Re: Invisible users

["Jukka Santala" <donwulff@xxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian" <ircd@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ircd-users@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 5:50 AM
Subject: Re: Invisible users
> Well, putting a disclaimer on the MOTD seems to work on DALnet.  Most
> servers say "we have the right to deny.." right on them.  It'd be
different

My response was mainly a tongue-in-cheeck attempt at finishing off the
horse, if the line about writing a virus to disconnect everyone who sees the
disclaimer didn't give it out, though this seems to have failed. In any
case, communications privacy tends to enjoy special protection in most
countries; it may have something to do with the shady deals politicians love
to engange in, but let's not speculate further on that ;) Even if there
weren't any direct rules concerning Internet communications, technologies
like WLAN mean that laws intended for other branches of communications might
well be applicable to such communications.

Further, while I know that contract-law is fairly strong in USA, essentially
allowing people to even sign off their constitutional rights, this is
certainly not the case in every country. The habit of computer management
putting up outright disclaimers stating they can read private communications
"if neccessary for adminstration" is certainly widespread, but I'm not sure
it has been tested in very many cases or places.

And altough I'm woefully out of the loop on the legislation of this area
currently, the government of Back-Aruba could today pass a law making it a
criminal offence to eavesdrop on internet communications of their citizens,
whether announced or not, so you can never be sure that such disclaimers
carry any merit (Even assuming they were actually read and the courts
decided to consider them valid). More often than not, they're just
superstitious incantations to make the admins feel less worried. They're
also good to point to clueless kiddies who'd never be in the position to
take action anyway, so they'll stop threatening.

But in any case, unless great big secrets like company trade-secrets or
political plans were being eavesdropped on, it is most unlikely such action
would ever go to court. Not to mention that unless the aquired information
was subsequently used somehow immorally, at which point that action in
itself would more likely be actionable, the "victims" probably wouldn't even
ever know of it. This is not to support such a hobby; if there's a need to
hide the eavesdropper, the action is most likely to be most immoral and
objectionable, but unless you intend to publish logs of #netsex with
participants real names and addresses, it's very unlikely you'll need any
kind of disclaimers. And if that's your plan, it's unlikely any kind of
disclaimers are really going to help too much.

Now, as far as this list is concerned, such a feature is unlikely to ever
make it into any major IRC distributions. It's worth mentioning that for
example Undernet didn't choose to hide their channel-service bots, for
reasons that are probaly at least as much moral than technical. And if I got
a dollar every time some newbie came in to a channel thinking that setting
themselves +i lets them to flood and insult people without being
seen/kicked, I'd be a rich man. That is to say, it's a somewhat commin
misconception about how IRC works, but in reality, there is no such mode in
common use, and it would be rather useless except for intentional breaches
on expectations of privacy.

 -Donwulff