Re: Another round of viruses - encrypted this time

[Danny Sauer <sauer@cloudmaster.com>]

mike808@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
>>In either case, using "my" resources implies agreement with "my" rules, 
>>whether "my" is the company I work for or literally me.  If I was an 
>>ISP, the situation would be similar, as there exist any number of 
>>reasons that I may need to examine the contents of messages that are 
>>using ISP resources.  I'll agree that you've got a little more to stand 
>>on there due to a "reasonable assumption of privacy" or some junk.
> 
> 
> OK, you certainly can take that stance. But then, if I send child pr0n through
> your server, well, it is *your* file, *you* own it, *you* posess it, and *you* 
> are *responsible* for what gets stored on your server, intentional or not.
> And pointing the finger at whoever put it there is not an excuse. Just like you
> are responsible for long distance calls and 900 charges on your phone, whether 
> you knew your children or visitors or cordless phones on the same frequency 
> were making them or not.

Remind me to explicitly disable relaying from valuenet. :)  I'm sampling 
data passing through my equipment in order to determine its actual or 
potential performance impact, not to detect legality or illegality.  I'm 
fine with being liable unless I can show who did it - just like in that 
apt phone example.  My mail server also logs the connecting IP address, 
as does everyone else's.  "The content came from that address - go track 
*them* down, supercop."  Heh, I need to record that soundclip and 
somehow make my doorbell play it...

Anyway, the internet is a public network.  Anything displayed in public 
is public information, even if the person doing said displaying didn't 
sign a waiver.  See "people who've had compromising photographs taken by 
photographers located in public places" for reference.  Email is sent in 
public through an undetermined set of machines whose only function is to 
*read* those public messages and deliver them appropriately.  If mail 
goes through my machine, I'm not doing anything illegal to accept that 
message (as I would be if I, say, tapped the phone line outside or 
hijacked DNS).  I guess that, if I send a postcard with child porn on 
it, anyone who looks at it and continues to transport it is breaking the 
law?  Does the postman get arrested if he's caught with it in his 
temporary possession?  Email is a postcard, not a phone call.  I'm the 
postman whom you trust to not read your postcard except possibly to 
verify the address of the recipient, or to count how many cards your 
neighbor's getting from that guy in the Bahamas.

>>--Danny, who doesn't generally read people's email, BTW, but could if he 
>>wanted to
> 
> I hope you have a contract with those people that explicitly grant you 
> this ability in writing.

Does having the "I read your email" bumper sticker 
(http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/stickers/36e8/) on my car count? ;)

Anyway, I do have such a contract with coworkers.  My home service is 
free to a select group of people who aren't sue-happy *and* aren't doing 
anything illegal.  I'm not worried.  "Real" ISPs might worry, but I 
personally don't.

--Danny, trying to keep laws and ethics separate

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