Technology Services

Please note that these materials are provided for historical purposes only. The information presented is out of date and may be neither accurate nor useful. External hyperlinks may no longer be valid. For current court technology information, please see the new Court Technology Bulletin.

May/June 1995 Volume 7 Number 3

Take a Walk on the Web Side

The World Wide Web (WWW, or simply "Web") is the most exciting and rapidly expanding area of the Internet, the worldwide network of computers. Indeed, some postulate that no form of communication in history has grown as fast as the World Wide Web. Since its development in 1991, the Web and Web traffic have grown by a factor of ten each year. A year ago there were 1,000 web sites; today there are 10,000.

What is the Web? The Web is a collection of sites on the Internet that contain documents that can be linked together. A document at one site can easily be linked to any other document, even one located on a computer on the other side of the world. The Web forms a global hypertext-based system on the Internet that enables a user to access resources on the Net by using a mouse and instead of typing a series of command lines.

Why is the Web so popular? Perhaps the foremost reason is that the Web supports not only text, but audio, video, and images as well. A powerful host computer can also support searching. Another reason for the popularity of the Web is that setting up a Web site is relatively easy and inexpensive.

A quick review of the Internet network will help put the Web in context before exploring its possibilities for the courts. The Internet, or "Information Superhighway," has two core components: protocols and client/server architecture. Protocols are standards that allow the millions of interconnected computers on the network to exchange information. The base protocol or standard of the Internet is TCP/IP, or Telecommunications Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. This standard defines how the data flows from one machine to the next. Another protocol, SMTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, dictates how electronic mail, or e- mail, is to be addressed, sent, and received over the Internet. FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, allows files to be transported from one computer to another. And finally, HTTP, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol, defines how data is to be formatted for use on the World Wide Web. These standards allow computers on the Internet to talk to each other.

The second core component of the Internet is client/server architecture. No one machine on the network does all the work; rather, the processing is distributed among client computers (those requesting information) and server computers (those supplying the information). A client program running in one computer matches up with a server program operating on a remote computer to complete the data exchange.

On the Web, HTML is a tagging language that allows simple ASCII text to be translated by Web client programs (also called "Web browsers") into formatted text. For example, a tag like <title> appearing before and after a phrase would be translated by the Web browser to display that phrase in a larger type font and in a color different than that used for regular text.

Another feature of HTML is its capacity to support embedded references to other Web sites, to image and audio files, or to documents on other computers. A document written in HTML and running at a site with the appropriate Web server software is called a "homepage." The computer addresses of homepages or their embedded information are called "URLs," or uniform resource locators. A URL gives the filename, file directory, and computer where the information is located.

Embedded references appear as highlighted text on a homepage, and when clicked on, allow the user to "jump" or "hypertext" to other information. This information may reside on the computer running the server software, but it also may reside on a hard drive half a world away.

Homepage authors can be extremely creative. Indeed, writing in HTML, with its image and sound support, has been called a new kind of expression. The White House homepage, for example, not only has pictures of the Clintons and the state dining room, but also includes an audio message from Al Gore and a meow from Socks. The National Center for State Courts’ homepage has pictures of its headquarters, the Court Technology Laboratory, Courtroom 21, and Court Technology Programs staff, and, on a lighter side, the Obsolete Computer Museum. (See page 12 for information about setting up a homepage.)

Connecting to the Web can be done in several ways, but not every method of connection supports audio and graphics. A standard UNIX shell account allows a user to dial into a host computer via modem. This account supports LYNX, a non-graphical Web browser that will display only homepage text. Newer Windows programs, such as TIA, the Internet Adaptor, and Slipknot, support graphics but not interactivity. Major on-line services such as Prodigy also have a Web browser.

A direct connection or a SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point to Point Protocol) connection allows full access to the Web. The user must run a Windows-based Web browser program to access the Web and display the graphics. A standard sound card will support Web audio. Mosaic, Netscape, and Cello are three popular Web browsers.

Once connected, what's available on the Web? Web sites cover everything from the arts to the sciences, with news, politics, sports, and entertainment thrown in. One of the several law sites on the Web is the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell. The LII homepage has pointers to U.S. Supreme Court opinions as well as to all sorts of federal law, including the U.S. Code, in full text. (See article on page 7.) Hypertext pointers also lead to Italian, German, and Japanese law, resident on computers in those countries. LawTalk at Indiana University will deliver one-minute audio snippets on a variety of topics, from what political correctness is to what to do if you get arrested.

How does a Web surfer locate homepages? There are several search tools now available. The World Wide Web Worm, Lycos, and Yahoo are all homepages that support database searches of other homepages. Yahoo also has an index of homepages arranged by subject, so a user can browse through law homepages as well as search for a particular one.

The World Wide Web holds a great deal of promise for disseminating court information. Court homepages can provide links to opinions and scheduling and docket information. Other links could provide citizens a history of the court, a description of what serving as a juror entails, and a map of the courthouse. Pictures and biographies of the judges and court personnel would help personalize the justice system. An audio clip from the chief justice could welcome users to the court. The Web can make your court an active member of the global village.

James Hambleton is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law Library at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law located in Irving, Texas. He served as faculty for "Introduction to Internet" offered at the Fourth National Court Technology Conference (CTC4).