FW: Minimum prefix length?

Wed Jun 11 21:14:49 UTC 2003

Stephen J. Wilcox wrote:

> Howevers its curious that signatures such as this claiming to be confidential 
> are posted to a list which is very much public and archived in several public 
> websites.. not sure how right it is to autoappend them to all your mails as well 
> as the private ones!

There is a current belief (IANAL) that once you publicly post messages 
with such a disclaimer, the disclaimer will be unenforceable in court 
thereafter.

I.E. John Doe posts something to public mailing list with the usual 
legalese disclaimer. I read John's posts, and realize that his 
disclaimer has no meaning- he has intended for the general public to see 
his communication and has authorized everyone explicitly. How can John 
later claim, if I inadvertantly received a misdirected private 
communication, that I was not authorized, since he has previously given 
blanket authorization to the public at large to read (some) communications?

This might seem like splitting hairs, but I bet a good lawyer can make a 
whole case out of it.