ebh@cord.UUCP (Ed Horch) (04/15/86)
I think whether or not one has a right to read e-mail passing through one's system is probably delimited by just what "one's" means. If I'm a grunt, employed by a company that owns the system I administer, then the answer would be "no," since I'm not responsible for policing it, just keeping it alive. However, if I *OWN* the machine, then I not only have the right to watch what goes through my system, but also an obligation. The right comes from the fact that forwarding mail costs me money. If you're going to consume resources which I'm paying for, then you do it on my terms, or not at all. I'm not being net.police in this regard, but I am being my-system.police. The obligation comes from the fact that material transmitted through my machine may have legal implications for me. Suppose someone at greedy-vax posts a request for Unix source. Someone at naive-vax falls for this and mails it to greedy-vax through my-system. When I see huge amounts of e-mail traffic where there used to be just a trickle, I should check it out, since I may be accessory to unlawful transmission of proprietary material. Although I'm not entirely responsible for the acts of people who communicate through my-system, I am responsible for at least main- taining some integrity. Consider the U.S. Postal Service. They are not allowed to randomly open mail, and they are not obligated by law to search for illegal substances being sent through the mail, but at the same time, they do have facilities for dealing with parcels suspected of containing drugs, explosives and the like. As to the specific issue of Andy Beals: If he's just someone that you call to get your name spelled right in /etc/passwd, i.e. a "minor" member of a team of administrators, then he's probably overstepping his bounds. But if he's in charge, or takes orders from someone in charge, than I can't see anything wrong with him keeping an eye on what's going through his system. Don't forget: nobody *ever* guaranteed that UUCP mail is private. DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, nor do I claim to be one. You are free to agree or flame (by mail, please) as you see fit, but if you act on what I say and it turns out to be faulty, I accept no responsibility. These are just the thoughts of a soon-to-be system owner/administrator who pays his own phone bills. -Ed Horch ihnp4!cord!ebh P.S. Nothing personal, Andy, keep baking those cookies! :-)
bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (04/19/86)
Hmm, I wonder how many of the people who think e-mail is different than US Mail (at an ethical level, eg. postal workers reading your mail) also have told their users that the reason they won't retrieve their mail they wished they hadn't sent is cause it's like the post office, once it's in the box it's gone (spooled systems where it could have been retrieved by a local s/a.) Just wondering, I've heard it. -Barry Shein, Boston University