🚀 go-pugleaf

Iain Mccord *   That  as  computer  data  is  easily  forged,  it can be
              admissable only  as hearsay evidence, if  at all. There is
              no  way, that  I know  of, to  prove when,  and by whom, a
              given file on a computer was  created. If that is the only
              evidence available to the court then the case has not been
              proven.
                                 = = =

    Tell that to  the FBI when they sieze BBS's  because some users have
    uploaded a  commercial program, or perhaps  S 893 does not  apply to
    BBS's because they are not an active party.

    This does bring  up the argument though.. If I  have a message on my
    harddrive  that is  encrypted using  my secret  key there  is a good
    chance  that I  wrote it  since it  is not  something that is easily
    'forged'. It would be interesting just how something like this would
    stand up in court. If I sent  you an agreement and you signed off on
    it with  your signature key is  it a legal /  binding agreement? Can
    signatures  via  encrypted  keys  be  valid.  I  agree  that  plain,
    unecrypted text is  easily forged. (Getting it on  my computer would
    be a  different manner) but,  we're not talking  about easily forged
    data here.  I feel that  encryption using PGP  or another encryption
    format takes the 'easily' out of the argument.

    Well, I'm  not qualified to make  the judgement, I'll leave  that to
    more informed minds.
---
 * SM 1.06 A0059 * Computers are OUR business, our ONLY business