ZA approves RIP analog

[Owen Blacker]

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Philip Rowlands, quoting Peter Fairbrother:
> 
>> He uses the content of emails as input to the scanning program which
>> decides whether to discard an individual email.
> 
> He sets up a computer to perform an action which would be illegal to
> perform himself (reading email contents, and acting on them).
> 
> I'd argue that, even if the sysadmin's eyes never see the undesirable
> (virus) content of a discarded email, he has learnt by ommission the
> nature of some of its contents, hence interception.

I thought (ianal and I ~am~ forgetful :)  that we knew it was interception,
the issue was whether it was covered by a "doing what I need to do"
defence, pticly given that the user is almost certainly warned that virus
(or spam) scanning is happening.

> He knows that the email belongs to the set of !(viruses).
> 
> Suppose it's not viruses, but love letters/financial advice/medical
> reports. A filter could delete messages from abc@example.com with
> "Dinner tonight?" as the subject, or delay their delivery 24 hours.

But it's not.  Iirc, the wording was that interception is lawful if "[the
interception] takes place for purposes connected with the provision or
operation of [the telecommunications service]".

See RIP, section 3(3), parts (a) and (b):
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--b.htm#3

Filtering for viruses is (arguably, at least) taking place in order to
maintain the provision of the email service.  Filtering for spam is
doubtless more controversial and I'd be surprised if that weren't
eventually set by caselaw, but it could certainly be argued.

> Unless he seeks to learn the actions of his mailserver (e.g. reading the
> logfiles), is any of this meta-content information "made available"?
> Must the virus scanner operate without logging to be non-intercepting?

I'm not sure that's relevant.

But, of course, I could be deeply wrong  :o)


O x
- -- 
Owen Blacker
Senior Software Developer and InfoSecurity Consultant   Wheel: Group
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