[comp.org.eff.talk] email's not real Mail, now, is it?

alien@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Tom von Alten) (12/19/90)

In the Prodigy discussion, the issue of the privacy of electronic mail
was mentioned.  Has anyone thought about / legislated about the extension
of the protection we give to "Mail" to the electronic realm?

It seems it would take a lot of stuffing to get this genie back in the
bottle!  How could this be enforced?!
_____________
Tom von Alten           email: alien@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com
                        Hewlett-Packard Disk Mechanisms Division
                        208 323-2711____________________________

riddle@hoss.unl.edu (Michael H. Riddle) (12/19/90)

In <8060003@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> alien@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Tom von Alten) writes:

>In the Prodigy discussion, the issue of the privacy of electronic mail
>was mentioned.  Has anyone thought about / legislated about the extension
>of the protection we give to "Mail" to the electronic realm?

>It seems it would take a lot of stuffing to get this genie back in the
>bottle!  How could this be enforced?!

The Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 tries to do just that.
 
From Title 18 United States Code:

  CHAPTER 121.  STORED WIRE AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS AND 
                  TRANSACTIONAL RECORDS ACCESS 
 
s 2701.  Unlawful access to stored communications
 
(a) Offense. Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section
whoever
 
    (1) intentionally accesses without authorization a 
facility through which an  electronic communication service is 
provided; or 
 
    (2) intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that 
facility; and thereby obtains, alters, or prevents authorized 
access to a wire or electronic communication while it is in 
electronic storage in such system shall be punished
as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
 
(b) Punishment. The punishment for an offense under subsection (a)
of this section is- 
 
    (1) if the offense is committed for purposes of commercial 
advantage, malicious destruction or damage, or private commercial
gain
 
      (A) a fine of not more than $ 250,000 or imprisonment for
not more than one year, or both, in the case of a first offense 
under this subparagraph; and
 
      (B) a fine under this title or
imprisonment for not more than two years, or both, for any 
subsequent offense under this subparagraph; and
 
    (2) a fine of not more than $ 5,000 or imprisonment for not
more than six months, or both, in any other case. 
 
(c) Exceptions. Subsection (a) of this section does not apply with
respect to conduct authorized- 
 
    (1) by the person or entity providing a wire or electronic 
communications service; 
 
    (2) by a user of that service with respect to a communication
of or intended  for that user; or 
 
    (3) in section 2703, 2704 or 2518 of this title. 
 
  CHAPTER 121.  STORED WIRE AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS AND 
                  TRANSACTIONAL RECORDS ACCESS 
 
s 2702.  Disclosure of contents 
 
(a) Prohibitions. Except as provided in subsection (b)- 
 
    (1) a person or entity providing an electronic communication 
service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or
entity the contents of a communication while in electronic storage
by that service; and
 
    (2) a person or entity providing remote computing service to
the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the
contents of any communication which is carried or maintained on
that service-
 
      (A) on behalf of, and received by means of electronic
transmission from (or created by means of computer processing of
communications received by means of electronic transmission from),
a subscriber or customer of such service; and
 
      (B) solely for the purpose of providing storage or computer
processing services to such subscriber or customer, if the provider
is not authorized to access the contents of any such communications
for purposes of providing any services other than storage or
computer processing. 
 
(b) Exceptions. A person or entity may divulge the contents of a
communication-
 
    (1) to an addressee or intended recipient of such
communication or an agent of such addressee or intended recipient;
 
    (2) as otherwise authorized in section 2517, 2511(2)(a), or
2703 of this title; 
 
    (3) with the lawful consent of the originator or an addressee
or intended recipient of such communication, or the subscriber in
the case of remote computing service; 
 
    (4) to a person employed or authorized or whose facilities are
used to forward such communication to its destination; 
 
    (5) as may be necessarily incident to the rendition of the 
service or to the  protection of the rights or property of the 
provider of that service; or
 
    (6) to a law enforcement agency,
if such contents- 
 
      (A) were inadvertently obtained by the service provider; and
 
      (B) appear to pertain to the commission of a crime. 



--
            <<<< insert standard disclaimer here >>>>
riddle@hoss.unl.edu                  |   University of Nebraska 
postmaster%inns@iugate.unomaha.edu   |   College of Law
mike.riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org  |   Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

jonl@pro-smof.cts.com (Jon Lebkowsky) (12/24/90)

In-Reply-To: message from alien@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com

Note about Prodigy email privacy: my understanding is that Prodigy hasn't been
reading private messages unless the receiver complained and specifically asked
the Prodigy folks to have a look. The assumption that they are routinely
reading email is apparently incorrect and, when you think of it, with the
million plus messages they report, it's unlikely they'd have the staff to keep
track.

I mention this as a point of clarification. I am no friend to Prodigy, which I
consider a loathsome system designed to condition the consumer like a
salivating dog to buy anything and everything in his/her online path.

vancleef@nas.nasa.gov (Robert E. Van Cleef) (12/25/90)

I am beginning to get tired of some of the unjustified Prodigy bashing that I've
seen on this forum. For example:

In article <6504@crash.cts.com>, jonl@pro-smof.cts.com (Jon Lebkowsky) writes:
|> In-Reply-To: message from alien@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com
|> 
|> I am no friend to Prodigy, which I
|> consider a loathsome system designed to condition the consumer like a
|> salivating dog to buy anything and everything in his/her online path.

Come on, give me a break. Do you watch any commercial TV? Do you listen to any commercial radio stations? Do you read any commercial magazines? Do any of those actions turn you into a "salivating dog?"

I have accounts on Usenet, CompuServe, GEnie, and Prodigy. My son uses Prodigy exclusively.

   1) If I want to look at the weather; check an online service such as Eaasy Sabre; read an online Encyclopidia; or check the value of my less than massive stock portfolio (sigh...); I use Prodigy. It is a flat rate for ALL services, and those "loathsome" advertisements can be ignored as readily on Prodigy as they can be on TV. (more so as they are silent...)

   2) My 15 year old son is very comfortable on Prodigy. He monitors the Nitendo game discussions and plays "Mad Maze", all for one flat fee (which makes me comfortable with the monthly bill :). My daughter uses the encyclopidia for her school reports. (My son doesn't believe in school reports - sigh...)

   3) I've been watching the level of confusion on GEnie as the "refugees" from Prodigy try to find their way about the system. Even with the "intelligent" interface programs, such as Aladdin, GEnie and CompuServe are more difficult to use than Prodigy. (And GEnie's speed of response is almost slower than Prodigy's; without any graphics!)

For interactive discussions, I use GEnie; for software product support forums I use CompuServe; for commercial services I use Prodigy; and to support my paranoia and to feed my insanity I hang out on Usenet <grin>. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses. Just because Prodigy has set some standards that we don't agree with, no matter how clumsily they did it, is no grounds for us to become "loathsome, salivating dogs..."

-- 
Bob Van Cleef 			vancleef@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center	(415) 604-4366

VANCLEEF  - GEnie
71565,533 - CompuServe
HHFF35A   - Prodigy    (don't you love the user friendly account names :)
---
Perception is reality...

bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) (12/25/90)

Re: Prodigy

There's a real challenge ahead in solving the problem of how the
economics of telecommunications should work. Here are some models:

1. Pay as you go - Compuserve, The Well, The World, etc all charge
usage-sensitive fees, mostly based on connect time, $$/hr.

2. Pay occasionally - Portal and others charge fixed monthly fees.

3. Govt Subsidized - NSFnet, mostly free to end-users but heavily
restricted.

4. Commercially Subsidized - Prodigy.

Prodigy is actually a mixture of 1, 2 and 4, but let's focus on 4.

The intent of the Prodigy folks (IBM & Sears) was to re-create the
kind of thing which made free TV and radio possible. You try to get
the advertisers to pay for the service and mostly give away the
service itself for free.

Obviously this hasn't been working and they've been venturing more and
more into usage-sensitive charges.

Ted Nelson, in his book "Literary Machines" proposes yet another model
for his Project Xanadu: "Authors" (that is, people who use storage)
pay for that storage but are compensated by people ("audience") who
read their stuff. This is not entirely unlike a vanity press. I'm not
quite doing this justice, you might want to read the book, but that's
the gist of it.

Formulating economies for telecommunications is very, very subtle.

In my own experience (running The World) I find people are willing to
pay a few dollars per month (say, $10-$50 depending on the person) for
access to telecommunications. But most people have a point where they
begin to get very nervous that "the meter is running", and this point
is usually less than their telecommunications satiation point, tho not
a whole lot less.

Most serious telecom users will spend about 1-2 hours per day at least
5 days per week sorting through news and mail. This is based on very
informal observations. That's about 20-40 hours per month. Even at
modest charges (say $2/hour) that adds up fast.

A challenge for the future of telecommunications is to figure out how
to provide this desired level of service (and quality, a whole other
issue) within the desired budgets. I'd say 50 hours/month for $25 or
less, or about 50c/hour, would be a reasonable goal. Free (to the
end-user) would be better.

Needless to say, it's hard to provide any sort of quality service at
that rate (if that's all you're using for revenues.) A 9600b modem
costs about $750.  At 50c/hour that would take 1500 hours or almost 3
months of solid, 24-hour/day use to just pay for the modem, let alone
the services being accessed and the other equipment, staff etc.

It is already becoming true that telecommunications is an enabling
technology. Jobs are found via e-mail and news systems, product and
other information is readily accessed, people get information critical
to their job performance (eg. how to install or deal with some
troublesome piece of software). There is also entertainment and
political value of course.

In the near future we will see more and more people who's living is
made via these networks. The net is blind to traditional
discriminations based on age, race, sex etc. The 90 year-old
grandparent who is brokering office equipment for fortune 500
companies via e-mail/EDI, the 16 year old ghetto kid who is selling
access to his jobs database he fastidiously types in from local
sources, etc.

Within a decade we will talk about people w/o network access as being
disenfranchised, we will argue whether it's the society's
responsibility to provide free access in the same way we provide
access to education and roads etc.

This entire transition will be much smoother if we could only
understand the economics better. Perhaps, like radio and network
television, there are ways to make mere access free. Perhaps not.

But I think we need to consider experiments like Prodigy in a much
more enlightened ways than to simply write them off as "commercial
trash". They may have made some serious errors. I, for one, say better
them than me.
-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD

brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (12/25/90)

Before to long I can't imagine that much pay by the hour online computing
will be left in the consumer market.  It will remain in the business
and database market for much longer, but may eventually die there, too.

The basic services -- mail, news, database searching, and the datacomm needed
for them -- are getting cheaper and there's no reason to think they won't
continue to get a lot cheaper.

A single gigabit fiber line, as I pointed out, could easily handle all the
continuous typing output of the human race.  How long before our lines
can easily handle the entire voice output of the human race, in hi-fi?
(Video, on the other hand, can increase in bandwith almost without limit
as we demand more resolution.   But if compression gets good...?)

This is literally "too cheap to meter."  Not in computer time, which can
easily meter a cost of a fractional penny, but in human time.

Soon you won't buy processing power from other people either, except in
rare cases.  You'll have all you need for most purposes as a consumer.
You'll only buy information and access to it, and communication with your
associates.

It's going to be so cheap in fact, that Prodigy's model is wrong.  There
will be no need for advertising to support the basic system.  Advertising
may continue to support individual things, but that will be on a case by
case basis.

But that may not last either.  In a network world, we can all pay a
penny to read a story and make the author a millionaire.  All it takes is
10% of the 1 billion educated people in the world.   .1% still nets $10,000.

I expect basic services to be on a fixed-payment plan almost everywhere by
the millenium, with pay-to-read charges for much of the good stuff.
It's not good for publishers, but computers rip out that vast mechanism which
has caused authors to get just a tiny, tiny percentage of what a limited
audience pays for their stuff.   Suddenly we can all have popular information
real, real cheap, and reward the authors very well.

For limited-market informaton, the old rules will still largely apply.
(The logistics like printing and postage were never much of the cost of your
$500/year newsletter.)
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

jonl@pro-smof.cts.com (Jon Lebkowsky) (12/27/90)

In-Reply-To: message from vancleef@nas.nasa.gov

You ask whether I watch commercial television: actually not often, for the
same reason I dislike Prodigy...I would argue that you're not ignoring the
commercials, but tolerating them, and they still do their work. And I found
them particularly intrusive on Prodigy, possibly more so than on commercial
teevee or radio.

I don't disagree with Prodigy's right to set whatever standards they want, and
if you're a satisfied customer, that's your prerogative. Obviously those of us
who don't like Prodigy have the option to cancel our memberships (which I
did), just as you have the option to retain yours.

But I also have the right, possibly the obligation, to explain my feelings
about the Prodigy system and its implications for electronic communications in
general. My concern is not whether Prodigy has a right to exist or to operate
as it sees fit, but I am concerned with how a system like this can become
dominant, in the same way that commercial network television dominated video
for 30+ years. My concern is that commercial systems like Prodigy will
dominate telecommunciations and put the squeeze on systems dedicated to
information-sharing.

I've worked with GEnie and PCLink, both offering similar services to Prodigy,
and neither has exhibited the kind of crass commercialism that I've seen on
the latter. Sure, they push their 'pay for play' services, but they don't push
'em down my throat (choke). And they have been up front about e-mail costs.

jonl@pro-smof.cts.com (Jon Lebkowsky) (12/27/90)

In-Reply-To: message from bzs@world.std.com

Barry: thanks for your concise analysis. I'm sitting here flaming about
Prodigy but I guess it's because they hacked me off (no pun intended), not
with their rate increase (I pay much more for Well usage than I would for
Prodigy, even with e-mail surcharge) but with their completely unsubtle,
unrestricted commercialism. What made it worse for me, with my klunky little
8088 & mock-Hercules grafix, was the time it took to build those clever little
add-bites. Argh! %-)

cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) (01/04/91)

Last night (1/2/91), NPR's "Marketplace" offered a stimulating give and
take between Berle Walsh, computer reviewer, who panned Prodigy for 
"learning how to dissipate goodwill more quickly than any other new
service"; and Jeffrey Moore, Prodigy spokesperson.  I think the thing
that riled me most was Moore's response to the issue of Prodigy's using
the subsidized mails to conduct millions of unsolicited messages vis-a-
vis its subscribers' use of email for mass mailings, to wit:  "We pay
lots of dollars to use the mails, the dissident subscribers are doing
it for free."  How's that?  

Bob Jacobson