BAD NEWS :( Government amendments reinforce Big Browser

[Tom Thomson]

> In the case of messages to a mailing list, the "signalling" to the
> "apparatus" is again done by the message headers, but this time it is the
> envelope "To" header that is the key. The body of the message is not
> involved in any way in determining who the new recipients are and is
> simply copied and re-sent to the new recipients. Thus again no problem.
> BUT ...
>
> ... a problem arises with mailing list software on MTAs that accepts
> commands such as "subscribe", "unsubscribe", "list", etc, as a text string
> by itself in the body of the message. In this case the "signalling" to the
> "apparatus" is being done by the body of the message (the "content") as
> well as the message headers so in this case the whole message, headers +
> body, appears to be "communications data" by the definition implied in the
> amendment.
>
> So if there is any possibility that the "apparatus" has to look at the
> body of the message, rather than just the headers, in order to determine
> the disposition of the message (that is to "switch/relay" it)  then it
> seems that the whole message has become "communications data" at that
> point.
>

This ought not to be a very big "BUT":  it is possible to determine from the
envelope "To" header that the message is addressed to the "apparatus",
and so must be communications data. For a message addressed collectively
to the members of the list, it is possible to determine from the envelope
"To"
header that the message is not addressed to the apparatus, so it should not
be considered as communications data.  However, one then has to wonder
what happens when the listserver (or whatever the "apparatus" is) is itself
on
the mailing list in some form or other (eg in the form of a message content
archive server).