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Topics

Durable concept and case-study pages (TOPIC-*). Topics explain doctrines, procedures, and technical ideas; pair them with Law for court opinions and statutes, and with the Glossary for every entity type.

Topic pages are distinct from tags in TAXONOMY.md. Tags classify records; topic pages are evidence-backed knowledge entities with sources and relationships.

Constitutional Doctrine

  • TOPIC-FIRST-AMENDMENT: First Amendment — religion, expression, assembly, and petition rights in U.S. constitutional law.
  • TOPIC-FOURTH-AMENDMENT: Fourth Amendment — protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, including digital surveillance contexts.
  • TOPIC-CODE-AS-SPEECH: Code as Speech — whether software, encryption, or other expressive code receives First Amendment protection.
  • TOPIC-DEVICE-SEARCH: Device Search, Seizure, and Anti-Forensics — device searches (including border inspections) and privacy features that can collide with destruction-of-evidence statutes.

Encryption and Access

  • TOPIC-END-TO-END-ENCRYPTION: End-to-End Encryption and Compelled Access — E2EE messaging/cryptography systems and government efforts to compel access or weaken encryption.

Age Verification and App Distribution

  • TOPIC-APP-STORE-AGE-VERIFICATION: App Store and Operating System Age-Verification Laws — state OS age-signal and app-store parental-consent regimes (California, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama), operative dates, and litigation status.
  • TOPIC-FAIR-USE-VIDEO: Fair Use and Video — U.S. fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107 as applied to video incorporating third-party material.
  • TOPIC-DMCA-TAKEDOWN-RESPONSE: DMCA Takedown and Counter-Notification — notice-and-takedown and counter-notification procedure under 17 U.S.C. § 512.
  • TOPIC-SAFE-HARBOR: Safe Harbor — online service provider liability protections, including copyright safe harbor.
  • TOPIC-INTERMEDIARY-LIABILITY: Intermediary Liability — when platforms, providers, or other intermediaries may be responsible for user or third-party content or conduct.

Computer Crime and Access

  • TOPIC-COMPUTER-FRAUD: Computer Fraud and Abuse — U.S. federal prohibitions on unauthorized computer access and related activity under 18 U.S.C. § 1030.

Technical Topics

  • TOPIC-ONION-ROUTING: Onion Routing — layered encryption and relay design used for anonymity systems such as Tor.
  • TOPIC-KADEMLIA: Kademlia — distributed hash table design used in peer-to-peer overlay networks.
  • TOPIC-DECENTRALIZED-MODERATION: Decentralized Moderation in Censorship-Resistant Networks — Freenet/Hyphanet and GNUnet lessons on spam, trust, and abuse when central content moderation conflicts with censorship resistance.

Case Studies

  • TOPIC-DEVELOPER-SOFTWARE-LIABILITY: Documented Proceedings Involving Software Authors and Operators — inventory of criminal, sanctions, export-investigation, and DMCA proceedings involving people who wrote or operated software.
  • TOPIC-TORNADO-CASH: Tornado Cash Sanctions and Developer Prosecutions — OFAC designations and delisting, Van Loon / Coin Center civil litigation, and U.S. and Dutch developer criminal cases.