Consumer Adoption of Online Banking: Does Distance Matter?

This paper tests whether consumer adoption of online banking is affected by the distance to one's bank branch. During the last decade, rapid diffusion of the Internet has dramatically changed the ways consumers conduct every-day businesses. An important trend in the rapid increase of Internet use among U.S. households is the use of the Internet for accessing financial accounts and paying bills. I estimate a logit model for online banking use with household level data from the U.S. for 1998 and 2001. In order to correct for the possible endogeneity of distance to one's bank, I use instrumental variables in a logit framework by following the control function approach suggested by Petrin and Train (2002). I find that distance to the closest bank branch does not affect the likelihood of online banking use by a household. The type of financial account that one has with her financial institution, however, is a significant predictor of online banking use, implying that households are likely to use the online provision more for some accounts than others. The results suggest that online channels may be viewed as a supplement to other more traditional channels. I also find that the impacts of various individual and bank-specific characteristics on online banking use have changed from 1998 to 2001. This is not surprising given the rapid diffusion of the Internet in the late 1990s, and the corresponding rise in the availability, acceptance and familiarity of the Internet as an additional business channel.

The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Critique of Applying the European Union Approach to Privacy Regulation in the United States

Internet users in the United States and the European Union ( EU ) often debate the state of international data privacy, while scholars and companies also present questions to the Internet community regarding the regulation of data privacy and the amount of regulation required in the U.S. Inquiries range from how to determine the necessary degree of regulation and how to implement regulations to how to enforce any regulations that the U.S. lawmakers may pass. Historically, the EU and the U.S. approach data privacy regulations in diametrically opposed ways. While the EU relies primarily on legislation and heavy regulation, the U.S. has adopted a market- based, self-regulatory approach to data privacy. The EU further distinguishes itself from the U.S. by implementing an approach that guarantees its citizens protection of their fundamental rights. Such protection allows for strict governmental control of information flow. The U.S., on the other hand, does not recognize data privacy as a fundamental right, employing instead a less prophylactic approach than that taken by the EU. Despite these ideological differences, the EU codified its fundamental right principle in 1998 when it enacted Directive 95/46 (the Directive ). With the Directive, the EU created a broad, overarching piece of legislation that gives significant power to the individual with regard to use of her personal information. First, it purports to create uniformity in EU data practices by requiring companies to inform consumers of what they plan to do with the personal information which they collect from their websites. Second, in so doing, the Directive requires the respective companies to secure affirmative consent from consumers to collect, use, and disseminate the U.S. utilizes self-regulation and that consumers do not have privacy rights in the sense that Europeans define privacy

Robust Control Techniques Enabling Duty Cycle Experiments Utilizing a 6-DOF Crewstation Motion Base, a Full Scale Combat Hybrid Electric Power System, and Long Distance Internet Communications

The RemoteLink effort supports the U.S. Army\u27s objective for developing and fielding next generation hybrid-electric combat vehicles. It is a distributed soldierin- the-Ioop and hardware-in-the-Ioop environment with a 6-DOF motion base for operator realism, a full-scale combat hybrid electric power system, and an operational context provided by OneSAF. The driver/gunner crewstations rest on one of two 6-DOF motion bases at the U.S. Army TARDEC Simulation Laboratory (TSL). The hybrid power system is located 2,450 miles away at the TARDEC Power and Energy System Integration Laboratory (P&E SIL). The primary technical challenge in the RemoteLink is to operate both laboratories together in real time, coupled over the Internet, to generate a realistic power system duty cycle. A topology has been chosen such that the laboratories have real hardware interacting with simulated components at both locations to guarantee local closed loop stability. This layout is robust to Internet communication failures and ensures the long distance network delay does not enter the local feedback loops. The TSL states and P&E SIL states will diverge due to (1) significant communications delays and (2) unavoidable differences between the TSL\u27s powersystem simulation and the P&E SIL\u27s real hardware-inthe- loop power system. Tightly coupled, bi-directional interactions exist among the various distributed simulations and software- and hardware-in-the-Ioop components representing the driver, gunner, vehicle, and power system. These interactions necessitate additional adjustment to ensure that the respective states at the TSL and P&E SIL sites converge. This is called state convergence and ensures the dominant energetic states of both laboratories remain closely matched in real time. State convergence must be performed at both locations to achieve bi-directional, real-time interaction like that found on a real vehicle. The result is a distributed control system architecture with Internet communications in the state convergence feedback loop. The Internet communication channel is a primary source of uncertainty that impacts the overall state convergence performance and stability. Multiple control schemes were developed and tested in simulation. This paper presents robust control techniques that compensate for asynchronous Internet communication delays during closed loop operation of the TSL and P&E SIL sites. The subsequent soldier- and hardware-in-the-Ioop experiments were performed using a combination of nonlinear Sliding-mode and linear PID control laws to achieve state convergence at both locations. The control system development, performance, and duty cycle results are presented in this paper

Network Coding Meets TCP: Theory and Implementation

The theory of network coding promises significant benefits in network performance, especially in lossy networks and in multicast and multipath scenarios. To realize these benefits in practice, we need to understand how coding across packets interacts with the acknowledgment (ACK)-based flow control mechanism that forms a central part of today's Internet protocols such as transmission control protocol (TCP). Current approaches such as rateless codes and batch-based coding are not compatible with TCP's retransmission and sliding-window mechanisms. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism called TCP/NC that incorporates network coding into TCP with only minor changes to the protocol stack, thereby allowing incremental deployment. In our scheme, the source transmits random linear combinations of packets currently in the congestion window. At the heart of our scheme is a new interpretation of ACKs-the sink acknowledges every degree of freedom (i.e., a linear combination that reveals one unit of new information) even if it does not reveal an original packet immediately. Thus, our new TCP ACK rule takes into account the network coding operations in the lower layer and enables a TCP-compatible sliding-window approach to network coding. Coding essentially masks losses from the congestion control algorithm and allows TCP/NC to react smoothly to losses, resulting in a novel and effective approach for congestion control over lossy networks such as wireless networks. An important feature of our solution is that it allows intermediate nodes to perform re-encoding of packets, which is known to provide significant throughput gains in lossy networks and multicast scenarios. Simulations show that our scheme, with or without re-encoding inside the network, achieves much higher throughput compared to TCP over lossy wireless links. We present a real-world implementation of this protocol that addresses the practical aspects of incorporating network coding and decoding with TCP's wind ow management mechanism. We work with TCP-Reno, which is a widespread and practical variant of TCP. Our implementation significantly advances the goal of designing a deployable, general, TCP-compatible protocol that provides the benefits of network coding.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CNS-0627021)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CNS-0721491)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CCF-0915922)United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Subcontract 18870740-37362-C)United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Subcontract 060786)United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Subcontract 069145)United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Contract N66001-06-C-2020)Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego (U.S.) (Contract N66001- 08-C-2013

No Internet Does Not Mean No Protection Under the CFAA: Why Voting Machines Should Be Covered Under 18 U.S.C. § 1030

The U.S. Attorney General established a Cyber-Digital Task Force within the Department of Justice (DOJ) in February 2018. This newly created task force released its first public report on July 19, 2018. Then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the release of the report, while promising that “[a]t the Department of Justice, we take these threats seriously.” The report was designed to answer the following question: “How is the Department [of Justice] responding to cyber threats?” The report begins by discussing the threat of foreign influence operations, described by the Task Force as “one of the most pressing cyber-enabled threats our Nation faces.” Specifically, the Task Force focuses on the dangerous threat of Russia to U.S. elections. After detailing the scope of this and other threats, the Task Force outlines the key prosecutorial tools available to the DOJ in combating cyberattacks. The first tool, which this Note will discuss at length, is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1030. The CFAA falls at the top of the Task Force’s list because, as it mentions, “[the CFAA] remains the . . . principal tool for prosecuting computer crimes.” Many other scholars have described the CFAA as the cornerstone of computer fraud litigation. The Task Force provides a simple definition of the CFAA, explaining how it “gives the owners of computers the right to control who may access their computers, take information from them, change how the computers work, or delete information on them.” Later in the report, after emphasizing Russian interference with elections as the principal cyberthreat and the CFAA as the principal prosecution tool, the Task Force asserts that “[the CFAA] currently does not prohibit the act of hacking a voting machine in many common situations.” The Task Force plainly states that “the CFAA only prohibits hacking computers that are connected to the Internet (or that meet other narrow criteria for protection).” However, the text of the CFAA does not explicitly require that hacked computers be connected to the internet, nor have the courts interpreted this as a requirement of the CFAA. Though most of Russia’s known cyberthreats have not been aimed directly at the voting machine devices themselves, the Task Force’s assertion still raises a big question: Does the CFAA only apply to internet-connected devices? This Note seeks to answer that question, ultimately concluding that internet connection is not required for a computer to reach protected status under the CFAA. Part I of this Note describes the background of the CFAA, specifically detailing the types of crime it was meant to punish, its definition of “computer,” and its definition of “protected computer” (which builds on the definition of “computer” by providing the jurisdictional hook). Part II moves away from the Act’s legislative history and discusses how courts have interpreted the CFAA over time. Part III applies the CFAA to the hacking of a voting machine (assumed to be without internet). Here, a voting machine is used as the vehicle for the analysis but much of the reasoning could apply to other non-internet-connected devices. Part III argues that the hacking of a voting machine is certainly within the current-day scope of crimes meant to be punished by the CFAA, that voting machines fall within the Act’s definition of “computer,” and that voting machines probably fall within the definition of “protected computer.” From there, the Conclusion explains why an amendment to expressly add voting machines to the definition of the CFAA would not be the best solution (especially since they are likely already protected). The Conclusion then analyzes the risks of the continuing expansion of the CFAA’s scope and addresses the relative potential of Russia’s cyberthreats to voting machines compared to their other election-related cyberthreats

Open Access and the First Amendment: A Critique of Comcast Cablevision of Broward County, Inc. v. Broward County

To what extent does the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment bar the adoption of “open access” regulations? Open access (or “net neutrality”) refers to a policy that would require broadband Internet providers, such as cable and phone companies, to allow competitive Internet Service Providers (ISPs) onto their broadband lines at nondiscriminatory rates. A federal district court in Florida recently held Broward County’s open access ordinance unconstitutional on the grounds that it would force speech – in the form of Internet content – on to the local cable company. If the district court’s analysis is correct, then open access regulations are foreclosed by the Free Speech Clause. This article argues that open access regulations are, in fact, thoroughly consistent with the First Amendment. Broadband providers maintain the kind of “bottleneck” control over Internet content that justifies regulations aimed at facilitating the free flow of information. Broadband providers are already using their strategic position to interfere in the e-commerce and video-downloading markets, and they have the power to speed up or slow down the delivery of Web-pages and other Internet applications. By breaking the broadband provider’s bottleneck control over Internet content and applications, open access regulations serve the important government objectives of facilitating robust public discourse and free markets. The First Amendment does not stand in the way of this important policy proposal

Don\u27t Bring a CAD File to a Gun Fight: A Technological Solution to the Legal and Practical Challenges of Enforcing ITAR on the Internet

This Essay begins by outlining Cody Wilson’s motivation to found his organization, Defense Distributed, and the organization’s progress toward its goals. Then, Part II provides a brief overview of the protracted legal battle between Wilson and the State Department over the right to publish Computer-Aided Design (CAD) files on the internet that enable the 3D printing of guns and lower receivers. Part III.A takes a brief look at whether these CAD files are rightly considered speech at all and, if so, what level of protection they might receive. Part III.B then addresses the problem of even asking whether the files are speech subject to regulation. Part III.B also highlights the similarities between regulating internet speech and regulating public-order crimes, focusing on the impact that enforcement problems in both areas can have on government credibility. It ultimately questions whether these legal battles provide any utility to society. In Part IV, this Essay argues that the State Department is utilizing old and incongruent regulations to enforce practically unenforceable laws to little or no effect, ultimately hurting the credibility of the State and martyring people like Wilson. This Essay advocates for a solution that focuses on 3D printer manufacturers as a control point for gun manufacturing. This solution avoids First Amendment issues and makes import and export control a physical reality, rather than an unbounded problem relegated to an open internet. This Essay looks beyond a judicial solution to practical solutions that stem the growth of in-house manufacturing of weapons