[917] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Software Sales via e-mail
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Sun Jul 7 18:46:58 1991
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1991 17:45:22 CDT
From: SEAN@dranet.dra.com (Sean Donelan)
To: com-priv@psi.com, kwe2@BBN.COM
X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"com-priv@psi.com",SMTP%"kwe2@BBN.COM"
>I will grant that commercial transactions across the public NSFnet
>Internet might be considered disclosed, but commercial customers are
>able to use internet technology and commercial internet service to move
>sensitive documents from one place to another with no fear of de facto
>disclosure. I would certainly think that that should hold today if I
>was moving something from a site on PSInet to a site on CERFnet.
I don't know if it is really a technological issue. I'm not sure about
the contractual relationship between PSINET and CERFNET. But assuming it
exists, it should be possible to entrust a packet of information to one
for delivery to the other. Although most of the contracts for IP services
I've seen disclaim all possible responsibility for delivering the packet
at all, let alone to the correct recipient.
>How else could EDI possibly work?
Its a nightmare. Truth of the matter, I think people are taking on faith that
if General Motors, and IBM use it, their lawyers must have figured it out.
Or if they didn't, they have enough clout to change the rules so you're still
safe.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@dranet.dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100
