Striking the Right Balance between Privacy and Public Protection

[Ian Brown]

> The mechanisms for
> moving data from one computer to another (TCP/IP, SMTP, FTP, etc.) are
> explicitly designed to detect and correct errors introduced by any
> intermediate system or transmission route.

well... there are increasingly intermediate systems that DO affect data
passing through: web proxies that block adverts or translate pages, mail
servers that do virus checking, etc. etc.

tcp/ip provides a reliable network layer transport between two end systems;
but this definition of end system includes all of the application-layer
intermediaries mentioned above.