taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (07/21/86)
This article is from harvard!rclex!cdx39!jc and was received on Mon Jul 21 06:58:15 1986 > ... I suspect there are many many mail peekers out there that > we will never know about. > > [Enough quoting. Any comments, oh faithful readers???] What a fun discussion! Something that people on the network seem to keep forgetting: We're not just a bunch of college kids and industrial hackers. You can be quite sure that there are a number of FBI, CIA, NSA, KGB, etc. sites, and they're not usually identified as such (except for kgbvax:-). It would be quite easy for anyone with the motive and a few kilobucks to insert themselves into the network at a few critical sites, become hubs, and run daemons that scan all the traffic for keywords. This would be an elementary programming exercise. All the discussions in the world wouldn't prevent them. I assume that this text has been scanned by at least one such daemon. (They are requested to reply by followup rather than by E-mail. :-) You should also assume this when you post something. It's only prudent. Recall also the recent story from the fellow whose home was burglarized by someone who read a bulletin board and learned he had some valuable stuff. Would-be burglars (or extortionists or mafiosi) could tap into this network just as easily as the rest of us. As for the attitude that "the mail is private and nobody should ever peek into it", consider that the Post Office routinely opens "dead" letters and packages and examines the contents to see if there are any hints as to the intended recipient or sender. Most people think this is legitimate. The primary rule is "The mail must go through." With E-mail, it gets even worse. Letters that are properly addressed (and note that header information is and should be considered as public as the outside of an envelope) sometimes fail due to flakiness in the hardware and/or software. The administrators of the machines involved have to do something about it, and this often requires examining the contents. Though I never read anyone else's mail as long as it is being delivered and picked up, as a system administrator, I have to figure out what to do with all those mail files left lying about that are clogging my system. Sometimes I 'su' and read them, to see if they contain hints. Usually I just delete them; sometimes I make a guess and send them on their way (thus passing the buck to some other administrator :-). One problem with a lot of this discussion is that the parallels often leave a bit to be desired. It's true that many people "own the machine", but that doesn't necessarily give you the legal right to do with it as you wish. For instance, suppose the owners of a newspaper answered a libel suit with the claim that "It's my paper; I'll publish what I like." Or suppose a driver countered a claim that he had taken a hitchhiker home and beaten and raped her with the argument "It's my car; I have the right to do anything I wish to anyone who climbs into it." Really, now! I mean, reading someone else's E-mail isn't quite up to libel or rape, but the parallel is there. Hooking into a public service like the uucp mail network is a lot like inviting friends, neighbors, or even strangers into your home for a drink. The fact that they take you up on the offer (and even contribute a 6-pack of their own) doesn't give you license to mistreat them. Of course, the fact that you make the offer doesn't oblige you to feed them for the next month, either. Let's keep this discussion going! It's lots of fun, and sometimes we even get some light on the issues.