Reporting Little Blue Men

Wed Jan 21 20:54:50 UTC 1998

> From: Dean Anderson <dean at av8.com>
> 
> But when you take the step from advocacy to actions you are violating the
> law in almost every case.  You can advocate anything, but you can't go
> tearing down buildings, or in this case, intercepting communications.

Filtering packets is not interception, it is disregard. If I ignore
your packets and do not pass them to the next machine in the link, I
am not intercepting your communications, I am ignoring them. Unless
you are paying me to do so, I have no obligation to carry your packets.

If my server checks message headers to determine validity before
transferring to a spool file, I am not intercepting, I am determining
message routing. As above, if you aren't paying me, I have no obligation
to deliver something you handed me for delivery. Or are you suggesting
mail servers should deliver mail without determining who it is for?

If I review the content of your message, and then make decisions about
who gets to read it (as opposed to discarding it), then I am intercepting,
and reprehensible.

I cannot block mail espousing causes I disagree with, but I have no
obligation to deliver them either. Find yourself another path to my
client; I won't do anything to permit or prevent it. I am not blocking you.
I am also not assisting you. That is neither illegal nor immoral.

SPAM yourself silly.

dennis