The First Amendment and Online Access to Information About Abortion: The Constitutional and Technological Problems with Censorship

To what extent could an abortion-restrictive state impede access to online information about abortion? After Dobbs, this question is no longer theoretical. This essay engages with this issue from both a legal and technological perspective, analyzing First Amendment jurisprudence as well as the technological implications of state-level online censorship. It concludes that the weight of Supreme Court precedent indicates that state attempts to censor information regarding out-of-state abortion services would violate the First Amendment. That said, the essay also recognizes that as Dobbs itself upended precedent, it is unclear what Supreme Court would do when ruling on questions regarding the extent of state power to limit access to information in this domain. The essay also considers the technological implications of state efforts to censor online access to information about abortion, concluding that these efforts would be mostly, though not completely, unsuccessful

When Channel Bonding is Beneficial for Opportunistic Spectrum Access Networks

Transmission over multiple frequency bands combined into one logical channel speeds up data transfer for wireless networks. On the other hand, the allocation of multiple channels to a single user decreases the probability of finding a free logical channel for new connections, which may result in a network-wide throughput loss. While this relationship has been studied experimentally, especially in the WLAN configuration, little is known on how to analytically model such phenomena. With the advent of Opportunistic Spectrum Access (OSA) networks, it is even more important to understand the circumstances in which it is beneficial to bond channels occupied by primary users with dynamic duty cycle patterns. In this paper we propose an analytical framework which allows the investigation of the average channel throughput at the medium access control layer for OSA networks with channel bonding enabled. We show that channel bonding is generally beneficial, though the extent of the benefits depend on the features of the OSA network, including OSA network size and the total number of channels available for bonding. In addition, we show that performance benefits can be realized by adaptively changing the number of bonded channels depending on network conditions. Finally, we evaluate channel bonding considering physical layer constraints, i.e. throughput reduction compared to the theoretical throughput of a single virtual channel due to a transmission power limit for any bonding size.Comment: accepted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

Artificial Intelligence, Due Process, and Criminal Sentencing

Article published in the Michigan State Law Review

Identifying Implicit Component Interactions in Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems

Modern distributed systems and networks, like those found in cyber-physical system domains such as critical infrastructures, contain many complex interactions among their constituent software and/or hardware components. Despite extensive testing of individual components, security vulnerabilities resulting from unintended and unforeseen component interactions (so-called implicit interactions) often remain undetected. This paper presents a method for identifying the existence of implicit interactions in designs of distributed cyber-physical systems using the algebraic modeling framework known as Communicating Concurrent Kleene Algebra (C²KA). Experimental results verifying the applicability of C²KA for identifying dependencies in system designs that would otherwise be very hard to find are also presented. More broadly, this research aims to advance the specification, design, and implementation of distributed cyber-physical systems with improved cybersecurity assurance by providing a new way of thinking about the problem of implicit interactions through the application of formal methods

A Comment on the Implementation of the Ziggurat Method

We show that the short period of the uniform random number generator in the published implementation of Marsaglia and Tsang's Ziggurat method for generating random deviates can lead to poor distributions. Changing the uniform random number generator used in its implementation fixes this issue.

Algorithms, Housing Discrimination, and the New Disparate Impact Rule

In the coming years, algorithms—often but not always powered by artificial intelligence—will experience increasing adoption in relation to home loan approvals, real estate marketing and sales, and zoning decisions. While algorithms offer many potential advantages, they also bring the risk of perpetuating or even amplifying longstanding patterns of housing-related discrimination. When that occurs, disparate impact litigation under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) will be a key mechanism for seeking redress. This Article aims to help ensure that FHA disparate impact claims can serve as an effective tool to combat housing discrimination in an era when an increasing number of decisions will be made by algorithms. This issue is particularly timely in light not only of the broader imperative to ensure that federal antidiscrimination frameworks remain effective as the technology used in the housing sector evolves, but also because the Department of Housing and Urban Development has recently published a final rule that, subject to a pending court challenge, will codify a set of explicit steps for litigants to follow in cases involving allegations of algorithm-based housing discrimination. Depending on its interpretation in the courts, the new rule risks erecting very high barriers to future FHA plaintiffs in light of the proprietary nature of the algorithms they will be challenging. To address this, the Article analyzes Supreme Court cases in relation to both FHA disparate impact litigation as well as pleading standards more generally and presents a roadmap which would allow plaintiffs to access the information necessary to address the pleading requirements of the proposed rule while simultaneously protecting the rights of defendants and avoiding overburdening courts