The Basics and Beyond
Rónán Kennedy reviews a book aimed directly at the legal professional who needs to understand the technology they advise on.
Those who work in law and technology are sure to encounter some aspect of hardware or software that they do not understand, either because it is new or because they simply have not needed to know about it before. In these situations, this book will be a very useful reference. Over 23 chapters, divided into four parts (Computing, Hardware/Software, Data and Programming; Security; Communications; and Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning), the author provides rapid but reasonably detailed sketches of many aspects of information technology.
The back cover describes the writing style as direct and engaging but it is somewhat rapid and demanding, with a great deal of information packed into very factual sentences, although the author’s views and personality shine through at times. There are more general introductory texts on computing that are more of a gentle read, with illustrations and diagrams, and more text devoted to scene-setting and high-level explanation. However, the intended audience for this volume is busy professionals who probably have some existing exposure to technology and need to ‘get up to speed’ on some specific problem domain for a pressing matter, either a piece of research, a business negotiation, or litigation. For that purpose, the book works well. Reading it cover-to-cover would be a challenging proposition, although one that could be beneficial to the reader in the long term.
I have a somewhat technical background, in a variety of roles (programming, web development, network administration) – enough to chuckle at the mention of the debate on the difference between developers and software engineers – and found that there were things I could learn from this text. Some of this was because best practice technology has changed since my primary focus became the legal academy (the move from Master Boot Record to Globally Unique Identifier partition tables in hard disks, for example). Some was because there are new (or at least new to me) technologies that have become quite important: the most obvious example is so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, which is extensively covered. Although I make an effort to keep up to date, I anticipate returning to this part repeatedly to fill the gaps in my knowledge that I am sure remain, and was glad to see that it places technology in a human and social context, acknowledging and exploring issues of transparency, accuracy, and bias.
The foreword states that the author aims ‘to go one step beyond high-level’ and the book succeeds in that. Technologies are presented in sufficient detail to give the reader a little more than a basic understanding but complexities are generally acknowledged although not explored in depth. (Doing so would make the text much longer and more cumbersome.) For example, the discussion of object-oriented programming refers to inheritance and polymorphism, which are key for programmers to understand, but does not explain them, as they are probably not necessary for a lawyer to grasp except in quite complex circumstances.
There is a strong focus on security, with explanations of risks, guidance on how to avoid them, and many examples of failures to encourage adoption of the author’s wisdom. Given how important cybersecurity is and how much more important it becomes as our workplaces and personal lives are digitally mediated, this is very welcome. Legal issues are mentioned from time to time but not discussed in any detail.
On my reading, the text is generally correct, although there are some minor quibbles. At least two of the samples of program code given contain errors, but given that these are intended as illustrative examples rather than something for the user to type in and use, this might not be important. Also, there are no suggestions for additional reading, but this would not be feasible as it would add significantly to the length and require constant updating.
A free PDF addendum is available on the author’s website, containing diagrams and illustrations, and updates to the text.
Overall, this is a very useful book which any busy professional who regularly finds themselves wondering how some new technology that they have just heard of but need to understand works should have to hand.
About the book
- W. Kuan Hon
- Edward Elgar Publishing
- Publication date: 2024
- ISBN: 9781803923925
- 573 pages
Reviewed by Rónán Kennedy, School of Law, University of Galway
