In the future I imagine this will be the case, and official versions will be indicated by a published MD5 hash, etc. As for why it hasn't happened already . . . why does the web still run on JavaScript, a language that was obsolete the day it was designed two decades ago? Even within the tech industry, tooling moves at a glacial pace. We'll get court opinions stored in version control when we get a generation of judges that grew up with word processors with integrated version control. As it stands, version control isn't even well-implemented in mainstream word processors.

lavamantis 12y ago
In an ironic twist, this tool uses Node - which is based on JavaScript (the allegedly obsolete two-decade-old language).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 12y ago
  Nothing allegedly about it.
nitrogen 12y ago
As it stands, version control isn't even well-implemented in mainstream word processors. Maybe we should be teaching version control first when we introduce students to word processing. If they know they can always go back to an earlier version and compare changes, they might be more willing to explore and learn faster.
Perseids 12y ago
> In the future I imagine [...] MD5 hash > Even within the tech industry, tooling moves at a glacial pace. Oh the irony...
jacquesm 12y ago
> official versions will be indicated by a published MD5 hash That would be proof positive to me that they have no intention of leaving the documents unchanged. MD5 has been unusable as tamper-proof signature for a long time now. http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/rogue-ca/ http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/rogue-ca/
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Hello downvoter, please explain yourself. http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~selinger/md5collision/ http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~selinger/md5collision/
  - forgottenpass 12y ago
    You're not wrong, you're just putting the conversation on a pedantic tangent. I mentally replaced "MD5" with "a cryptographically secure hashing function" because even though I knew it was wrong hash to use, I know what the poster was trying to say.
- heroprotagonist 12y ago
  Although MD5 has known collision issues, using an MD5 collision to alter the text of the document in a specific manner is highly unlikely. This is not as trivial as simply generating some random bits of data that result in the same signature when hashed. In the use case where you want to change the document for your own purposes without leaving evidence that you've tampered with it, you would not be searching for just a single other file which generates the same hash value. You would be looking for another file which results in the same value when hashed, has the same format (text is easy, I suppose, but it's conceivable they could switch to a binary format at some point), makes grammatical and syntactical sense, and also contains the desired content that you are looking for (or some approximate.. the 'exact' desired content would result in a different hash in most scenarios). That said, I agree that there are better hashing algorithms out there. Multiple signatures from several common hash functions could be provided for quick confirmation purposes while still making it relatively easy to validate quickly. (Edit: Also, since you are concerned: I am not the downvoter)

SoftwareMaven 12y ago

That's called content management, and it's been used in most large companies for 15+ years. Unfortunately, it's a really ugly problem, not because of technology, but because of people. I spent five years working with higher ed on content management issues, and the technology is the easy part. Getting people to change habits, getting business processes to align with technology, integrating in with all of the various systems that documents interact with, now those are hard problems. Whoever solves that problem will be a very wealthy individual, but, like many organizational people-problems, it may be intractable from a technology perspective.

0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
If it's intractable how did personal computing ever begin? I think it's possible they'd all switch to the better tool under some circumstances.
- tokenadult 12y ago
  What made "personal" computing possible was being able to do your own thing. What makes content management difficult is learning to do what fits in with what other people in the organization are doing. Human interpersonal behavior problems are often particularly hard problems to solve by software, because the first issue is getting people to use the software at all.
- delinka 12y ago
  Define "better" such that subjectivity is eliminated. People have different desires, different habits, different mental models of the world. One man's "better" is another man's "wtf is this pile of dren?"
- saraid216 12y ago
  > under some circumstances Qualifications like these are highly, highly problematic when you don't actually enumerate what they are.
ww520 12y ago
Thanks for the info and experience. Very interesting. From what I know, the content management sector has a problem of being too generic, trying to handle any form of content, including digital media content, which has very different requirement than documents. Version management is low in the requirement list. Also indexing and searching are a big part of the requirements, which lead to the emphasis on OCR and different format conversion. Archiving and document retention are pretty big with emphasis on the compliance with the various laws. This leads to bloated products that the customers find hard to use and hard to fit into their process and workflow. I heard of effort by law firms trying to implement content management systems but couldn't because of diverging requirement. At the end just threw the printed PDF into the system and called it for the day. I heard of contract version management system, just to track the changes to the text of a contract, which was pretty successful because of focused effort. Contract can have numerous versions during negotiation and small changes can have huge impact. What we need is a system with a small well defined feature set focusing only on the version control of text documents. Outsource the format conversion, OCR, index and search work to other systems.

phy6 12y ago

Or put it in a blockchain that everyone has access to, forever. :)

astrange 12y ago
A system where a 51% majority could rewrite all laws. True direct democracy!
- ww520 12y ago
  But the court is supposed to act as a counterbalance to mob rule, against the tyranny of the majority. :)
- gizmo686 12y ago
  Assuming the total computation power of the swarm is constant, it would take a 100% majority a year to rewrite a law that was passed a year ago. It would also be relativly easy to detect (noticing that you just resolved a gigantic fork, or that the law just changed), and easy to prove, as someone with a copy of the old blockchain could still prove it has a years worth of work on it. Once this is done, you can explicitly blacklist the offending chain and get on with life.
  - saraid216 12y ago
    For some reason, I am suddenly finding myself imagining the island of Paxos. (For anyone who isn't familiar with the reference, here's a primer: https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/ZZ9wDbLDr3A https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/ZZ9wDbLDr3A )

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

I quite like the UK's statute website, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/8/body/2013-02-28?timeline=true http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/8/body/2013-02-28?t... - it gives an overview of changes that are made. But, decisions are fixed entities, a decision is made by the court and handed down, stat. The decision doesn't change, a court can sit again and make a new decision (eg rescinding or amending the former decision) but the former decision still stands, as is, as the decision that was made. If post-facto amendments aren't substantive then they're unnecessary, if they are substantive then they shouldn't be made without the court sitting and issuing a further decision. Seems logically that amendments should never be made; clarifications might be issued later but the decision as handed down to the parties in the proceedings should stand unaltered.