USD Magazine, Summer 1997

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A s a law intern three years

case of digital signatures, a series of numbers. The private key is kept secret, similar to a PIN number.

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ago, Brad Biddle '97 (J.D.) wrote an article about a new piece of California Internet

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The public key is posted on a data– base where anyone can access it. A secure message can only be encrypted and decrypted using one person's key pair. So, Person A encrypts a message using his private key and sends it to Person B, who then gets Person Ns public key from a database to decrypt the message. Using this technology, Person B can be sure that the document did indeed come from Person A and, with some other functions of the cryptography, that it wasn't altered along the way. While many people may not see the need for such an infra– structure, or for electronic commerce in general, Biddle says it's an industry with great potential. Consider a company that can sell software through the Internet. That company can pro– vide its product directly to the consumer without using a dis– tributor or retailer, cutting costs significantly. But to distribute directly, the company needs to license its software and have the consumer agree to certain contractual terms. If the company can't form valid contracts online, there's a problem. Biddle says his challenge now is to stay ahead of the informa– tion curve. He has been called one of the top 10 lawyers in the world on the topic of digital signature legislation, even though he's not yet a licensed attorney. For the past year, he has been in the rare position of serving as a student on an American Bar Association electronic commerce subcommittee. As a law clerk for Cooley Godward L.L.P., he co-authored a report for the Internet Law and Policy Forum, a consortium of technology companies such as Microsoft and AT&T. Biddle has published articles on digital signatures and elec– tronic commerce in the San Diego Business Journal, Cyberspace Lawyer and Boardwatch Magazine, and a student comment in the San Diego Law Review. These articles have been requested by state legislators around the country and by a meeting of the Unitei:I Nations. Now an associate focusing on cyberspace law issues for Cooley Godward in San Diego, Biddle is studying for the bar exam and reveling in his opportunities. "I feel like I'm moving in circles of people who are influ– encing the development of electronic commerce," he says. "It's quite stunning that it's worked out this way." - Trisha J. Ratledge

legislation for a social responsibility newsletter. Today, Biddle's comments draw the attention of government and business leaders alike, from the United Nations and state legislators to corpora– tions such as Microsoft, MasterCard and AT&T. Soon, the aver– age consumer will be listening to Biddle too. "It's exciting that someone at my level - a law student - could say something that people would listen to," Biddle says. "It's neat to have latched onto a topic and become an expert on something." The topic is digital signatures, a technology that is extremely important to the emerging industry of electronic commerce. Digital signatures are not digital images of a manually signed name. Rather, they use cryptography - the science of keeping messages secure - to "sign" a sensitive document with a long series of numbers. This technology is part of an infrastructure that enables documents to be sent securely over the Internet. Digital signa– tures help assure the recipient that the document did in fact come from the originator and that it wasn't altered during transmission. These qualities are necessary to ensure that a document sent over the Internet is legally binding. Biddle's first article, three years ago, commented on proposed California legislation that copied a Utah bill covering digital signatures and related electronic commerce issues. "The Utah model would have locked into place a certain vision of electronic commerce that I think is wrong," Biddle says. "There was a trend in enacting legislation a lot like the Utah bill. I hope that some of the arguments I 've made have changed the way this legislative steamroller has gone." But why should the average consumer care about legislation concerning technology that is difficult to understand and may not even touch our lives? "Serious consumer rights are at stake," Biddle notes. "If you live in a state that has adopted the Utah model, and someone misappropriates your identity online, you could be liable for potentially unlimited amounts of money. That's a profoundly significant consumer issue." Digital signatures, which are produced using "public key cryptography," help prevent such misappropriation and fraud. With public key cryptography, a user has a "key pair," or a private key and a public key. A key is simply a piece of information; in the

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