Last updated 3 June 2006

Introduction

It is very important that lawyers attempting to come to terms with the Internet have a good understanding of what the Internet is. Too many legal articles, and indeed judgements, are based upon a faulty understanding of the technical underpinings of the Internet.

Wikipedia defines the Internet as:

In the general sense, an internet (with a lowercase “i”, a shortened form of the original inter-network) is a computer network that connects several networks. As a proper noun, the Internet is the publicly available internationally interconnected system of computers (plus the information and services they provide to their users) that uses the TCP/IP suite of packet switching communications protocols. Thus, the largest internet is called simply “the” Internet. The art of connecting networks in this way is called internetworking.

In popular parlance, Internet often refers to the World Wide Web, electronic mail and online chat services operating on the Internet.

A highly recommended startingpoint in understanding the Internet is Roger Clarke’s Primer. Dr. Clarke defines the Internet as:

The Internet comprises a network of computer networks, which transmit messages to one another using a common set of communications protocols, or sets of operating rules. Networks comprise addressable devices or nodes (computers) connected by arcs (communication channels).

Technical Architecture

The key underlying technical aspects of the Internet are:

• A unified address space with IP addresses

• A standard packet-switched communications protocol (TCP/IP)

Other aspects are layered on top of this underlying transport mechanism. Common features are:

• Use of a client-server architecture

• Use of a human-readable addressing system called DNS - the Domain Name System

Packet Switched Network

The Internet, unlike a traditional phone system, is a packet switched network.

Read Roger Clarke’s explanation of this (in the form of a fairy tale) The Internet as a Postal Service: A fairy tale.
This is probably the most important single fact that must be understood before any position can be taken on Internet issues.

Fundamentally the Internet is what is known as a stupid network. A stupid network is where all the network does is shift packets - all other functionality is layered on top. Read the seminal paper (dating from 1997) The Rise of the Stupid Network.

Protocols

A protocol is a defined standard for communicating. In computer terms a protocol defines how one computer (or node on the network) communicated to another. Protocols are implemented in software. Different programs written by differing programmers can communicate if both programs implement a shared protocol correctly.

A protocol generally gains its authority from the network effect - that is, the more people who use the protocol, the more useful that protocol becomes. Sometimes large players in a marketplace can try with some success to influence or change a protocol, but this is the exceptions rather than the rule.

Examples of efforts to influence a standard in this way would be the ad-hoc changes made to the HTML standard by Netscape and Microsoft when their internet browsers where competing with each other. Now that Internet Explorer has over a 90% market share, the defacto HTML standard is set by it.

Internet Protocol Suite

The Internet has a considerable number of functions, such as the WWW, email, chat, P2P and so on. Underlying these obvious functions are a number of supporting functions.

Each of these functions has one or more protocols associated with it. The sum total of these protocols is refers to as the Internet Protocol Suite. Sometimes the Internet Protocol Suite is refered to by the names of the two most important protocols: TCP/IP

Examples of protocols in the Internet Protocol Suite and some of the software that implements them are:
• HTTP: Apache, Internet Explorer, Safari, Netscape, IIS
• SMTP: Outlook, Sendmail
• DNS: BIND
• TCP/IP: TCP/IP Stack
• Gnutella: BearShare, LimeWire, XoloX

IP Addresses

Generally speaking, every node on the Internet has a unique address. This address is a number between 0 and 4294967296, and is usually expressed as a number between 0.0.0.0 and 255.255.255.255. This unique identifier is called an IP Address.

IP Addresses are allocated by ICANN in blocks to 3 regional Network Information Centres, then to ISPs and others. There is a weak but real connection between an IP address and a real specific computer, and there are cases where an IP address has been traced back to a specific person. The rise of wireless, dynamic IP addressing and the ready availablility of software to forge an IP address means that this tracing is not always possible or accurate.

Due to historical reasons, IP addresses are not spread evenly throughout the world, but concentrated in the USA and other first world countries. Companies with Class A (more than 16 million addresses) include: Apple, Ford, Mercedes Benz and Stanford University. On the other hand, China has 22 million addresses for the whole country.

Solutions for this problem include sharing addresses (NAT), allocating addresses on a temporary basis from a pool (the way a normal dialup ISP operates) or creating more addresses (IPv6)

Domain Names

IP Addresses are not easy to remember. A large part of the widespread use of the internet in advertising and e-Commerce is due to the fact that it is possible to link a human readable name to a particular IP address. The system that does this is called the Domain Name System or DNS.

African, European and Asian countries already control the root of their trees. .uk. is maintained by www.nominet.org.uk, for example. (Well, more or less. It's a bit complicated. Technically ICANN claims the right to decide which organisation controls which country code. This has lead to small pacific islands finding that they have no control over their own country code, for example, becuase ICANN has given to a commercial US company the right to control and profit from it)

Individual organisations that maintain DNS servers (ISPs, large companies, universities etc) have links to the root DNS servers, which are controlled but not owned by ICANN. If an individual country was to go it alone, then they would have to convince those organisations to add their new alternative root DNS servers to the organisation's list of root servers. If ICANN didn't cooperate, then they would have to convince not only organisations in their own country, but organisations everywhere, worldwide. So far this has proved prohibitively difficult for people trying to set up alternative roots.

It's pure network effect that locks everyone in to ICANN. Everyone uses the DNS tree 'owned' by ICANN because, well, everyone uses it.

ICANN charges the countries for their .uk, .au etc country code top level domains (ccTLDs). It decides whether new top level domains are introduced, like .museum (eg icom.museum). Most of the criticism of this process so far has been that ICANN is neither open, transparent nor accountable.

Recently, ICANN started the process of breaking formal ties with the US Deparment of Commerce, which was generally welcomed. However at the same time ICANN was attempting to create a new top level domain for adult sites called .xxx.

The Deparment of Commerce has intervened on behalf of the Administration and declared that it would not relinquish control over the DNS system - read The Register - Bush Net Policy and now .xxx seemsdead in the water after conservative US lobbying against it.

ICANN should be small, limited to the maintenance of the existing top level domains and delegating the ccTLDs to the respective national governments and should not be dictated to by the US Adminsitration for political purposes and should not try to leverage itself into a supranational Internet governance body has it has been trying to do.

Resources

The Internet as a Postal Service: A fairy tale
Primer
Professor Graham Greenleaf’s Cyberspace: Structure, nature and forms of governance
How Stuff Works’ How Internet Infrastructure Works
How Stuff Works’ How Web Servers Work

Last Updated 28 July 2006

What is hypertext?

Hypertext is what you are using to find and navigate around this page and the information on it. Hypertext has been defined by various authors as `an approach to information management in which data is stored in a network of nodes connected by links' (Smith & Weiss) and as `screens of information not connected sequentially but connected by using associative links' (Stephen & Schreiber). At its simplest it is a technique of computerised cross-referencing, or what one writer called a 'generalised footnote'.

Other useful phrases used to describe hypertext are `non-linear text presentation' and `text navigation systems'.The essence of hypertext is that of a series of nodes of information, connected by links to form a network of information, as illustrated below. The result is that hypertext is non-sequential or non-linear: 'there is no single order that determines the sequence in which the text is to be read' (Jakob Nielsen Hypertext and Hypermedia Academic Press, San Diego, 1990 p3).

In the example below, it is possible for a user to navigate the nodes in the order A, D, C, E as well as in numerous other orders. Node F is equivalent to a table of contents.

A link is from an item of text within a node (an anchor) to another node (ie to the 'top' of that node), or to a target within the same node or within another node.

retrieval01

A small hypertext structure with 6 nodes and 13 links (following Nielsen 1990)

For more technical information, see the following definitions on Whatis.com, and browse some of the associated definitions connected to them (this is a very useful site for checking technical terms). Read as much as you need:

WhatIs 'hypertext'

WhatIs HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) - the standard for creating hypertext pages which can be read by web browsers

Distinguishing features of hypertext

What are the distinguishing features of hypertext? Here are some suggestions, influenced by Nielsen (1990), with some illustrations from AustLII and from the hypertext aspects of this Guide. It's incomplete, but a start:

• Non-linear navigation - Hypertext is a non-sequential (non-linear) means of accessing texts.
• Virtual structures - Hypertext presents different navigation options to the user ('virtual structures'), which may include some or all of the following:
• Associative or lateral structures - Links between text items determined by semantic relationships only. This is the essential type of hypertext link. (eg a link to the meaning of 'convention' in the Racial Discrimination Act 1975)
• Hierarchical structures - Tables of contents, menus and the like.
• Sequential structures - Where information does have a natural sequential order, it can be represented (eg the [Previous] and [Next] buttons to go back and forward between the sections of a statute).
• Overviews - Site maps and other structures to allow users to understand the structure of a whole site.
• 'Fisheye views' - Overviews where the current location is represented in most detail, with the detail receding as the context gets further away.
• Guided tours - Pre-defined useful paths through a site, for purposes such as teaching its use, or to demonstrate an argument.
• User control - Because of the previous features, hypertext allows the user to determine which nodes are accessed, and in which order, at the time of reading. In this way (without getting too post-modern about it) hypertext reduces the authority and control of the author/system designed, and increases that of the reader. But this should not be exaggerated - the user can still only browse within the structures enabled by the system designed (unless user-defined links are supported).
• Bearings - Hypertext structures provide various means to stop users getting lost ('bearings'). These may include:
• Landmarks - Pre-defined nodes which can be accessed at any time. These may be defined by the system (for example, the Netscape icon) or by the user (bookmarks), or may be particular to certain sets of web pages (eg the [Title] button at the top of this page).
• The user's backtrack path or history list - the ability to go back to where you came from (by one step or many), and to see that path represented visually (In Netscape, this is the 'Go' button on the menu bar).
• Current node identification - the ability to see the identity of the current node you are browsing (for example, the title at the top of a Netscape screen), and even better an indication of its context (such as where it sits in the hierarchy of nodes being browsed). (eg see the top line in yellow on any of Nielsen's web pages)
• User configurations - Hypertexts vary in the facilities they provide to increase user control, including:
• Bookmarks are user-created landmarks; creation and saving of bookmarks is now standard.
• User-added links between text items and nodes are one of the most powerful forms of user control (and essential to the ideas of Bush and Nelson discussed below). They are not yet standard on the web, but are available in many disk-based hypertext systems.
• User annotations to nodes / text (and links to and from them) are not yet standard either.
• Saved history lists in order to preserve a valuable path of research are often available.

Many of the items mentioned above are elements of the essentials of good hypertext design, discussed below.

There is now more general commercial interest in hypermedia, not hypertext per se, where hyper-structures are used to combine text with other media such as sound and image (moving and still). For the moment, the emphasis of legal applications is on hypertext, except in the litigation support context, where most aspects of hypermedia are very relevant.

History of hypertext

Vannevar Bush's 'memex'

Everyone traces the idea of hypertext back to Vannevar Bush's 1945 idea of the `memex`, which he said should operate by association, as the human mind does. He proposed a mechanical (non-digital) device - data on microfilm. See Vannevar Bush 'As We May Think' (Atlantic Monthly, 1945) - a fascinating article, worth a read.

Ted Nelson - 'hypertext' and Xanadu

The term `hypertext' was coined by Ted Nelson in the 1960s as a tern for 'non-sequential writing': see Elain Chain in 'Ted Nelson and Project Xanadu'.

In Ted Nelson ' A New Home for the Mind?' (Datamation Magazine, 1982), he described his `Xanadu' project. Parts of Xanadu were to include a hypertext corpus of the whole of English literature, which it involved users creating their own links or `trails' between documents, and the data was to be distributed across vast networks.

See Xanadu Australia for lots more, including the Xanadu archives, and material about the concept of 'transclusion'.

Ted Nelson's home page contains lots more, including a very detailed 1999 article surveying the history and purpose of Xanadu, his summary of which starts as follows:

Project Xanadu, the original hypertext project, is often misunderstood as an attempt to create the World Wide Web. It has always been much more ambitious, proposing an entire form of literature where links do not break as versions change; where documents may be closely compared side by side and closely annotated; where it is possible to see the origins of every quotation; and in which there is a valid copyright system-- a literary, legal and business arrangement-- for frictionless, non-negotiated quotation at any time and in any amount. The Web trivialized this original Xanadu model, vastly but incorrectly simplifying these problems to a world of fragile ever-breaking one-way links, with no recognition of change or copyright, and no support for multiple versions or principled re-use. Fonts and glitz, rather than content connective structure, prevail.

Much of Nelson's idea has this is now become reality - the World Wide Web (though Nelson is reported to have responded to the web as 'nice try').

Apple's Hypercard and the Hypertext '87 Conference (1987)

Englebart demonstrated a hypertext system in 1968, but there was little commercial interest for another decade, although there were various experimental systems (including Nelson's). High interest in hypertext only dates from Apple's 1987 release of Hypercard, and the Hypertext '87 Conference.

Jakob Nielsen reports on one of the early seminal conferences in Hypertext'2 Trip Report (York, U.K., 1989), including on the current state of Nelson's Xanadu.

Tim Berners-Lee and the World-Wide-Web

Meanwhile, the most significant practical development of hypertext was taking place at CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Switzerland, where Tim Berners-Lee (now Director of the World-Wide-Web Consortium - W3C) developed the basic ideas of the web from 1989.

See A Little History of the World Wide Web (1989-1995) at the W3C site, plus as much more About The World Wide Web as you can cope with.

Other references

Jakob Nielsen's Short History of Hypertext

Principles of hypertext design, and usability studies

Before considering how hypertext has been used with legal information, it is necessary to consider general aspects of what constitutes hypertext and good hypertext design.

Jakob Nielsen is a pioneer of hypertext design, and useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Website is one of the best starting points on 'suable information technology'. Here are some key pieces by Nielsen on the design and usability of hypertext, and some general references:

Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox May 1996), subsequently revisited in 1999, and then updated by The Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, May 30, 1999) and Who commits them (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, May 16, 1999)

For contrast, read the Ten Good Deeds in Web Design (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 3, 1999)
'Why Frames Suck (Most of the Time)' - Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox (December 1996)
Report From a 1994 Web Usability Study, revisited in Changes in Web Usability Since 1994 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for December 1, 1997)

Reviews of Neilsen's book Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity (2000) [the book is not on the web] make it clear that there are a lot of people out there who agree with Nielsen's approach.

• The Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability (All of Nielsen's bi-weekly columns)

For a discussion of how ideas similar to those of Nielsen are implemnented in a large-scale legal system, see Philip Chung, Daniel Austin, and Andrew Mowbray In defence of plain HTML for law: AustLII's approach to standards [1999] CompLRes 11 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference). Note in particular the Ten usability heuristics. (Also published as Chung P et al, 'A Defence of Plain HTML for Law:AustLII's Approach to Standards', 2000 (1).The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT))

For a contrast to Neilsen's approach, see David Siegel Web Wonk - Tips for Writers and Designers - A typographer's approach to HTML, very different from that taken by Nielsen (and the antithesis of the approach taken by web sites such as AustLII).

For other references on hypertext design, see Elliot Chabot Thoughts on Web Design (1998) - by the designer of the US House of Representatives Internet Law Library; includes a lot of practical suggestions and links to tools and other valuable sites on web design, as well as comments on web design.

On Jakob Nielsen page there are 'Recommended other websites', an annotated index on web design

Where is the world-wide-web going? For some interesting (non-compulsory) discussion, see David Siegel The Balkanization of the Web (1996) - as well as being interesting this article contains some fascinating hypertext design features and Jakob Nielsen 'The Future of Hypertext' (1995)

Building large-scale legal hypertexts: Case studies

Lawyers were one of the first professions to make extensive use of hypertext, from the late 1980s, and they may have done so more in Australia than anywhere else. DiskROM's CDs of hypertext Australian legislation were available from the early 1990s. The Guide (UK) hypertext software was used for legal applications from the late 1980s.

Andrew Mowbray's 'Hype' component of the DataLex software was first used in a demonstration at the 1989 'Laws of Australia' inaugural conference - as a dial-up system using a text-based interface. The automation techniques used with Hype later became the basis of AustLII's hypertext markup.

There are three main approaches that can be taken to creating very large legal hypertext systems where rich interlinking of documents is desired:

Document creation: control: Where the creator of the legal source documents exercises a considerable degree of control over their creation according to standards that then allow automated creation of hypertexts. Examples are when offices of legislative drafting, and courts, mark up legislation or cases themselves using markup languages such as SGML or XML. An example is the Tasmanian government's legislation project.

Editorial control: Employ editorial staff to mark up by hand (as HTML, XML or SGML) legal documents that originate from other sources (including OPCs, courts, and authors). Commercial legal publishers (eg Butterworths Online) often do this. See also the LEXUM paper below concerning the Canadian Supreme Court.

Automated mark-up: In the absence of documents with mark-up at source, or the resources to employ large editorial teams, the only alternative is to automate the mark-up process by attempting to recongnise textual regularities in texts that you do not control, and automatically mark-up the data that is available to you.

In practice, few web publishers would use only one of these approaches. For example, AustLII encourages document creators to standardise their document creation as much as possible (while falling short of HTML or SGML tag insertion). Butterworths online employs some automated means as well as a high level of editorial control.

There is no available survey article which gives a history of hypertext in legal applications. However, three of the earliest large web-based systems, Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII) created in 1992, the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), created in 1995 (but with a prior history back to 1985 as the DataLex Project), and Montreal's LEXUM, created in 1994 (now CanLII), are unusual in the extent to which they have documented their approach to building large-scale systems. They are all free access 'Public Legal Information Institutes'.

Cornell, AustLII and CanLII therefore provide three good case studies of the development of large-scale hypertext and retieval systems in a non-commercial environment.

Case study - Cornell LII

The following articles describe the current approach of the Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII):

A background article (with photos of Tom and Peter) from the Cornell Cronicle

Tom Bruce 'Tears Shed Over Peer Gynt's Onion: Some Thoughts on the Constitution of Public Legal Information Providers',2000 (2) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT)

Peter W. Martin 'Impermanent Boundaries - Imminent Challenges to Professional Identities and Institutional Competence' Keynote address given at the BILETA 2000 Conference, April 2000

Tom Bruce 'Public Legal Information: Focus and Future', 2000 (1) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT)

Peter Martin l Legal Information - A Strong Case for Free Content, An Illustration of How Difficult "Free" May Be to Define, Realize, and Sustain(2000) (Link appears to be broken)

Case study - AustLII

The Australasian Legal Information Institute is one of the world's largest free access law sites, and one of the most automated in its approach.

Background

For general overviews of AustLII, see the following:

G Greenleaf "How the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) achieved the free availability of legal information on the Internet"(Transcript of the 'Free the Law' Meeting, 8 November 1999, London) - This speech, with a linked 'slide show', gives a simple explanation of AustLII's philiosophy, technical basis and funding.

Tom McMahon Access to the Law in the Land of Oz (review of the 2nd AustLII Conference on Law via Internet '99) JILT - A Canadian view of AustLII and other Australian developments.

Automation of hypertexts

AustLII's web site now (1999) has over 28 M automatically created hypertext links between pages on the AustLII site, and automatic processing of the cases and legislation it receives into about 1 M separate web pages. It is therefore a leading example of the automated creation of large-scale legal hypertexts. It is still an unusual example of the degree of density in its internal hypertext linking.

The automation of hypertext links was addressed in the DataLex Project (1989-94), and this became the basis of the large-scale automation of hypertext creation on AustLII.

AustLII New Directions in Law via the Internet: The AustLII Papers' [1997] COL 2 explains the approach taken to hypertext automation - see particularly:

www.austlii.edu.au—1.html 'Rich' and automated hypertext - This is a functional description of why automated hypertext creation is necessary and what it attempts to achieve.

2.5. Hypertext markup (in Chaper 2 Managing large scale hypertext databases - AustLII's experience ) - This part describes in more technical detail the process of automated markup of links to legislation references on AustLII. A related process is used for markup of links to case references.

Austin D et al, 'Scalability of Web Resources for Law: AustLII's Technical Roadmap: Past, Present and Future', 2000 (1) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT). (Also available as Daniel Austin and Andrew Mowbray (AustLII) Inside AustLII: the scaleability of web resources for law [1999] CompLRes 7 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference)) - This paper gives the most extensive explanation of AustLII's technical basis and future directions.

Other articles concerning AustLII

Lord Justice Henry Brooke The BAILII Project (Address to the 15th Annual BILETA conference) 2000 (2) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT) - Discusses BAILII (the British and Irish Legal Information Institute) which was established by AustLII.

McCann et al, 'Reconciliation Online: Reflection and Possibilities', 2000 (2) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT) - Discusses AustLII's indigenous law resources

Chung P et al, 'A Defence of Plain HTML for Law:AustLII's Approach to Standards', 2000 (1).The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT))

Case study - CanLII

CanLII is based at the University of Montreal in Québec, Canada. It is involved in a wide range of projects, some with its own software.

The following papers illustrate a variety of aspects of CanLII's approach:

Daniel Poulin, CanLII: How Law Societies and Academia Can Make Free Access to the Law a Reality, 2004 (1) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT).

Daniel Poulin (LexUM, University of Montreal, Canada) A neutral citation standard for case law [1999] CompLRes 38 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference) - see also material on Case Citation Standards.

Daniel Poulin, Alain Lavoie and Guy Huard 'Supreme Court of Canada's cases on the Internet via SGML' - (1997) E Law - Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law, Vol 4, No 3 - this paper explains the advantages of SGML as a markup language for legal documents, and how its use is semi-automated in Canada by the LEXUM team. They also assume that 'chunking' (breaking source documents into manageable parts such as sections of Acts) and automated construction of tables of contents '(construction of tables of link end points') are easy. In fact, these are often the hardest parts of the conversion of poorly structured documents (which OPCs and Courts often supply). Automated methods of giving documents sensible names (to aid retrieval) is also not considered. However, this paper was written before many organisations had experience in this task.

Other approaches to large-scale hypertexts

There are few papers publshed on the creation of large-scale legal hypertexts. The following papers take a variety of approaches:

Bruce Mcleod (Spirit Consulting) 'Information overload equals pattern recognition': Providing relevant information to the Public from Government Funded Legal Web Sites [1999] CompLRes 31 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference) - Discusses innovations at Australia's other large free access legal web site, SCALEplus.

Trygve Harvold (Director, Lawdata, Norway) Commercial legal systems on the Web - Norway's experience [1997] CompLRes 7 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '97" conference) - The head of one of the longest running and most successful legal information systems explains how it balances commercial operations and free public access

Eric Schweighofer Part 8 'Hypertext' in 'The Revolution in Legal Information Retrieval or: The Empire Strikes Back' - 1999 (1) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT) - Provides a brief survey and mentions alternative approaches.

Val Haynes (NiuMedia Pacific Pty Ltd and University of Tasmania) Computerising the law of Papua New Guinea [1999] CompLRes 21 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference) - A very different perspective, the problems of computerising legislation and case law in a developing country.

Hypertext and Legislation systems

Point-in-time legislation

Arnold-Moore T et al, 'Connected to the Law: Tasmanian Legislation Using EnAct', 2000 (1). The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT). (Also published as Jane Clemes (Department of Premier and Cabinet, Tasmania) and Timothy Arnold-Moore (Multimedia Database Systems, RMIT) Connected to the Law: Tasmanian legislation using EnAct [1999] CompLRes 6 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference)) The abstract of the paper states:

EnAct is a legislation drafting, management and delivery system that has been built to enable the Tasmanian Government to provide improved legislation information services to the community. EnAct provides the community with a facility that enables cost effective public access to reliable, up-to-date, searchable consolidated Tasmanian legislation. The 'point-in-time' capability allows users to search and browse the consolidated database as it was at any time since 1 February 1997. Tasmania achieved these goals by automating much of the legislative drafting and consolidation process. This paper discusses why the Tasmanian government implemented EnAct, the concepts behind EnAct, and the technology that makes all of this possible.

Ian Brightwell & Richard Dixon Hughes (DH4 Pty Ltd, NSW) Computerised legislative drafting and access to statutes [1999] CompLRes 8 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference)

Other papers concerning legislation systems

Bruce Mcleod (Spirit Networks, Canberra ) Information overload equals pattern recognition [1999] CompLRes 6 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference)

Michael Pronin (ParlInfo Manager, Parliament of Australia, Canberra) Towards 2001: The Australian Parliament's information on the internet (Paper presented at AustLII's " Law Via The Internet '97" conference)

Hypertext and Case law systems

Mark Burdack (NSW Attorney-General's Department) Automated publication of judicial decisions in New South Wales [1999] CompLRes 10 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference)

Bruce Kercher (Macquarie University) Where the future meets the past: Pre-1900 NSW case law on the web [1999] CompLRes 27 (Paper presented at AustLII's "Law Via The Internet '99" conference)

XML (Extensible Markup Language) - structured data on the web

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is 'the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web'. Definition of XML (Extensible Markup Language) on Wikipedia.See also the related description of CSS (cascading style sheet), which is commonly implemented in XML. 'CSS gives more control over the appearance of a Web page to the page creator than to the browser designer or the viewer. ' Their use is explained by Jakob Nielsen in Effective Use of Style Sheets (Alertbox for July 1, 1997). W3C summarises XML in 10 Points (7, really) , the first of which is 'XML is a method for putting structured data in a text file'. (If you are still keen, the formal W3C also provides a further 4, 739 points)