Policies affecting the Internet as a whole - Hitting where it hurts

Fri Dec 27 22:12:06 UTC 1996

  Hi.

I wrote:
] >   Did you contact a law enforcement agency?  Did we comply with
] >   their wishes?
] >   It seems that you are asking for vigilantism, not cooperation.

Kim wrote:
] What sort of law enforcement agency would contact uunet ?
] How about my local township police department ?

  Whatever law enforement agency has jurisdiction.  If the attacked
  server is within their jurisdiction, that would be a good place to
  start.  Potentially you will have to escalate this to the FBI, as
  they seem to be pretty savvy to computer crimes, on a relative
  scale.

  Law enforcement agencies _do_ contact providers, and do catch
  folk.  Read any popular book about shimomura and mitnick to see 
  an instance.  (legal tramplings not withstanding)

  I make no bones about this being a difficult problem, and I don't
  mean to infer that Mr Hawn was attacking UUNET or advocating that
  an ISP "retaliate".  I apologize that this came across this way.

  However, the more general theme seems to infer that providers of
  service should maintain some level of responsibility for what
  their users do.

  This scares me, in the "real world".

  -alan