🚀 go-pugleaf

Lawrence Lee (lalee@vcn.bc.ca) wrote:


: I would ask you Robert why Usenet newsgroups are any more illegal than 
: the content that can be achieved via. gopher, FTP, IRC, telnet, WWW... 

: I think that your question of legality is a farce when iStar shows a 
: blind eye to the exact same things found in the Usenet newsgroups. Is 
: iStar taking this action on newsgroups because they are somehow liable in 
: distributing Internet access? If so, they better close shop... 

As much as we would like it, there is no magic formula or wand one can 
wave to eliminate liability.  It's not a binary one you're legal and zero 
you're a criminal.  The best one can do is take steps to reduce risk to a 
manageable level. 

Just looking at the trends of liability law, my prediction is that

1) this will become more of a standard practice within 3-5 years, and
2) the list of newsgroups will grow.

I don't think the newsgroups are going to disappear, but will be slightly 
harder to access.

As far as the newsgroups versus ftp, web, and telnet sites, I think the 
critical issue is location.  If you are iStar, the .newsrc file is on 
*your* computers.  If Joe Blow ISP is offering beastiality binaries, 
child pornography, and other assorted illegal material on *his* computer 
then it is none of your business. This doesn't make the information any 
more or less illegal, but when the police sit down to fill out the search 
warrants, they are much more likely to fill in the blanks with "Joe Blow" 
rather than "your name here". 

Again, same caveats about how there are no guarantees.


: I think that the willingness of iStar to hide their actions to be even 
: more disturbing. If iStar found some telnet sites to be illegal, will 
: they without notice just begin to remove access. 

That they would hide their actions from their customers is not a good 
sign.  Better to talk straight about what you are doing and take whatever 
heat you generate. 


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