New JISC briefing paper on RIP Act

[Ken Brown]

Q G Campbell re Lord Bassam's doormat:

[...]

> In our mail organisation a user's mailbox is defined by our Central Mail
> Hubs (mail gateways) when the domain address Q.G.Campbell@ncl.ac.uk is
> mapped to the mailbox address nqgc@burnmoor.ncl.ac.uk and the message
> relayed to the "nqgc" mailbox on the "burnmoor" Mail Server. It is
> delivered at that point.

I see your point and sympathise, but I wouldn't want to bet my freedom
on a court agreeing.

What if I claimed a message had been delivered because it was on our
server and a judge or a cross-examiner asked me:

"has the intended recipient, or Indeed any human being, seen it yet?" 
- my answer might be "not as far as I know"

"could they read it without transferring it to another computer?" 
- "not without knowing the admin passwords"

"could you have read it without transferring it to another computer?" 
- "yes"

They might well choose to  take this as "not yet delivered", regardless
of any receipts. 

The intended recipient might be in Papua, might have left the
organisation, might no longer have a working PC, or no longer have their
userid, they  might be dead, even murdered. All of those things have
happened to people I've managed mail servers for, and sometimes other
people (including the police) have asked to see their mail.


Ken Brown