RE: is SMTP a candidate for OPES ?

+1

Abbie


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alex Rousskov [mailto:[email protected]] 
> Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 12:16 PM
> To: jfcm
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: is SMTP a candidate for OPES ?
> 
> 
> 
> jfc,
> 
> 	IMHO, the stupidity of judges or laws should not limit 
> OPES scope. OPES framework (in a broad sense) is applicable 
> to any communication between content producer and content 
> consumer. Whether the unit of communication is "stored and 
> forwarded" or "just forwarded" is irrelevant from 
> architecture/scope point of view. It may affect how and when 
> the adaptations are performed, but not whether they can be 
> performed in an OPES-compliant way.
> 
> 	The old OPES architecture draft may not reflect this 
> and other scope concerns, but that's a different question/problem.
> 
> Alex.
> 
> 
> On Tue, 6 Jul 2004, jfcm wrote:
> 
> >
> > The attached piece of real world's information seems to be worth 
> > consideration. This is legal, political and US centric. 
> Nevertheless 
> > it means that SMTP (mail transfer) is not seen by many (legally and
> > technically) as a stream but as fast store and forward and that 
> > different legal rules (and therefore 
> > applications/business/demands/offers may be conceived depending on 
> > where is the filter (on the protocol or on the node).
> >
> > It seems to me this is another contradiction of OPES/ONES with the 
> > "protocol on the wire" and "dumb network/smart host" concepts. I am 
> > not an SMPT pro, but I suppose that the difference is that in HTTP 
> > forwards a flow of datagrams while SMTP 
> stops+store+forwards a group 
> > of datagrams building an entire message. For example, you 
> cannot know 
> > the true user's value of a mail before you got to the 
> attachement or 
> > to the final signature. jfc
> >
> > --------------
> >
> >  From the New York Times -- 
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/technology/06net.html
> >
> > You've Got Mail (and Court Says Others Can Read It)
> > By SAUL HANSELL
> >
> > When everything is working right, an e-mail message appears to zip 
> > instantaneously from the sender to the recipient's inbox. But in 
> > reality, most messages make several momentary stops as they are 
> > processed by various computers en route to their destination.
> >
> > Those short stops may make no difference to the users, but 
> they make 
> > an enormous difference to the privacy that e-mail is accorded under 
> > federal law.
> >
> > Last week a federal appeals court in Boston ruled that 
> federal wiretap 
> > laws do not apply to e-mail messages if they are stored, even for a 
> > millisecond, on the computers of the Internet providers 
> that process 
> > them - meaning that it can be legal for the government or others to 
> > read such messages without a court order.
> >
> > The ruling was a surprise to many people, because in 1986 Congress 
> > specifically amended the wiretap laws to incorporate new 
> technologies 
> > like e-mail. Some argue that the ruling's implications could affect 
> > emerging applications like Internet-based phone calls and Gmail, 
> > Google's new e-mail service, which shows advertising based on the 
> > content of a subscriber's e-mail messages.
> >
> > "The court has eviscerated the protections that Congress 
> established 
> > back in the 1980's," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of 
> > the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group.
> >
> > But other experts argue that the Boston case will have little 
> > practical effect. The outcry, said Stuart Baker, a privacy 
> lawyer with 
> > Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, is "much ado about nothing."
> >
> > Mr. Baker pointed out that even under the broadest 
> interpretation of 
> > the law, Congress made it easier for prosecutors and 
> lawyers in civil 
> > cases to read other people's e-mail messages than to listen 
> to their 
> > phone calls. The wiretap law - which requires prosecutors to prove 
> > their need for a wiretap and forbids civil litigants from 
> ever using 
> > them - applies to e-mail messages only when they are in transit.
> >
> > But in a 1986 law, Congress created a second category, 
> called stored 
> > communication, for messages that had been delivered to recipients' 
> > inboxes but not yet read. That law, the Stored Communications Act, 
> > grants significant protection to e-mail messages, but does 
> not go as 
> > far as the wiretap law: it lets prosecutors have access to stored 
> > messages with a search warrant, while imposing stricter 
> requirements 
> > on parties in civil suits.
> >
> > Interestingly, messages that have been read but remain on 
> the Internet 
> > provider's computer system have very little protection. Prosecutors 
> > can typically gain access to an opened e-mail message with a simple 
> > subpoena rather than a search warrant. Similarly, lawyers in civil 
> > cases, including divorces, can subpoena opened e-mail messages.
> >
> > The case in Boston involved an online bookseller, now 
> called Alibris. 
> > In 1998, the company offered e-mail accounts to book dealers and, 
> > hoping to gain market advantage, secretly copied messages they 
> > received from Amazon.com. In 1999, Alibris and one employee pleaded 
> > guilty to criminal wiretapping charges.
> >
> > But a supervisor, Bradford C. Councilman, fought the 
> charges, saying 
> > he did not know about the scheme. He also moved to have the case 
> > dismissed on the ground that the wiretapping law did not apply. He 
> > argued that because the messages had been on the hard drive of 
> > Alibris's computer while they were being processed for 
> delivery, they 
> > counted as stored communication. The wiretap law bans a 
> company from 
> > monitoring the communications of its customers, except in a 
> few cases. 
> > But it does not ban a company from reading customers' stored 
> > communications.
> >
> > "Congress recognized that any time you store communication, 
> there is 
> > an inherent loss of privacy," said Mr. Councilman's lawyer, Andrew 
> > Good of Good & Cormier in Boston.
> >
> > In 2003, a federal district court in Boston agreed with Mr. 
> > Councilman's interpretation of the wiretap law and 
> dismissed the case. 
> > Last week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-to-1 
> decision, 
> > affirmed that decision.
> >
> > Because most major Internet providers have explicit 
> policies against 
> > reading their customers' e-mail messages, the ruling would seem to 
> > have little effect on most people.
> >
> > But this year Google is testing a service called Gmail, which 
> > electronically scans the content of the e-mail messages its 
> customers 
> > receive and then displays related ads. Privacy groups have 
> argued that 
> > the service is intrusive, and some have claimed it violates wiretap 
> > laws. The Councilman decision, if it stands, could undercut that 
> > argument.
> >
> > Federal prosecutors, who often argue that wiretap 
> restrictions do not 
> > apply in government investigations, were in the somewhat surprising 
> > position of arguing that those same laws should apply to Mr. 
> > Councilman's conduct. A spokesman for the United States attorney's 
> > office in Boston said the department had not decided whether to 
> > appeal.
> >
> > Mr. Baker said that another federal appeals court ruling, in San 
> > Francisco, is already making it hard for prosecutors to retrieve 
> > e-mail that has been read and remains on an Internet provider's 
> > system.
> >
> > In that case, Theofel v. Farey-Jones, a small Internet provider 
> > responded to a subpoena by giving a lawyer copies of 339 e-mail 
> > messages received by two of its customers.
> >
> > The customers claimed the subpoena was so broad it violated the 
> > wiretap and stored communication laws. A district court agreed the 
> > subpoenas were too broad, but ruled they were within the law. The 
> > plaintiffs appealed, and the Justice Department filed a 
> friend of the 
> > court brief arguing that the Stored Communications Act should not 
> > apply.
> >
> > In February, the appeals court ruled that e-mail stored on the 
> > computer server of an Internet provider is indeed covered by the 
> > Stored Communications Act, even after it has been read. The court 
> > noted that the act refers both to messages before they are 
> delivered 
> > and to backup copies kept by the Internet provider. "An obvious 
> > purpose for storing a message on an I.S.P.'s server after 
> delivery," 
> > the court wrote, " is to provide a second copy of the 
> message in the 
> > event that the user needs to download it again - if, for 
> example, the 
> > message is accidentally erased from the user's own computer."
> >
> > Calling e-mail "stored communication" does not necessarily reduce 
> > privacy protections for most e-mail users. While the 
> Councilman ruling 
> > would limit the applicability of wiretap laws to e-mail, it 
> appears to 
> > apply to a very small number of potential cases. The 
> Theofel decision, 
> > by contrast, by defining more e-mail as "stored communications," is 
> > restricting access to e-mail in a wide range of cases in the Ninth 
> > Circuit, and could have a far greater effect on privacy if 
> courts in 
> > the rest of the country follow that ruling.
> >
> >
> 
>