From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com>
Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 21:52:52 +0800
To: Cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: SIGH Kent clueless again(was Re: spam is a good thing (was Re: Spam IS Free Speech))
In-Reply-To: <19970522144701.16280@bywater.songbird.com>
Message-ID: <199705231330.IAA29895@mailhub.amaranth.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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In <19970522144701.16280@bywater.songbird.com>, on 05/22/97 
   at 03:47 PM, Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> said:

>On Thu, May 22, 1997 at 03:07:14PM -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
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>[...]
>>I as the owner of
>>certain computer equipment have the right to determin who uses such
>>equipment and how. It should be no different that my right to determin who
>>can enter my house and who can not.

>Your analogy is flawed in many ways.  1) The entities entering your 
>house have an identity; what is actually entering your computer 
>equipment is just bits, which have no identity.  Spamfords bits are  no
>different than anyone elses.  2) By the very act of connecting to  the
>network you agree to recieve any bits that are automatically  routed to
>you.

No not at all. Just because I am connected to the network I am under no
obligation to accept a single bit. I don't have to ever download any mail
or I can download all or I can pick and choose what I accept or what I
don't.

>>If I inform Spamford that he is not
>>welcome in my house and he still insists on comming in I should have some
>>recource to stop him.

>You are perfectly free to disconnect your computer from the net.  You are
>free to try to find a provider that guarantees not to pass any spam on to
>you.  But unless you have some contract with your provider that specifies
>special rights, when you sign up you implicitly agree to accept the bits
>aimed at you -- otherwise you couldn't receive any email at all.  What
>you get on the wire is a function of explicit and implicit contractual
>obligations.  This is true whether you are UUNET peering with ANS or
>whether you are a PC on a dialup line.

Obviously you have not ever entered into contract agreements with an
accesses provider. There is no obligation on my part to receive a single
bit. If I never run a sendmail daemon then I will never receive a single
e-mail message regardless of how many are aimed at my servers. This is the
same with any TCP/IP service. The only obligation I have with my upstream
provider is to pay my bill. If I choose to bounce everything that is
routed from Spamford it is my right to do so as it is *MY* equipment. 

>>
>>IMHO this can be taking care of through civil courts hitting the spamers
>>where it counts in the wallet. As far as identification this is quite
>>simple to do without the above measure.

>Identification isn't the problem at all.  The problem is that you  have
>no grounds on which to base a suit.  Just as you can't sue me for 
>sending this mail -- it's an exchange you entered into of your own  free
>will.

For the occasional spam then a lawsuit would be pointless. If you decided
to dump 10,000 messages a day and deny the use of my equipment by myself
and my clients then I would have a very strong case for litigation. You
seem to forget that this is MY equipment and it is you who have no rights
regarding the use of it. I have the final say so as to who uses it and
how.

> Even if Spamford uses tricks to
>>cover his tracks his clients are known as they tell you who they are in
>>their spam. Traceing back to Cyber-Momo is trivial once his clients are
>>known. IMHO when Compu$erve suied Spamford thay should have listed all of
>>his customers in the lawsuit.
>>
>>>Yeah but he didn't kick anything in, he just used something which was
>>>setup to be used for free, in an unmetered fashion, where no contracts
>>>were agreed to before hand.
>>
>>No it was not. Just because you leave a door unlocked does not mean that
>>anyone has the right to enter. If you run into the store and forget to
>>lock the doors on your car does that mean that anyone has the right to
>>drive off in your car? If you leave the front door unlocked on your house
>>does that mean that anyone can walk in and help themselfs to the contents
>>of your house?

>All flawed analogies.  You *did* agree to recieve mail -- in fact,  that
>is one of the primary uses of your computer -- and you did *not*  place
>any restrictions on that connection.  Furthermore, you can't -- 
>no one will sell you an internet connection at any level where they 
>will accept a contractual obligation to keep spam from getting to you.

Once again it is you who have it wrong. I have agreed to nothing other than to pay my bill for my connection. If Cyberpromo starts filling my clients mailboxes with spam and tieing up bandwidth I am under an obligation to my client to stop him from doing so. My obligation is to my clients to provide the services they have paid for. I would be remiss in my duties if I allowed such actions to continue both to my contractual obligations to my clients but also my feudatory responsibilities to the stockholders of my corporation.

You do not have a right to send mail to my system I have an obligation to my clients to allow them to receive mail. This is a important distinction that needs to be made. You have no rights regarding the use of my equipment. Furthermore if your actions deprive the use of my equipment by myself and my clients you can find yourself both financially and criminally liable.

>[...]

>>I never have argued for more legislation of the internet for any reason. I
>>just think that creative use of current laws can put an end to this
>>pestilance. I don't see remailers being hurt in this as the whole purpose
>>of spam is to be non-anonymous (you can't sell anything if they don't know
>>where to send the money to). I do think that litigation can be used
>>effectivly to put an end to Spamford without changing the current
>>structure of the internet.

>I don't see any legal basis for it. 



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