Pictures from Friday Night's Dinner

The WWM's official dinner, held at the Hotel du Pont, was well attended and well received. The staff of the hotel made us feel very welcome, and the food was quite good. Here are some snapshots from the festivities.

Freddie Mac eMortgage Handbook

CLC member Mike Gordon has alerted us that his employer Freddie Mac has recently issued its eMortgage Handbook. As noted on their Web site:

The use of electronic documents to originate mortgages is increasing. The shift from paper documents with wet ink signatures to electronic documents brings the promise of improved efficiency and higher data quality to the home buying process. Freddie Mac continues to be a notable contributor to this evolution through our participation in industry standards groups.

Since the publication of our Preliminary Specifications for Electronic Mortgage Loan Documentation in 2001, the industry and our planned electronic mortgage (eMortgage) process have transformed. Our current specifications, which we have captured in our eMortgage Handbook, provide greater detail about our requirements for electronic documents in the mortgage loan file, and the care and storage of these documents throughout the life of a loan. The eMortgage Handbook is intended to provide directional guidance to industry participants as they make decisions regarding the use and implementation of electronic documents.

This is an important new area of practice that many of our members can contribute to both in ABA as well as in their 'day jobs.' Note the parallel efforts by our Joint Working Group on Transferability of Electronic Financial Assets, which is on the verge of publishing its white paper (created jointly with the Open Group) on the questions of 'control' in electronic chattel paper (see UCC 9-105). It's an example of the promise of eCommerce that we spoke of so glowingly a few years ago and then began to wonder if it was really going to happen. Well, it is.

Mike notes: "In accessing the Handbook, we only request that members remember that it is copyrighted and that copying or re-printing it in whole or part for distribution outside the Cyberspace Committee will require Freddie Mac's written consent. Certainly, quoting or excerpting with citation or downloading a personal copy is permitted."

Revenue Opportunity -- Product Placement

In reviewing the blog entries, I think I've detected a future revenue opportunity for the Committee--Product Placement.

In nearly every photo, members of the Committee are prominently displaying Coke products. I think we should contact Coca-Cola and ask for some of their ad buy. What do you guys think?

[I'm trying to generate some comments, eh!]

Meeting of High Forehead Working Group

Don, Michael and Hank Showing off their Collective Intellect

UPDATE: I neglected to credit Roland Trope for the photography.

Universal Business Language

Prof. Jane Winn presented Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, who informed many of us who are interested in the development of the Universal Business Language -- An implementation of XML designed to form a common set of business contracting documents.

For a quick bit of fun, check out the international form of their data dictionary, with over 600 standard business terms translated over 6 different languages. (Jon left it to the lawyers and others to try and figure out what happens if people disagree on the translations!)

Sunny and 45 Degrees in Minneapolis

I just wanted to point out to everyone that for the second year (not in a row), it's warmer in Minneapolis than it is in the city chosen for the Winter Working Meeting.

The snow has nearly completed melted, the sun was shining, and it was very much not like Minnesota.

Granted, it's forecasted to be warmer in Wilmington tomorrow than it is in Minnesota, but at least for one day it was nicer here.

Is there any malware in here?

Elizabeth Bowles held a session with members of the Malware Working Group, discussing their ongoing efforts to draft a definitional white paper -- Under the theory that we can't fix that which we can't identify.

Data Security Concerns

Roland Trope presented a short summary of the recent legal developments in data security as part of the Privacy, Security and Data Management subcommittee meeting.

Warren Agin Misses WWM

Warren Agin took special pains to point out that the blog has been somewhat light this year, notwithstanding the fact that he has failed to show up and do his share. I will leave Warren to consider what might happen if a great number of people took the time to observe a randomly chosen IP address such as 216.xxx.40.244. . .

Internet Governance

We decided to try a new method to cover an issue that clearly touches on multiple disciplines (in our multi-disciplinary committee) -- The continuing hot topic of Internet governance. The group is currently working to find a theme that ABA and Cyberspace can contribute to the already busy space in this area.

Two of our members (at least!) attended the recent WSIS meeting in Tunisia, and we heard some of their reporting on the event. The bulk of the discussion centered on what the Tunis meeting left us to figure out, which is the agreed upon international forum.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, John Gregory has posted his own summary of the discussion on the Internet Jurisdiction and Global e-Commerce Subcommittee's Web site. Check it out.