LegalHackers.org related research and development activities at law.MIT.edu, the Media Lab and MIT

The emerging topic area of "Computational Law" is being developed at MIT and with partners in connection with data science and "computational social science" being pursued by Professor Sandy Pentland and the MIT Human Dynamics Lab.

• More at: https://youtu.be/G2_1I9aUwgs
• More, generally, at http://law.mit.edu

The Human Dynamics group is planning to offer the inaugural "FutureLaw" course this fall, which will include a heaping helping of themes and examples also addressed by Legal Hackers. Massachusetts Legal Hacker Dazza Greenwood will be one of the course instructors

• Draft course description here: https://github.com/mitmedialab/LegalHackers/blob/master/MITFutureLawFall2017H1-DRAFT-Course-Description.pdf

Dazza Greenwood is on the editorial board for an upcoming compilation of articles in a special issue open access journal titled: "Computation, Law and the Net". Content in this issues is likely to be of interest to various individuals affilaited with Legal Hackers and perhaps some members of Legal Hackers will be interested to contribute an article.

• More info here: http://law.mit.edu/blog/computation-law-and-net

We are convening a regular "Black Mirror Legal Discussion Group" to do screenings of cool episodes and facilitate discussion of the legal fact patterns and related conundrums raised by the scenarios postulated in each episode. This is part of the general drive toward constituting "Computational Law" as a new area of research, development, scholarship and entrepreneurship at MIT and with some partners/

• More info here: https://computationallaw.org/popular-tv-as-a-tool-for-thinking-about-the-future-of-technology-law-society-59ae9c14aa30

The CoreID research project is exploring business, legal and technical dimensions raised by providing individuals a digital "Core Identity" of their own. This project has rapidly prototyped a blockchain enabled individual identity and digital signature open source application. This prototype will be used for testing the capabilities and suitability of decentralized blockchain public infrastructure to provide individual identity services for any person on the web.

• More on the research project (including links to code demo videos and Legal Hacker meetup sessions on extending this topic): https://law.mit.edu/blog/core-identity-blockchain-project
• GitHub Repository of JOSE Based Prototype: https://github.com/mitmedialab/TrustCoreID and GitHub Pages URL: https://mitmedialab.github.io/TrustCoreID
• GitHub Repository of BitCoin Core Library based Prototype: https://github.com/alexfigtree/CoreID/
• Native American Digital Sovereign Identity scenario: https://github.com/mitmedialab/DigitalIdentitySessions/wiki/Topic-Page-for-Native-American-Digital-Identity

There will be a mock trial this fall at some point exploring practical admissibility and enforceability aspects of cryptographic digital signatures, attestations and "verified claims" executed with the public/private key pairs associated with a person's blockchain address and hence ensuring a digital signature on any electronic contract or other record can be publicly verifiable by reference to information accessible via a public blockchain to any person, any time. This mock trial uses the CoreID prototype code. Massachusetts Legal hackers is doing a walk-through on July 12th.

• More on the Mock Trial here: https://mocktrial.github.io/BlockchainDigitalSignatures-2017

We are holding a digital identity and law unconference with lightning talks on July 24 at the Media Lab.

• More here: https://github.com/mitmedialab/DigitalIdentitySessions/wiki

We are developing a "Blockchain Briefing Book" for lawyers, law firms and legal professionals under Creative Commons license.

• More info and initial artifacts here: https://github.com/mitmedialab/BlockchainBriefingBook

The law.MIT Research Team was honored to join with the Office of Congressman Schweikert, The Chamber of Digital Commerce, and The DC Blockchain Center for a constructive afternoon of off the record discourse on defining blockchains and smart contracts in federal legislation.

• More at: http://mit.edu/blockchain/

• http://law.mit.edu/blockchain
• https://twitter.com/thelawchain