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Lawyers are the New I.T.: Tech Tips for Legal Professionals

As workplaces embrace modern technology more than ever before, knowledge of that technology is essential. No matter your job, employees must possess some amount of technical skill in order to maintain efficiency and complete their tasks. Even the most traditional law firms in the United States use some amount of technology. However, no matter if you work at a more traditional firm or one that has gleefully embraced legal tech, we can all become more advanced and efficient with our technology.

From increasing efficiency to protecting your business (and your clients), these tech tips will help ensure your firm is offering the very best.

Embrace New Tech

This may sound simple, but embracing new technology is one of the best ways to stay efficient and safe in the workplace. No, you don’t have to buy new computers every six months, but being aware and researching new programs can give you an edge over the competition. Find out what software can help automate your tasks, or what legal tech program saves your firm valuable time.

The best businesses are all embracing the technology that is available to them. However, change can certainly be scary. After all, many of us learned to work from home, using new software and programs that we weren’t used to. It was undoubtedly stressful to learn so many new programs in a short amount of time. But after a bit, we got used to it. We mastered the new technology, and are more efficient and successful because of it. Using new technology can be daunting, but it undoubtedly helps yourself and your business in the long run.

Update, Update, Update

Updating your software is one of the most important (and easiest) tech tasks to complete. We’ve all seen them and occasionally ignore them. Restarting a device in the middle of a workday can certainly be annoying, but it’s vital to do so. Software updates patch security holes and other vulnerabilities in your software. And as we’ve seen with the numerous ransomware attacks this year, cybercriminals will find these vulnerabilities and exploit you and your business without hesitation. Updating your operating systems and security software will give you more protection against these threats.

Take Advantage of Free Trials

Many legal tech providers offer free trials of their products for firms. Use them! Test out new programs often to see if it works for your firm. Don’t become complacent simply because you’re used to a certain software. If there’s software that fits your firm’s needs better, try it out.

Technology has never been stagnant; it advances quickly, and new programs that maximize efficiency can come quickly as well. Being open-minded about new programs and software will help ensure your firm is as efficient as possible. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should change your entire firm’s software every week, but learning about and testing out new programs will keep you knowledgeable about the technology that could potentially help your firm. And when a new program comes out that works perfectly for your workplace, you’ll be the first to take advantage of it.

Learn Your Technology

Most of us know the basics of computers and common software, but there are so many more things to learn. From the classic “Ctrl + C” and “Ctrl + V” for copying and pasting to the most advanced Excel commands, there are so many ways to maximize efficiency with shortcuts. Take an afternoon to learn and practice shortcuts that can help your efficiency at the office. And when your business upgrades to new software, learn that software quickly as well! Learning the ins and outs of programs can save you hours per day, leaving more time available for other projects.

In addition to learning about your technology, you should learn what to do when the technology suddenly stops working. From Internet outages to hardware malfunctions, be aware of common troubleshooting techniques to help prevent costly, efficiency-killing problems throughout the office. Learning these techniques can save you both time and money.

Backup Your Documents

Unfortunately in today’s digital era, online documents are constantly in jeopardy. Security holes, data breaches, and cybercriminals all pose a threat to data in the cloud. The solution? Make sure your data is available offline. This means putting your documents (yes, all of them) onto a physical hard drive, safe from online dangers.

In addition, you should update your hard drive often. Don’t make it a one-and-done task; update your hard drive monthly. This ensures that all of your data, including your most recent documents, are safe and secure from cybercriminals and ransomware attacks. After all, they can’t hold your data hostage if you already have it offline. So while this is a monthly task that takes some time, it gives yourself and your business peace of mind, with the knowledge that your data will always be available.

Encrypt Your Data

Finally, to truly protect your data, encryption is the way to go. Encryption changes your data into a code, and can only be accessed with a “key” to that code. This means if hackers got ahold of your encrypted data, they would have nothing of value. It really is the ultimate form of protection from cybercriminals and data breaches.

However, not all encryption is built the same. For example, AXEL Go, AXEL’s file-sharing and cloud-storage software, offers industry-leading AES 256-bit encryption. While 256-bit encryption may not sound impressive, in practice, it is astoundingly secure. The number of potential combinations to find the “key” is a massive 78-digit number. Experts estimate it would take the world’s fastest supercomputer billions of years to find the encryption key. So even if thieves got their hands on your encrypted data, it’s worthless to them, but usable for you.

Get Two Free Weeks of AXEL Go

If you’re ready to embrace new technology and protect your data, try two free weeks of AXEL Go. AXEL Go is a file-sharing software with an unwavering focus on security. AXEL Go lets employees share, store, and collect documents securely, all in a simple, easy-to-understand user interface. Offering blockchain technology, military-grade encryption, and digital “shredding,” AXEL Go offers the perfect marriage of simplicity and stringent security. To try AXEL Go for free for two weeks, click here.

How to Rebuild Trust in Tech

It’s safe to say that reality has not lived up to the utopian vision of a highly advanced technological society. The optimism present in the 80s during the microchip boom and again in the 90s with the internet revolution has given way to a rather dreary outlook. This pessimistic view has various causes, including the proliferation of mass surveillance systems and the overall erosion of fundamental privacy rights. Can this be fixed? AXEL believes it can, but tech corporations will have to pursue alternative business models and practices for it to happen.  Let’s look at how we got into this mess and how we can get out of it.

Initial promise leads to technocratic dystopia?

So, where did this pessimism come from recently? After all, it was only a decade ago that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was touting his social media platform as a way for people all over the world to connect meaningfully. Social media and the convenience of Big Tech services were supposed to advance the human race. And, for a while, it appeared like they might. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter helped facilitate significant historical events, such as the 2010 Arab Spring[1]. However, as the years passed, it became apparent that these services had a darker side.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal first reported on in 2015 was the tipping point. It’s where Facebook got caught selling vast amounts of its users’ personal information to the data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica. This firm used the data in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 United States elections. While it is unknown exactly how successful this was (after all, Ted Cruz’s ill-fated campaign was the first to use this data), what was obvious is that Facebook collected and sold an alarming amount of information without consent.

Looking back, people should have known all along. Enormous tech platforms require thousands of skilled employees and significant backend infrastructure to maintain. Since they are typically free to use, how do they make money? Personalized advertising due to mass surveillance.

Trust in Big Tech hits all-time lows

Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, education regarding how Big Tech analyzes and sells data has improved. The average consumer now understands that there shouldn’t be an expectation of privacy when using these services. In fact, according to a 2020 survey, over 85% of people are “very concerned” about how companies like Facebook and Google handle their personal data[2]. We feel this is a great trend, but there will need to be an aggressive demand from consumers for better privacy protections for any actual progress. The unfortunate truth is that even if there is a tacit understanding of the current reality, consumers either feel trapped in the situation or are otherwise willing to put up with the status quo.

This is evidenced by a 2019 panel discussion where business leaders and academics talked about the ethics of data collection[3]. Throughout the roundtable, the majority of the audience and the panel itself agreed to give up their privacy for small monetary benefits.

We believe this line of thinking is short-sighted and naïve. One point that kept coming up was that most trusted the firms collecting their data not to misuse it and to protect it. We know from countless stories that neither of these assumptions is prudent. Not only will companies sell data without consent, but they can’t guarantee hackers won’t pilfer it illicitly. Even organizations spending adequate resources on cybersecurity get compromised routinely. Many of the largest businesses in the world have had terrible breaches. Putting that kind of faith in Big Tech’s trustworthiness will only end in disappointment.

The way forward

As a company that values user privacy, here are our tips for ushering in a new era of tech that delivers on the optimistic vision of previous generations:

Opt-in for advertising rather than opt-out. So far, organizations attempting to remedy privacy concerns have relied on providing opt-out clauses for data collection. We feel this puts the burden on the consumers, who tend to be busy. Most people don’t read privacy policies or want to click through a maze of links to get to the opt-out page. Privacy should be the default. If there really are benefits worthy of people giving up their personal info, the company should state their case clearly and provide a link to opt-in to the advertising.

Move away from free-to-use business models. We’ve covered this topic in a previous blog, but it’s a necessary shift if people truly value privacy. Free software and services create bad incentives to misuse data because it’s the only way to monetize users. This can be alleviated by normalizing paid software again. Consumers didn’t always have the expectation of free software. With a coordinated education outreach, paid software may make a comeback.

Transparency. One of the most disturbing aspects of the Cambridge Analytica scandal was that Facebook sold information without consent. If an organization wants to offer free services to those who opt-in to personalized advertising, it should go the extra mile and be transparent about how it uses that data. This would lead to fewer surprises and major scandals. Users could make informed decisions and weigh the tradeoffs accordingly.

AXEL leads the way

At AXEL, we provide data storage and sharing solutions that prioritize privacy and security. Not only is our leading platform, AXEL Go, built with secure implementations of blockchain technology, decentralized servers, and robust encryption, but our entire data collection policy centers around the philosophy that less is more. Just take a look at AXEL Go compared to other popular cloud drives. AXEL does not collect data linked to your identity. Period.

You can sign up for a free trial of our Premium AXEL Go service today and get the peace of mind that nobody is mining your content or selling your data. We can bring about change together. Join the privacy revolution.

Jose Antonio Vargas, “How an Egyptian Revolution Began on Facebook”, The New York Times, Feb. 17, 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/books/review/how-an-egyptian-revolution-began-on-facebook.html

[2] Allen Bernard, “Most consumers do not trust big tech with their privacy”, TechRepublic, July 29, 2020,  https://www.techrepublic.com/article/most-consumers-do-not-trust-big-tech-with-their-privacy/

[3] “How can we rebuild trust in the digital world? A discussion with Professor Michael Sandel”, Fujitsu.com, May 16,2019, https://www.fujitsu.com/global/vision/insights/201905event/

Q&A With The Developers Of AXEL IPFS

We sat down with AXEL’s development team to discuss their AXEL IPFS Pinning Facility.

Q: What inspired you to develop AXEL IPFS?

The next evolution of computing is distributed. IPFS or something very similar is going to be the basis of distributed storage. The AXEL IPFS integration into our ecosystem has given us a worldwide public distributed storage system to build practically anything on top of including AXEL IPFS Pinning, AXEL IPFS Search, and many other services to come. AXEL is building a very strong foundation in distributed storage and will be a leader in the next evolution of Web 3.0!

Q: What excites you the most about AXEL IPFS?

AXEL IPFS will allow our users to immediately and securely distribute their data around the world for personal or business use. AXEL will be fostering the movement from centralized to decentralized computing and AXEL IPFS is the start of the process. For AXEL users, they can share files or even distribute website information with IPFS. It is very exciting to bring Web 3.0 technology to the masses. AXEL has made it super easy to use, which is very important when you want to increase the adoption of complex technologies like IPFS.

Q: Do you see a future for IPFS and what industries will adopt it first?

Web 3.0 will be distributed. IPFS seems likely to be a core technology of Web 3.0 and the distributed Internet. Right now archivists, service providers, researchers, developers, and content creators have begun to adopt IPFS to address many problems caused by centralized computing. IPFS also addresses many issues around high-latency networks found in developing countries. Even NASA is using similar systems to address the high-latency involved in space communications. So there is a lot going on in this field. With that said, though, it is still very new. AXEL is bringing this technology to users today by making it secure and easy to use so anyone can take advantage. I think it will be interesting to see how IPFS develops and is integrated into more and more consumer products. 

Q: What industries will IPFS be the death blow for? Is there a future for cybersecurity in a distributed web?

I do not think we are talking extinction but evolution. Current centralized systems will evolve into decentralized/distributed systems as users demand the flexibility, security, and efficiency of decentralized/distributed systems. The only companies that will go extinct are those that fail to evolve or evolve without taking into account customer needs. And as far as cybersecurity goes, as long as we use computers and the human condition remains as it is, cybersecurity will also be a lucrative and in-demand career.

Q: How much will AXEL IPFS cost to use?

The IPFS is the backbone for our private, secure file-sharing and cloud storage platform; AXEL Go. You can sign up for a free Basic account and receive 2GB of online storage and enough network fuel for hundreds of typical shares. Power users or enterprise customers have a choice of pricing tiers to accommodate their specific needs. 

Q: Is IPFS the death of HTTP?

In the computer industry, protocols die hard. As much as we want to criticize the problems with centralized computing, it has provided one of the greatest revolutions in mankind’s history. Never before have so many had access to almost the entire world’s knowledge. Individuals and entrepreneurs have tapped into this knowledge to develop some incredibly cool tech over these past 20 years. So, HTTP has been a great success, and it will not disappear quickly. But as 5G becomes more prevalent and developing countries increase their demand for data, decentralized and distributed technologies will be selected as the protocol over HTTP. It is also interesting to note that Tim Berners-Lee who created the HTTP protocol and the World Wide Web is now working on the next distributed/decentralized protocol. It is one of the greatest qualities of humans, we never stop creating.

Q: Do you have any concerns that content on IPFS can’t be removed or censored?

Yes, absolutely. There are clearly certain types of information that are not suited for publication anywhere at any time, such as child pornography or sex trafficking. Universally, this type of abhorrent information has no place on IPFS or anywhere else on the internet for that matter. When it is so universal and clear-cut like this, AXEL will do everything in its power to prevent this content from being listed on IPFS.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of developing AXEL IPFS?

The IPFS is still actively being developed and there are always difficulties with anything new and in-development. But otherwise, I have been developing technology for over 30 years and with that experience, you learn how to be diligent and get it done the right way.

Q: What does AXEL IPFS do that sets it apart from any other IPFS platform?

We believe our IPFS integration is the most easy-to-use, intuitive solution on the market. In the past, IPFS pinning required extensive technical knowledge or expensive third party services. We’ve eliminated both barriers and made utilizing this decentralized technology simple and affordable. For instance, with AXEL Go, the process isn’t any more complicated than using other popular cloud storage and sharing applications. And it doesn’t get much more affordable than a free Basic account! 

Q: How can someone help or participate in the project?

Join us on Discord or Telegram and get involved. Telegram has a lot of great community activity and Discord is where the Devs hang out. Come chat with us! There are so many ways to get involved, ask any of the channel admins and they’d be happy to help!

The Distributed Future

According to Blade Runner, we only have 7 months left for the invention of sentient androids, but that seems unlikely at this point (I’m still hoping though). And we’re already four years late for Back to the Future’s flying cars and hover-boards. 

Looking back, all of these predictions seem a little bit silly in comparison to how fast technology has actually progressed. We don’t have androids, we don’t have flying cars, we don’t even have a printer that works without having to beg and plead for it to just print your document correctly for once. Physical tech has lagged behind our predictions. No matter how hard we work, there’s only so efficient you can make a chemical process, like the one that powers the batteries any of this tech would require. 

But what hasn’t slowed down… is digital technology. Smaller, lighter, and faster than anybody ever imagined even 30 years ago. Look at Blade Runner, they had sentient androids and still worked with magnetic tape recordings for data storage, not exactly a great prediction there Ridley Scott… 

The computing power in your cell phone dwarfs even the most advanced supercomputer of the early 1990s. And it doesn’t take up an entire warehouse and enough power to run a small town. And all you use it for is to watch cat videos on Youtube… really? 

So in a world where we’re all carrying around a supercomputer in our pocket, what are we going to do with it? (And please… don’t just say watch more cat videos, yes I know they’re adorable but come on, aim a little higher, please?) Why not run the internet ourselves? 

When we’re all running around with supercomputers, why should we be putting our trust in these large tech conglomerates when they’ve continually shown themselves, at best as ambivalent and at worst as downright negligible when it comes to our data privacy. Every other day it seems like there’s a new data breach, hack, or the company itself selling our private data to advertisers. They haven’t earned our trust, and even if they did at some point, they’ve certainly lost it by now. 

But we don’t have to anymore. We aren’t beholden to big tech if we are willing to take the plunge and dive into the distributed web. A web like our predecessors in the 80s imagined it, free to surf, send, and share without someone looking over your shoulder. A web free of censorship, where the only boundaries are our imaginations. A web hosted by people for people, not advertisers and tech monopolies. 

The distributed web is not the web like you’re used to though. It’s not some massive server farm hidden away in a warehouse, its independent server operators sharing the network load among them. It’s every one of us having the opportunity to participate in the governance of the internet. It’s freedom from control and freedom from censorship. 

It’s not just about escaping big tech though; it’s about building something better. Joining the distributed web doesn’t mean you don’t get to share photos and videos with your friends, it means sharing content in a way that doesn’t compromise your data privacy. It’s about creating a web where you are in ultimate control of your data, your privacy, and your life. 

Welcome to the future of the internet.

AXEL IPFS Is Out Now

Two weeks ago we released the AXEL Wallet, the window into our blockchain and the basis of everything we plan to do. And now, it’s only getting better!

Not only have we released one of the best-designed blockchains on Earth, but we also integrated it with the most advanced IPFS platform out there. You no longer have to make a choice between privacy or convenience, you can have both. There already are ways to stay private online, but privacy often comes at the cost of your experience and is inconvenient. AXEL IPFS is the best of both worlds, it’s secure and encryption-enabled, while still being fast and free!

But more important than just the technology of the distributed web is the team who built it. No matter how great their product is, would you really want one of those big-tech conglomerates, who have continually monitored you, sold your data and abused your trust, starting the distributed web? Do you really trust them to have your best interest at heart? While they may have the right technology, their past behavior should make you wary of trusting them with something as important as the distributed web.

Unlike most tech companies our business is not in advertising, we don’t host ads and we don’t sell data. Our business is privacy; specifically, your privacy. It has always been our business and it always will be.

That’s why we started this project. Our entire company is based around privacy and data custody. For over a decade, our team has been working on products to give you back your data, and give you the option to divorce yourselves from the surveillance-web that’s been forced upon us by big tech. Every product and project we’ve worked on has been building towards this moment.

The distributed web is no longer something to talk about as something that’s coming, it’s here. We built it, for you. AXEL IPFS is already the most advanced IPFS-integrated blockchain, and it’s just going to keep getting better with time! But now it’s your turn, show us what you can do with it, how you’d live your life, free from surveillance and censorship.

Welcome to the future of the internet, welcome… to AXEL IPFS.