What can ISPs do better? Removing racism out of internet

Tue Aug 6 18:17:50 UTC 2019

On August 5, 2019 at 19:02 valdis.kletnieks at vt.edu (Valdis Klētnieks) wrote:
 > 
 > Hint:  The DMCA has the text about data stored on ISP servers because many ISPs
 > aren't mere conduits.  And this thread got started regarding a CDN, which is very much
 > all about storing data on servers.....

I acted as an expert witness for the FBI regarding a case which
revolved around whether email spending time on intermediate servers is
"storing" the data or is it just another form of wire transmission?

I don't think they came to a definitive conclusion, the case was
basically settled out of court, plea-bargained I think, it was a
criminal matter.

But needless to say, once again, a non-legal-expert's reading of
"storing data on servers" doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the
legal world.

It turned out to be very important at least in theory since illegally
intercepting a wire transmission falls under a completely different
law than illegally accessing stored data, the defendant was arguing
that he'd been charged under the wrong law, and the court agreed it
was a valid point to investigate.

So my phone rang and I tried to help with the part of that (technical)
I knew something about, how internet email is transmitted etc. But I
was briefed on the legal aspects to help me focus on what they needed
and I agreed it isn't /prima facie/ obvious.

For example you may see storing of email (which may not even mean to a
physical disk) during transmission through intermediate servers as
"storing of data" but then again many network devices have various
buffering mechanisms in which data might reside for some amount of
time. Are they legally distinguishable? Should they be? etc.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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