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From: Golden California Girls on 12 Nov 2009 12:37 Rainer Weikusat wrote: > Not really. The NNTP-server itself is just an automatic copying > machine and the person who committed the offence is the person who > originally injected a particular file into this system of > interconnected automated copying machines. Also, since when are > private entities supposed to determine if something is or isn't > 'legally allowed content', according to some random law of the day, > and to actively enforce this law? Shouldn't this be handled by 'law > enforcement'? It is all about cost cutting. Much less cost to the government if they can force a private company to do their work and not have to pay them to do it. Capitalism meets government.
From: Ben Finney on 12 Nov 2009 16:18 Golden California Girls <gldncagrls(a)aol.com.mil> writes: > It is all about cost cutting. Much less cost to the government if they > can force a private company to do their work and not have to pay them > to do it. Capitalism meets government. Also, much less cost to the media corporations since they can buy laws that require ISPs to do that work, and have the government do the work of enforcing them. Everybody wins! -- \ “Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving | `\ nothing for faith.” —Saint Bernard, 1090–1153 | _o__) | Ben Finney
From: David Schwartz on 12 Nov 2009 17:39 On Nov 12, 1:18 pm, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-s...(a)benfinney.id.au> wrote: > Also, much less cost to the media corporations since they can buy laws > that require ISPs to do that work, and have the government do the work > of enforcing them. Everybody wins! Even the big ISPs win, because it costs them less per customer to do this than it costs the small ISPs. DS
From: Rainer Weikusat on 13 Nov 2009 10:08 David Schwartz <davids(a)webmaster.com> writes: > On Nov 12, 4:32�am, Rainer Weikusat <rweiku...(a)mssgmbh.com> wrote: >> This was an idea I actually had on my way to work today: Why isn't 'AC >> Cuomo', supposedly some official with political ambitions and a desire >> to make an impression on the general public without spending money, >> invading post offices, threatening to jail everyone working there, >> since the similarities are so striking? > > The packages are sealed. The content is not exposed to the postal > employee. HTTP content is not exposed to the ISP (although, under > current law, the packet headers are because the ISP is supposed to use > them). USENET content is. HTTP content is as exposed or unexposed as USENET content -- someone who bothers to look at it can see it. The same is true for postal packages except that 'bothering to look at them' would be illegal. This leads to the following decreasing oder of feasibilty for aimless, governmental meddling: - postal service: Protected by law. No chance here. - HTTP downloads: Unprotected. Good. Filtering technically possible. Good. Technically infeasible for ISP. Who Cares. Would negatively affect the majorty. Bad, bad, bad. - NNTP distributed files: Unprotected. Good. Filtering technically possible. Good. Technically infeasible for ISP. Who cares. Relatively unknown service used by a minority of users. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! >> And my somewhat cynic answer to this rethorical question would be: >> Because he isn't allowed to unconditionally screen other people's >> mail while he is allowed to and capable of searching, even in an >> automated way, the files currently residing on a NNTP-server. > > Exactly. The legal obligation to filter for law violations flows from > the right and ability to access and control content. Nobody except an public prosecutor is authorized to really start such an affair because of some particulars (such as file contents) which he knows about, nobody except a court or an officially established censoring agency may decide if the law was actually violated. This implies that whatever employees of an ISP might do, it won't help. The prosecutor might still believe that the law had been violated by a deemed-to-be innocuous file and the authority which is actually supposed to make the descisions may afterwards still decide this way or that way. The actual offender smiles and continues to live happily everthereafter, since nobody even tried to stop the crimes by getting at him.
From: David Schwartz on 14 Nov 2009 13:12
On Nov 13, 7:08 am, Rainer Weikusat <rweiku...(a)mssgmbh.com> wrote: > HTTP content is as exposed or unexposed as USENET content -- someone > who bothers to look at it can see it. That's not the law in the United States. The headers are intended to be used and processed by the ISP. The payload of an HTTP transfer is not. USENET content is destined for the ISP itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act DS |