don@allegra.UUCP (Don Mitchell) (05/29/85)
I don't think there is a serious political problem about sending encrypted mail. In the case of allegra, a fairly central site in the UUCP network, there is so much forwarding of mail that no one in their right mind would even try to look at it to see what it is. No one cares if it is encrypted. There is only concern when one person decides to send megabytes per day. We are working on a system to provide encrypted mail (using public and private keys) and a number of other more sophisticated cryptographic protocols. (like refereed journals, distributed "cheat-proof" games, etc.) This is a fairly ambitious project, and doing it right will take some time.
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (05/29/85)
Unfortunately, the legal issues surrounding responsibility for passing traffic by third parties who are not common carriers are very cloudy, which complicates the entire situation. My own suspicion is that many sites would feel VERY nervous about seeing megabytes of miscellaneous encrypted material flowing through their system. The fact that they don't usually bother to look at pass-through is beside the point-- the point is that they always can if they need to get a handle on how their system is being used and abused. From a legal standpoint in case of lawsuits, this can be very important. For example, let's say that someone's publisher decided to sue the sites that were distributing their columns w/o permission. Since most of the sites are NOT common carriers and would be unable to attain such status, their only protection against such activities would be to try block (through some sort of filtering, either automatic or manual) the "illicit" messages. If traffic were encrypted, they would be unable to do this, and their willingness to pass messages under such conditions could be deemd "recklessness" by the courts. When you're a common carrier it's another matter--you have some additional protections. But in an informal network like we've got here, the vast majority of sites would not have such protections and would be unable to attain it, thusly leaving them exceedingly vulnerable to abuse and suit. --Lauren-- P.S. The fact that message filtering does not occur now is also beside the point. The issue here is that it would be technically possible to make what the courts would call a "good faith" effort to block illicit messages if necessary, IF those messages are in the clear. If you're not a common carrier, I suspect that you are still taking implicit responsibility for all traffic you send to other sites. The fact that you don't look at it may be, from a legal standpoint, your own fault--you still may well be responsible for it. In any case, this issue is probably worth careful consideration and investigation. --LW--
kevin@harvard.ARPA (Kevin Crowston) (05/30/85)
It seems to me that encrypted mail shouldn't be much of a legal issue.
First of all, it's hard to accuse someone of knowingly transmitting
something that he can't actually read (although they might still be
accused of acting in a reckless fashion, I suppose). Secondly, if the
traffic ever became an issue, encrypted messages could simply be
screened out, that is, if you need to write a filter to avoid passing
someone's copyrighted column, (which sounds like a difficult problem
anyway, but assuming you did it) you simply make the worst case
assumption about encrypted traffic and dump it.
I admit that I don't really know the legal issues involved here; now
that I'm thinking about it, I think I'll go ask a lawyer.
--
Kevin Crowston UUCP: {seismo,ut-sally}!harvard!kevin
MIT Sloan School of Management ARPA: kevin@harvard.ARPAed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould) (06/01/85)
Lauren makes good points about the legal issues involved in passing mail. However, given that this area is *very* new to the legal system, I suspect that there will be changes in the interpretations of the existing laws, or that new laws will be written. In particular, I suspect that the courts would look favorably on the "I didn't know what was there - it was encrypted so I couldn't (with any reasonable amount of effort) have known" argument. Please note that I'm not a lawyer (nor is Lauren so far as I know) so these comments should be taken as my (o
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (06/03/85)
Unfortunately, every lawyer you ask about such things tells you something different. There are clearly differences between common-carrier and non-common-carrier situations, but much of this new technology doesn't fall into either sitaution too clearly, and as such the possibility of conflicting court decisions on different cases seems quite likely. As such, using care before getting too involved in such situations seems like a prudent course. An analogy might relate to so-called "mail drops." There have been cases of such drops used for illegal purposes, where the people running them just claimed, "gee, we didn't know what was in the mail!" Some of these drops have found themselves in trouble for refusing to take responsibility in cases of illicit traffic. Even common carriers can be forced to control messages -- note what happens with the post office when mail fraud is suspected -- mail can be intercepted and apparently even opened under court order. The point here is that once you allow encrypted mail through your system, you may be accepting an unknown amount of responsibility for anything illicit that occurs via that traffic. At least if it's in the clear you can take whatever action legally required to block or return offending traffic. But if its encrypted you can't do that, and my guess is that some courts would view this as "reckless" behavior (aiding in the commission of a crime or some such). Since so much of this technology is so new, it isn't at all certain how it'll all come out. But certainly using reasonable care to consider the ramifications would seem in order. --Lauren--
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (06/10/85)
I agree with Ed that (regarding encryption in general) new laws and new interpretations are bound to occur. My primary concern is that these evolve slowly, with various forward and backward movements in the process. Anyone who gets themselves caught in the "intermediate" stage of such a process could find themselves with more liability than they really might want to take on, both financially and otherwise. To put it another way, very few people would want (or have the financial ability) to become one of the test cases in such a situation, especially given the high probability of appeals (on either side) which could drag out the process for years. As for the "You didn't know what was in it because it was encrypted" argument... you might be able to get away with an argument like that once (especially if you could prove that you really didn't know encrypted mail was flowing) but you'd probably be expected to take steps to make sure that the situation did not occur again. That is, if it was obvious that people were making a habit of posting illicit encrypted mail through your (non-common-carrier) system, you'd presumably have to take some steps so that you would not be continuing to contribute to the transport of that illicit message traffic. In a non-encrypted environment, such messages could be found and dealt with individually. Where encrytion was in use, the only alternative might be to completely cut off mail service, since the encryption prevents any finer grain of control. The complex legal issues surrounding this area haven't even BEGUN to be explored. And I wouldn't expect all the new laws that are written to encourage such use of encryption -- individual property, intellectual property, and privacy could be both enhanced *and* damaged by "anonymous" encrypted materials, and I would expect to see laws that took both the positive and negative factors into account. --Lauren--
karsh@geowhiz.UUCP (06/11/85)
In article <685@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP writes: > >The complex legal issues surrounding this area haven't even >BEGUN to be explored. And I wouldn't expect all the new laws that are >written to encourage such use of encryption -- individual property, >intellectual property, and privacy could be both enhanced *and* damaged >by "anonymous" encrypted materials, and I would expect to see >laws that took both the positive and negative factors into account. > >--Lauren-- Look, we in the USA still live in a country that provides for freedom of dissemination of information. If we'd have taken Lauren's paranoid views on the law of telecomunication seriously, we'd have never had this network in the first place. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that we still have the right to disemenate infornmation as a constitutional right. Even in this day of right wing courts, I think we can trust in that right. I vote for encrypted mail. -- Bruce Karsh | U. Wisc. Dept. Geology and Geophysics | 1215 W Dayton, Madison, WI 53706 | This space for rent. (608) 262-1697 | {ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!geowhiz!karsh |
iwm@icdoc.UUCP (06/13/85)
In the days when much business was done by telegraph, companies used to
use their own codes, often as much for data compression as for privacy
- sending the word 'rabbit' is cheaper than 'our local wharehouse has
run out of blivetts'. (Kahn in 'The Codebreakers' reprints a very funny
article based on some of the phrases in codebooks such as "The Captain is
insane and has been detained"). Some telgraph companies insisted on
only certain standard code books - giving privacy from the counter clerk
but not the company).
Perhaps this is the solution => (what does one doe about open codes ?),
encypher mail and give the system manager the key ?
Or does the DES already provide this facilty for the NSA ?
- Does anybody remember the sketch where (?) Dudley Moore (sp?) is sending
a telgram with the word Knorwich in it ? (Knickers off ready when I come home)
--
Ian W Moor
The squire on the hippopotamus is equal
Department of Computing to the sons of the other two squires.
180 Queensgate
London SW7 Uk.
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (06/16/85)
Note that the right to distribute information is not absolute. We all know the one about "shouting fire in a crowded public place." There are others: 1) Aiding and abetting in the commission of a crime. Would a non-common-carrier be aiding in a crime if information (let's say credit card lists) were sent through their system? What if they were TOLD this was going on but continued to do it since they claimed they couldn't do anything about encrypted mail? Common-carriers have some protection in this area, but getting common-carrier classification is not particularly easy--their are lots of conditions to be met. 2) Child pornograpy (obvious -- hopefully doesn't apply to this net). 3) In many countries, the distribution of "hate literature" is illegal (Canada, much of Europe). In fact, Europe dropped net.politics due to messages coming through the gateway that were illegal over there! Similar laws are being considered in the U.S.--inspired by recent Neo-Nazi events. 4) Libel and copyright violations we all know about. I know of no laws that make violations of the above sorts of things legal just because they are encoded. I suspect the first time there was a violation, people could claim ignorance and probably be OK. But if the existence of encrypted mail systems was used as on ongoing excuse that prevented the stopping of traffic in violation of law (I'm not arguing the quality of those laws in this message) then the effects might be, uh, interesting to say the least. --Lauren--
colonel@gloria.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (06/19/85)
> Note that the right to distribute information is not absolute. > We all know the one about "shouting fire in a crowded public place." That's distributing mis-information, unless there's really a fire. > There are others: > > 1) Aiding and abetting in the commission of a crime. In the electronic age, this will have to go by the boards. Tell a secret to one person and the whole world will know. Blabbing a group's secrets will be a crime only relative to that group. (Notice that this implies the development of non-uniform law!) > 2) Child pornograpy (obvious -- hopefully doesn't apply to > this net). It could well apply. At present anybody can mail or post pornographic literature. > 3) In many countries, the distribution of "hate literature" > is illegal (Canada, much of Europe). In fact, Europe > dropped net.politics due to messages coming through the > gateway that were illegal over there! Similar laws > are being considered in the U.S.--inspired by recent > Neo-Nazi events. The nature of the medium makes this moot. Print is great for arousing hatred of abstractions, and radio is even better (as Hitler knew well). But the Net is a genuinely public medium. When Don Black posted some Identity-Christian opinions a few weeks ago, dozens of people criticized them on the spot. You can't do that to a pamphlet or a radio broadcast. The Net is such an honest medium (compared to print or radio) that we ought to encourage advocates of isms to express their hate here! > 4) Libel and copyright violations we all know about. And these too are meaningful only with respect to one-way mass media. Is anybody here really afraid that Rich Rosen will attack his religion or Ken Arndt his manhood? I should like to see netusers be obliged to waive all statutory rights of this sort with respect to one another. -- Col. G. L. Sicherman ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel