[8598] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Open Letter to the CIX -- Trade Association?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tansin A. Darcos & Company)
Thu Nov 25 08:07:10 1993
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1993 07:58:46 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
Reply-To: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
To: Bob Raisch <raisch@internet.com>,
>From: Paul Robinson <TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
Bob Raisch <raisch@internet.com>, writes:
> - provide arbitration in disputes between its members.
>
> I look forward to following the first Internet related
> lawsuit. It should be very interesting indeed based on the
> distributed and multinational natue of what we have built
> here. But there is also the problem of education. The moment
> I walk into a court room and state my case, I am thrust into
> the position of having to explain how they stole from me, and
> how. IP? NNTP? Huh?
Here's one: someone in the U.S. posts a message to a list based out of
Germany, and someone in Saudi Arabia picks up that message from a
reflector located in Australia. They claim that the message constains
either copyright violations or is in violation of local obscenity laws.
Who is entitled to sue and where is jurisdiction? Does that country have
the right to order someone extradited to be prosecuted for an act which is
illegal there, but might not be in the country of origin? Ever since too
many countries let Iran get away with sentencing Salman Rushdie to death
in absentia for writing "The Satanic Verses" it behooves all of us to be
careful about considering the multinational implications of distributing a
message world wide.
Some states in the U.S. are trying to claim interstate jurisdiction
against satellite distribution companies, by charging companies based out
of New York for material which the prosecutor in Utah or Louisiana has
claimed to violate the much stricter community standards for obscenity.
This may change since a federal appeals court has twice struck down
prosecutions where the party being charged is prosecuted in a distant
state from where they are located.
Is the point of where the "offense" takes place where the message comes
from; where it is posted; where it is transmitted from or the final
destination? Some of this isn't so far fetched; on of the Bitnet lists
that a lot of people in the U.S. ask questions about CICS, is hosted by a
site in Austria. The "big internet" list discussing large IP addresses,
comes from Australia.
> - act as a single source of accurate information to represent the
> Commercial Internet to the public.
>
> With the Morris Worm and the penchant the media has shown to
> only address the purient and sensational aspects of the online
> community, we need the CIX to act as the reputable source of
> accurate information about the Global Internet.
And we need publicly accessible information about dangers to our
community. While supposedly CERT is available to find and track down
risks to computers, they tend to act as a one-way sink about information;
interim reports and information about problems that don't have ready fixes
are not made public, even though many people would be helped knowing that
there is a problem, and in fact, knowing about it could mean people could
take steps to alleviate the problem. But CERT has tended to act as if
most information should go one way: to it, with an occasional crumb thrown
out to the public.
---
Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
Voted "Largest polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
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