The New Space Race

HERE is a very interesting conspiracy theory that is worthy of a Hollywood movie script .To many lawyers in Malaysia and around the world an activity goes on unceasing and perpetually but totally unnoticeable whether they sleep or are awake.

A small group of international companies like Westlaw and Findlaw use digital means operating around the clock. They have these creepy named creatures called spider robots or webcrawlers moving all around the World Wide Web collecting legal information which is then collated, processed and stored in huge databases or infobases all secretly and invisibly done.

Now all this while the world of books as we know is slowly disappearing which is not a bad thing for those who warn us about global warming concerns and climate change. By the next millenium no new born child will see or even know or feel the cover and pages of a book. Traditional publishing houses and newspapers will be gone replaced by Twitter and Facebook.

Welcome to the New Space Race, not outer space but digital space. Even now you don’t see too many bookshops around. Meanwhile these information companies will continue collecting information and eventually control the use of possession storage of information. Others who wish to purchase use or distribute information must go through these Orwellian Big Brother companies.

The right to sell distribute display and provide these information will be the subject matter of very lucrative contracts even more lucrative and valuable than the construction of buildings and infrastructure. Those who control and guard these gateways of information will be very influential people having control over the affairs of the world.

Look at the furor arising from the hacking scandal in the US. See how Wikileaks destroyed Hillary Clinton’s billion dollar campaign for the Presidency. Donald Trump says the Russians hacking had no outcome on the US Presidential Election because he knows nobody can prove it, We are still far away from having the forensics to find the digital footprints and determine what actually took place but that won’t be forever. Even today he who possesses information and is able to process it is becoming more and more powerful than those who have a fistful of dollars or billions in banks.

The new billionaires like Jack Ma and Mike Zuckerberg live very simple lives outwardly but control massive storehouses of information. A day will come in fact it is already here when we will be at the mercy of these informationaires because they can determine who you, how you live, what you do and so on. They will have the power to tweak or erase or delete or amend data in their information houses that will have life changing consequences on the masses.

The only place that you may be able to get away from these infodictators would be North Korea but which of us would want to be there(if it is still around).Today the race to control information is like the race to Mars. Our hard disks which used to be in megabytes and then gigs have now moved to terrabytes and does not look like stopping.

A few weeks ago I was talking about the development of a search engine or software that can search for Malaysian cases in a database which will very useful people who need legal information. Just last week I found out that product may be obsolete as there is newer more advanced one on the market that can conduct search not in minutes but in seconds. And its creator is not even a lawyer. Choong Seet Jiang is a female IT professional who run an apps development firm in Kota Kinabalu known as Margarette Apps Studio and is also pursuing a law degree.

She has developed a search engine which she calls the Commonwealth Law Search Engine. Why Commonwealth? According to her the common law derived from the UK has been imported to Commonwealth nations and further importation like our contract law which was imported from India when Sabah was North Borneo and our land law which is imported from Australia. So the common law though different in application is still common to the Commonwealth nations. However there is a business angle to this. She says with great ambition that her product is to be marketed in other parts of the Commonwealth ie Australia, UK, India and new Zealand.

With the weakening dollar and serious economic downturn this makes really good sense. Choong says people are wasting time waiting for recovery or going around or talking depressively in circles. She says this is the time to seek income overseas (legally of course) which she says is not subject to tax. Her search engine is impressive as it is supported by cases from Australia, Malaysia, UK and Singapore with New Zealand, India and the West Indies as future additions. She says the time has come for lawyers to look at things with a global perspective.

The Internet and digital information allows speedy research and exchange of information globally so we Malaysians at this time of local difficulties must look and take e-commerce and global opportunities more seriously. Her packaging idea is also very innovative. She says the beauty about digital products is not only they can be updated or revised but they can be rearranged or reconstructed with ease. So if the product is marketed in Australia then Australian cases would be at the top of the pyramid whereas in Singapore, then Singaporean cases would be at the forefront .

And her collection and storehouse of information is formidable. The entire search engines 11,200 Australian decisions, 26,600 UK decisions, covers 28,500 Malaysian cases, 4,300 Singapore rulings which come to an aggregate of 70,600 cases for research.

And the speed is 2.7 seconds per search. What is really outstanding is the search engine can cover 4 jurisdictions in 2.7 seconds.

The last search engine on the market I know about takes about 6 or 7 seconds. And those search engines you need to search jurisdiction by jurisdiction for each search. I have yet to come across a multi jurisdictional search engine except that provided by Google. The only multi jurisdictional search currently available is Google Scholar.

It takes 12 seconds or more. However most unfortunately it covers only cases in the USA and nowhere else so you can say its not multi jurisdictional in that sense. So not bad for a Sabahan IT professional and law student whose philosophy in life is not to get into negative territory but move to more positive heights.

For more info on the Commonwealth Law Search Engine WhatsApp +60128030778. Sabah and Malaysia Boleh Bah.