Roland Perry - "is an ISP a 'Person'?"

[David Howe]

at Tuesday, October 01, 2002 2:57 PM, Owen Blacker
<owen.blacker@wheel.co.uk> was seen to say:
> But if you (as either the natural person or the body corporate)
> specifically requested that the computer perform that unattended
> task...
True enough; however, if you assume that, in order for interception to
take place some individual must "see" it - then the machine doing the
seeing must be part of the "being" represented by the body corporate. As
a side effect, then the selective interception warrants issued under RIP
can't exist - by definition, you must be inspecting each mail to
distinguish covered from uncovered mail, and if the inspection mechanism
is not excluded from the definition, you are blanket-intercepting
everything, then discarding what you don't want.
Once you start accepting that a machine can perform interception as a
"third party" capable of "seeing" a message, then you open a big can of
worms; is echo cancelling interception? is rejecting mail based on size?

>> but it has already been established that, if you
>> extract unauthorised cash from an ATM, you aren't guilty of fraud as
>> you can't "fool" a machine; Surely if the initial view is true, then
>> you are guilty of fooling the body corporate that owns the ATM?
> I'm not sure how that's relevant...(?)
Either a machine is part of a body corporate or it isn't - you *can*
commit fraud against a body corporate, so logically, you are fooling the
body corporate into handing you money, not just a dumb machine.


> (And am I the only person who keeps misreading this Subject: line as
>  "Is Roland Perry a person?"?  *G*)
I thought I saw an "or" before "a person" :)