Tag: Contract Law

Torts v. Contracts: Can Microsoft Be Held Liable to Home Consumers for Its Security Flaws? – Note by Emily Kuwahara

From Volume 80, Number 5 (July 2007)
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In January 2003, the Slammer worm hit the Internet. Five of the Internet’s thirteen root-name servers shut down. Three hundred thousand cable modems in Portugal went offline, all of South Korea’s cell phone and Internet services went down, and Continental Airlines cancelled flights from its Newark hub due to its inability to process tickets. It took only six months after the disclosure of a security flaw for a virus writer to write the 376 byte virus. When it unleashed, it took ten minutes to infect ninety percent of vulnerable systems.

The flaw was a buffer overflow in the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 software. Because the code is embedded in other Microsoft products, not all users were even aware that their systems were running a version of SQL Server. Unfortunately, this was a well-known, preventable security flaw. Moreover, Microsoft had released a patch for the flaw exploited by Slammer six months before the attack. Despite the widespread effects, no flood of lawsuits ensued.

 

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U.S. Courts and the International Law of Expropriation: Toward a New Model for Breach of Contract – Article by Peter Charles Choharis

From Volume 80, Number 1 (November 2006)
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In 2005, cross-border investment exceeded $1.3 trillion globally. Yet the international law governing the protection of foreign-owned property remains unsettled even in U.S. courts. Not only do American courts often refuse to reach the merits of expropriation claims, but they also frequently ignore relevant authority and rely upon the outdated and muddled Restatement (Third) for guidance. This article, which focuses on breach and forced renegotiation of contract claims, is the first of five planned articles that examine different theories of expropriation under international law. Together, these five articles try to construct a new and comprehensive analytical framework for adjudicating expropriation claims.

 

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