NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/alt/comp/acadfre/talk/3716

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-12 | 2.8 KB

Xref: sparky alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:3716 comp.org.eff.talk:7601 comp.security.misc:2191 alt.privacy:2589
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!wupost!gumby!destroyer!mudos!mju
From: [e-mail] (Marc Unangst)
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 03:08:26 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: The Programmer's Pit Stop, Ann Arbor MI
Lines: 42

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Garrett Jost) writes:
>Maybe one day it will be illegal to scan e-mail.  But for now, its not!  Just
>look at Prodigy.

I suggest you get a clue, or at least a competent lawyer, if you plan
to continue sounding like you know what you're talking about.

In the U.S., the ECPA makes it illegal for the system administrator to
read others' e-mail if the users had a reasonable expectation of privacy.  In
fact, the ECPA makes it illegal for *anyone* to read the e-mail if the
users had a reasonable expectation of privacy.  I would venture to say
that the users have a reasonable expectation of privacy on most
existing e-mail systems without specific notices to the contrary.

Prodigy is a poor example, as they have repeatedly told people that
they do *not* monitor e-mail.  Prodigy has other things to dislike,
such as the fact that they censor their public-access bulletin boards
and limit the amount of e-mail you can send, but reading your e-mail
isn't one of them.

>I'll leave on this note:  On many systems, if you mail a letter to a non-
>existent user, the message gets sent back, but a copy also goes to
>"postmaster".  So if you mistype a friend's e-mail address and write
>he/she a very personal message, it isn't very personal anymore, is it?

I would say that if a mail error occurs, the user no longer has a
reasonable expectation of privacy for their message, since it may be
read (if only accidentally) by a sysadmin trying to fix the problem.
Encrypt your mail if you don't want it read by others.

Encrypting sensitive mail is a good idea anyway.  Even if a law makes
something illegal, if the law is difficult (or impossible) to enforce
people will do it anyway.  The ECPA says it's illegal to listen to
cellphone calls, too, but lots of people do it anyway because unless
they use the information thus gained, there is no real way the law can
be enforced.

--
Marc Unangst, N8VRH         | "Of course, in order to understand this you
[e-mail]   |  have to remember that the nucleus of the atom
                            |  is squishy."
                            |    -W. Scheider, from a Physics lecture