From: leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Date: 17 Dec 92 00:48:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: qiclab.1992Dec17.004803.15283
Reply-To: Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: SCN Research/Qic Laboratories of Tigard, Oregon.

mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) writes:

>In article <26Cu03elc3du00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> grjost@uts.amdahl.com (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.

I suggest that you take your own advice. ECPA makes it illegal for
an electronic mail service provider to snoop. It does *not* apply to
internal company email! Else several court cases in recent years would
have been *very* short.



>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
>mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us   |  have to remember that the nucleus of the atom
>                            |  is squishy."
>                            |    -W. Scheider, from a Physics lecture
-- 
Leonard Erickson		      leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com
CIS: [70465,203]			 70465.203@compuserve.com
FIDO:   1:105/51	 Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org
(The CIS & Fido addresses are preferred)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy