U.S. court rules that email providers can legally read your email.
This is yet another example of how judges with technical illiteracy make absurd decisions about technology.
"Well golly, the message wasn't on a 'wire' at the time it was intercepted. It was in that there dram stuff inside a compooterlator."
So, since all phone calls at one time or another pass through a computer, they're unprotected as well?
You'd think, right? Certainly I would expect anyone who agreed with the ruling to also think that telco voice mail accounts are in the "compooterlator" and not on the wire.
Hopefully this will be overturned.
But I think this kind of uninformed ruling is just a feature of rapid technological advances. We can't really expect all judges to be up on this stuff! And yet they have to rule on it. Very difficult dilemma.
I guess the system is supposed to work through expert testimony. But it seems awfully easy for big money to find "experts" who will say anything. Could there be some system where only accredited university scientists from the respected fields could give expert testimony?
I wrote a paper years ago on a proposal by one Arthur Kantrowitz for a "science court" where matters of science could be adjudicated separately from other routine fact-finding of courts. The problem with that (or any other solution to this problem) is that you're trying to shoe-horn the scientific method, which has its own hypothesis-testing procedures and runs on its own (sometimes centuries-long) clock into a court procedure, which has deadlines and requires certainty to declare a "winner" in the suit. Agencies like the EPA are really better-equipped to decide these matters than courts, that is when they're not packed with Bush-appointed pseudo-scientists.
My experience with this sort of stuff is PTO related. The idea is that "obvious" stuff can't be patented. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clark, to a sufficiently unsophisticated audience, nothing is obvious.
On a tangentially related topic: we discovered an open wi-fi hook up coming from somewhere in our building. Is using this a security risk for us - ie is our neighbor reading our mail, or are we screwing them over by using it?
Theoretically they could be sniffing your traffic. But the chances are low since they would have to be technically proficient to do this, and if they were they probably wouldn't have an open access point. Your use is bad for them to the degree that your use eats into their bandwidth. So if you are checking your email it will not matter to them; if you are downloading gigabytes of data 24/7 then their connection speeds will be lower (since they are sharing the pipe with you.)
If you are both using OS X you might see some weird effects since you are both on the same subnet. Like if you both have sharing turned on in iTunes you would see each other's music collection. So probably it's a good idea to keep your firewall on (in System Preferences -> Sharing) with no ports open.
i have a friend with an aol account. when she brought home a new 17' powerbook she was blown away by being already connected. some one down the block was blasting wi-fi (airport?). the signal isnt always there but when it is...
Yes, the names are confusing but it is all the same thing. 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11a are all closely related wireless networking protocols, often referred to as WiFi. Apple uses the name 'airport' as it's branding of these open standards.
Just turning on airport in OS X detects base stations within range which are advertising their services. For the slightly more hard core, the free program MacStumbler will do a more thorough scan.
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- jim 7-01-2004 6:18 pm
This is yet another example of how judges with technical illiteracy make absurd decisions about technology.
"Well golly, the message wasn't on a 'wire' at the time it was intercepted. It was in that there dram stuff inside a compooterlator."
So, since all phone calls at one time or another pass through a computer, they're unprotected as well?
- mark 7-01-2004 8:14 pm
You'd think, right? Certainly I would expect anyone who agreed with the ruling to also think that telco voice mail accounts are in the "compooterlator" and not on the wire.
Hopefully this will be overturned.
But I think this kind of uninformed ruling is just a feature of rapid technological advances. We can't really expect all judges to be up on this stuff! And yet they have to rule on it. Very difficult dilemma.
I guess the system is supposed to work through expert testimony. But it seems awfully easy for big money to find "experts" who will say anything. Could there be some system where only accredited university scientists from the respected fields could give expert testimony?
- jim 7-01-2004 8:41 pm
I wrote a paper years ago on a proposal by one Arthur Kantrowitz for a "science court" where matters of science could be adjudicated separately from other routine fact-finding of courts. The problem with that (or any other solution to this problem) is that you're trying to shoe-horn the scientific method, which has its own hypothesis-testing procedures and runs on its own (sometimes centuries-long) clock into a court procedure, which has deadlines and requires certainty to declare a "winner" in the suit. Agencies like the EPA are really better-equipped to decide these matters than courts, that is when they're not packed with Bush-appointed pseudo-scientists.
- tom moody 7-01-2004 9:08 pm
My experience with this sort of stuff is PTO related. The idea is that "obvious" stuff can't be patented. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clark, to a sufficiently unsophisticated audience, nothing is obvious.
- mark 7-01-2004 9:51 pm
On a tangentially related topic: we discovered an open wi-fi hook up coming from somewhere in our building. Is using this a security risk for us - ie is our neighbor reading our mail, or are we screwing them over by using it?
- steve 7-03-2004 7:10 am
Theoretically they could be sniffing your traffic. But the chances are low since they would have to be technically proficient to do this, and if they were they probably wouldn't have an open access point. Your use is bad for them to the degree that your use eats into their bandwidth. So if you are checking your email it will not matter to them; if you are downloading gigabytes of data 24/7 then their connection speeds will be lower (since they are sharing the pipe with you.)
If you are both using OS X you might see some weird effects since you are both on the same subnet. Like if you both have sharing turned on in iTunes you would see each other's music collection. So probably it's a good idea to keep your firewall on (in System Preferences -> Sharing) with no ports open.
- jim 7-03-2004 6:48 pm
i have a friend with an aol account. when she brought home a new 17' powerbook she was blown away by being already connected. some one down the block was blasting wi-fi (airport?). the signal isnt always there but when it is...
- bill 7-03-2004 7:14 pm
Yes, the names are confusing but it is all the same thing. 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11a are all closely related wireless networking protocols, often referred to as WiFi. Apple uses the name 'airport' as it's branding of these open standards.
Just turning on airport in OS X detects base stations within range which are advertising their services. For the slightly more hard core, the free program MacStumbler will do a more thorough scan.
- jim 7-03-2004 7:47 pm