[9198] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: sleaze
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Robinson)
Tue Dec 21 06:24:49 1993
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 06:05:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Robinson <PAUL@tdr.com>
Reply-To: Paul Robinson <PAUL@tdr.com>
To: Rose Marie Holt <rmholt@u.washington.edu>,
Cc: bukys@cs.rochester.edu, Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com>
>From: Paul Robinson <PAUL@TDR.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
-----
Rose Marie Holt <rmholt@u.washington.edu>, writes:
> My $.02, as a mere consumer with kids. Is there any reason
> why people with net access should NOT have a origination
> address posted with their postings. Then that would change
> the problem to tracing fake origins; is that manageable?
Assuming the origin isn't lost; while some systems do keep the original
poster's address on a message, not all do. When I get mail on some
mailing lists, sometimes I get the address of the list (CNI Copyright, for
example) and on others (Com Priv), I _do_ get the address of the sender.
Tracing "fake" origins isn't necessarily easy to do, since some systems
may not have the kind of full tracing of access you want. In some places,
someone can walk up to a terminal, telnet to port 25 and start an SMTP
dialog. They do not need to log in from an account.
And what happens when you get the kind of scenario I mentioned earlier?
What if the material is not illegal in the point of origin? There has
been talk of banning alt.sex in Canada because some of the material
violates its obscenity laws, even though the material may _not_ be obscene
in the United States where it was posted from.
Now, the material was posted by someone in the United States. It is not
obscene here and was not obscene where posted. It is then received by
someone in Canada where it is obscene. Should an American Citizen who
places such a posting on a newsgroup be deported to Canada for criminal
prosecution for distribution of material which is obscene (and thus
illegal) under Candadian law while it is not obscene (and thus legal) in
the United States? He violates no law where he is but could be deported
to a foreign country to stand trial for an act which was legal where he
did it. Is this the standard we want to allow?
> Also, once we know the origin of an offensive post, what do we
> do? How about enforcing existing laws, adapted to the net,
> re: porn, crossing state lines for immortable porpoises, etc.
> to start. How about also requiring special coding, a la 900
> and 976 numbers for legit "adult" material, allowing
> blocking? As to stuff whose legitimacy is debatable, how
> about leaving it to the parents.
Yes, how about leaving it to parents. And you are doing the joke wrong,
it goes like this:
A man developed a means to make dolphins live a long time, in fact it
could allow them to live forever. This means required he use seagulls
in the formula. He went to obtain some, and when he got back, a lion
was asleep across his doorstep. He carried the package of seagulls
into the house and was arrested.
The charge? "Transporting gulls across a staid lion for immortal
porpoises."
---
Paul Robinson - Paul@TDR.COM
Voted "Largest Polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
-----
The following Automatic Fortune Cookie was selected only for this message:
AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie
a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and
impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over
again. People think you are stupid.
