packet inspection and privacy

Dave Stewart dbs at dbscom.com
Mon Jun 24 20:27:09 UTC 2002


At 02:29 PM 6/24/2002, you wrote:
>>Point 3) is just about the same as 1), but it does imply
>>a slightly different motivation behind the inspection.
>
>I know informing a suspect of a phone tap, in the telecom business will 
>get you hard time. SO again, check with your law people...a lot's changed 
>since 9.11 and the police state is doing things that havent been ruled 
>legal or illegal by the USSC. So beware and get competent legal council 
>before implementing anything.

I do know that when I've gotten supoenas for information (logs, etc), I was 
instructed by language in the document not to disclose its existance.  I 
always suspected this included informing the customer!

It makes sense when you think about it - if you know your data's being 
inspected, you're not going to send that message about whatever illegal 
activity you're involved in.

So authorities investigating something, even pre-9/11, don't want the 
subject of that investigation to know they're being looked at.

I think that beyond including in your TOS that you may from time to time 
inspect data, etc, for system/network security and/or performance reasons, 
you can't inform customers every time you start looking at things.

IANAL, though, so do seek competent legal counsel on the issue before 
implementing anything.




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