From: "L. McCarthy" <lmccarth@ducie.cs.umass.edu>
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 95 00:47:19 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com (Cypherpunks Mailing List)
Subject: Re: Legal implications of one-of-a-group guilt
In-Reply-To: <199502060743.XAA01417@netcom14.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199502060849.DAA27258@ducie.cs.umass.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Tim May writes:		[welcome back, Tim]
> The Internetpol may _suspect_ that one of these 10,000 readers is the
> person to whom the messatge is intended, but cannot _prove_ it. Even
> if the list of readers is down around 100, I know of no legal systems
> that would accept this as proof.

Well, I'm not so sure. DNA fingerprinting has soared in popularity for
criminal cases over the last decade or so. From the figures I vaguely recall
being quoted, such evidence of a DNA match narrows down a list of
suspects to a mere few hundred thousand people, and is commonly admitted into
evidence. This situation is reminiscent of that phenomenon, IMHO.

I imagine that the looser standard of evidence in civil cases would make such
information quite significant in determining "the preponderance of evidence".

It would be interesting to hear from some folks with legal training on this 
issue, if only to correct my mistakes. IANAL.

 -L. Futplex McCarthy; PGP key by finger or server   "The objective is for us 
  to get those conversations whether they're by an alligator clip or ones and 
  zeroes. Wherever they are, whatever they are, I need them." -FBI Dir. Freeh