Pleasant@Rutgers.ARPA (04/09/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Saturday, 9 Apr 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 22
Today's Topics:
Technology - EFT (3 msgs),
Computers and the Law - Texas Computer Crime Law (6 msgs) &
Electronic Anklets (2 msgs)
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Date: 5 April 1983 02:56 EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Re: EFTS, Privacy, etc.
Re wear and tear on printers, yup, that's a cost.
Perhaps someday we'll have semiconductor lasers that last for tens
of years without wearing out, and the cost of receipts will go down.
Actually physical receipts are a nuisance, because they occupy space
and can't be copied easily. Better to have a trapdoor-encoded
message you can save in your electronic checkbook and copy to your
personal database when you get home (more likely, the copy to your
home is sent automatically, and a reply is encrypted with your
private home key, and then your electronic checkbook verifies the
signature of your home, so before leaving the store you are sure
your home has a copy of the receipt, which is the only receipt you
really need).
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Date: 1 Apr 83 15:18:52 PST (Friday)
From: Poskanzer.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Subject: Re: ATMs and records
Date: 29 Mar 1983 1715-PST
From: Lynn Gold <FIGMO at KESTREL>
No matter whether or not they keep old records around,
aren't there statutes of limitation which take effect after
a certain period of time after a crime is committed (seven
years or so)?
If this is the case, it wouldn't matter if someone had a
college-days fling that was discovered fifteen years after
they finished college, since it would be too late to
prosecute.
--Lynn
1) I believe the statutes of limitation only apply to criminal
offenses, not civil.
2) They certainly don't apply to "moral" offenses, which our society
delights in persecuting (not prosecuting) for. Remember how
Thomas Eagleton was forced to give up his vice-presidential slot
on the democratic ticket in 1976 when it came out that he had
been treated at a mental hospital?
Just imagine, if McGovern had been elected and then left office for
some reason, we would have had the first president in history to be
certified ->sane<- by the A.M.A.! Obviously unacceptable...
Jef
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Date: 4 Apr 1983 1710-PST
From: Lynn Gold <FIGMO at KESTREL>
Subject: ATMs, confidentiality, and defamation
I've received many messages mentioning Kennedy and Chappaquiddick
(which STILL didn't keep him out of the Senate), and ESPECIALLY Tom
Eagleton and seeking psychiatric help. In the latter case, it seems
to me that people need to be re-educated as to their values
(Eagleton is probably a lot saner than anyone who gave him trouble).
The fact is, though, that most of us have some kind of dirt in our
past which would get dug up by our opponent if we ever ran for
President or many other public offices. One guy in Florida got
defeated by someone who accused him of being a "philatelist" and "a
practicing homo-sapiens."
I'm convinced it's the IMAGE a candidate plays up that can make or
break an election. Reagan was caught telling derogatory jokes about
blacks, yet he got away with it by coming off as "Mr. Average Guy";
`most of us are white, and most of us tell black jokes, right?'
--Lynn
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Date: 5 April 1983 23:35 EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Do we need new laws to deal with computers?
Good analysis. Hmmm, if copying computer data by remote control
(over dialup port for example) is similar to reading papers thru a
window with a telescope, then should both be considered the same
legally? Perhaps the analogy should be emphasized, instead of
writing up "computer crime" as some mysterious new kind of crime?
Like a law forbidding eavesdropping on private files of any kind
owned by another person without permission of that person. Data is
regarded a priori as your property if you create it from scratch
(not plagarizing anyone else's data) in any form and put it in what
you think is a relatively safe place (in your home or computer, not
posted on a public bulletin board; left behind in a purse or brief
case at a bus stop is a borderline case, you were careless and
perhaps innocent browsing is ok but using the info for profit
isn't?). If you index somebody else's data, the index belongs to you
providing you had legitimate access to the original data, and
although you can provide the index for hire without paying
royalaties to the original dataowner, you can't release the original
data to your customers without permission/royalities. For example,
if you make an index to ads you see on a free bulletin board at a
coin laundry, you can sell access to that index, and since the
original ads were free you can resell the info at a profit providing
you tell customers where they could go get it for free if then
wanted to save your surcharge, in which case they'd pay only for
your indexing and locating service. (Note I've said nothing about
computers. You can compile the index by hand and sell "Leichter's
index to local wantads" in bookstores if you want.)
Anyway, there's part of how I'd like this all rewritten. Xanadu
seems to be heading in that direction, although it's not clear their
method will agree with law unless *all* their info consists of
original contributions by customers who have signed an agreement to
submit to this new charging method.
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Date: 5 April 1983 23:46 EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Latest Status of Texas Computer Crime Bill
I think if somebody hands out keys to your front door, and one of
the customers enters your house without your permission, thus doing
criminal trespass, the person who handed out the keys can be
considered an accessory before the fact and subject to any crime
actually perpetrated except one that goes so far beyond what the
key-hander expected that he couldn't reasonably be considered an
accomplice. Thus the key-hander could be guilty of accessory to
trespassing, burglary, grand-theft, assault&battery, vandalism, etc.
but probably not to rape, murder, extortion, espionage, treason,
etc. unless the key-hander had some reason to believe you were
vulnerable to such a crime (attractive woman, very rich, government
worker, etc.) or to believe one of the key-takers was particularly
likely to commit such a grievous crime.
At least that's how I'd see it (I'm not a lawyer; can a lawyer on
this list comment on my analysis?)
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Date: 6 April 1983 00:01 EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Latest Status of Texas Computer Crime Bill
Gee, an audio tape recorder or dictaphone stores data in an
intangible form, for example if you record a list of things to do so
you can play it back later to remind you or so you can transcribe it
into another form. Thus a simple tape recorder is a "computer" by
that definition.
Ok, you say I'm nitpicking, the stuff on a tape recorder is analog
signals, which aren't considered data. Well, a video tape recorder
can store the full TV signal including the teletext and network-time
signals, which are true data. Thus a simple manually-controlled
video tape recorder, with no processing capability, only storage
capability, is a "computer" under the absurd Texas definition.
When they define computer software as an ordered set of
instructions, do they mean a sequence (linear ordering), or do they
permit something more complicated like a tree structure or linked
list or a database of autoloadable functions such as used by
LISP/MACSYMA/MAINSAIL?
The part about intent to do harm is redundant. "If ... with intent
to harm ... and ... he (1) ... with intent to do harm ...".
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Date: 6 Apr 83 10:40 EST (Wednesday)
From: Marshall.WBST@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V6 #20
New York has a law prohibiting "theft of services" which is used for
telephone fraud and could be used for computer cycle stealing etc.
Rather than define special situations that are illegal one should
define classes of activities that are undesirable. I feel that this
kind of law is the right way to go about it. The injured party
should only be allowed to collect damages. Defining special
situations that are illegal makes the law unmanageable.
--Sidney Marshall
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Date: 6 Apr 1983 1357-MST
From: Walt <Haas@UTAH-20>
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V6 #20
If the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse law defines a 'computer' as
a "device that performs logical ... functions by electronic
manipulation" then it doesn't cover computers constructed with
transphasor (Fabry-Perot interferometer) logic components, since
they aren't electronic.
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Date: 6 Apr 1983 13:32-PST
From: Greg Davidson <sdcsvax!davidson>
Subject: Re: Do we need new laws to deal with computers?
I see from Jerry's article that special laws are required to REDUCE
people's existing property rights (such as an existing right to
build as high a structure as one might want), or to create DEFAULT
property rights (such as the rights enjoyed by French artists over
their creations sold normally). Special laws are also required to
limit people's ability to create legal contracts.
But note that in the absence of such special laws, nothing keeps
someone from requiring a contract with a buyer that leaves them with
some rights over the sold item. Except where laws have specifically
disallowed certain kinds of contracts, a seller can sell anything he
can define, and define selling as anything he likes. The selling of
mailing lists is an interesting example. When one ``buys'' a
mailing list, one typically does not get to read its contents, one
merely gets to have a (presumably trustworthy) third party mail
one's brochures to the people on the list.
Owning a computer is nothing special, as its just a physical object.
Creating ownership over such abstractions as the information in it,
copies of information in it, etc., is up to the owner of the
computer to specify, if desired, in the contracts required of people
allowed to use the computer. If a customer of a computer system has
copied information off of that system in violation of a contract,
then it doesn't matter if that information is public domain or not.
I would ask the following: Given that owners of computers can
create any abstractions they like (for example the idea of a file
copied from one source differing from an identical copy from another
source), what useful abstractions ought they to be considering, for
use in writing up contracts governing computer usage? Should any of
these abstractions be given legal meaning outside of contracts which
define them explicitly?
Also, what special laws ought to obtain by default in legal
situations (buying, selling, murdering, etc.) involving computers?
Which should be unchangeable by contract? How should our ordinary
property rights over physical object we own be reduced when those
physical objects are computers?
I still am inclined to believe that there need be no special laws
made about computers. However, computers, although they cannot do
anything fundamentally new, are a valuable test for existing laws.
If having a computer allows me to think of a new way to commit a
crime, I can probably then think of a way (perhaps very awkwardly)
to use that method without using the computer. It should still be
illegal. As an example, think of the various questionable practices
big businesses have used with consumers (such as snowing them with
required paperwork when making a complaint) that were available to
them because of their large secretarial or legal staffs. Now that
anyone with a good computer system can do the same thing, these
practices may become illegal through new or modified laws. It is
important that what makes these things illegal not depend on their
being done with a computer.
Nevertheless, whether useful or not, computer laws are going to be
written. Ideally any such laws will have a sunset clause (default
expiration date). In fact, I think it would be a good idea to
recommend that all computer laws have a sunset clause requiring them
to be renewed after, say, the first and fifth years and every ten
years thereafter. This should help protect against mistaken laws,
obsoleted laws, and simply unnecessary laws.
-Greg
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Date: 6 Apr 1983 1018-EST
From: Clifford Neuman <BCN at MIT-EECS at MIT-MC>
Subject: Re: a jail cell on your foot
Date: 3 April 1983 18:21 EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
...Also, the jury should be able to vote at the start of
deliberation whether the case is leaning toward guilt or not,
and thus whether the accused should be confined or not while
awaiting the final verdict.
It has always been the Judge, not the Jury that set and revoked
bail. As such I do not think that the jury should have to decide at
the beginning of a deliberation whether to confine the person during
its deliberation or not. This could actually affect the decision
that they finally reach, if they have to make some kind of decision
before considering all the facts. Also, what is done while the jury
is deliberating whether or not to confine the defendant while they
decide the actual issue of guilt or innocence.
If the judge were the person to decide whether the defendant should
be confined, or allowed to wear the anklet, the anklet becomes an
alternate form of bail which is more equitable than todays methods
since the amount of money the defendant has is irrelevant.
Cliff
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Date: 6 Apr 1983 1415-PST
From: Lynn Gold <FIGMO at KESTREL>
Subject: Anklets for the accused
It's unconstitutional for someone who is ACCUSED of a crime and is
on trial to wear an anklet; this assumes they are guilty. The same
goes for asking a jury where their partialities lie. Why? Because
in our system of justice, you are (supposed to be) "innocent until
proven guilty."
I agree that people who are deemed not to be a menace to society
(i.e., small-time white-collar criminals, people who don't pay off
their speeding tickets for doing 66 miles in a 55-mph zone, perhaps
petty thieves as well) ought to be given such an option, along with
others, such as weekend work camps (they do that out here for such
criminals, esp. people who are arrested for drunk driving). It
costs us less to pay for an ankle bracelet than to keeps someone in
jail fed, clothed, and housed.
Here's one ergonomic question, though: the ankle bracelets were
obviously designed for MALE criminals; they can be worn
inconspicuously under pants where nobody will see them. What about
FEMALE offenders? Try putting on a pair of panty-hose with
something on your ankle sometime! If you're female, you find it
doesn't work very well. Seriously, where could you inconspicuously
and DISCREETLY put such an item on a woman?
--Lynn
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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