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

[Quentin Campbell]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Fairbrother [mailto:zenadsl6186@zen.co.uk]=20
> Sent: 03 October 2002 03:04
> To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: Re: Roland Perry - "is an ISP a 'Person'?"
>=20
[snip]
In response to the comment:
> > It
> > would also be an act of interception if mail were spooled=20
> specifically=20
> > to a place so that an operator (or other third party) could look at=20
> > it. It isn't interception if mail is stored, altered or=20
> deleted by an=20
> > automated process, as an automated process is itself incapable of=20
> > being a "person" for the data to be made available to, and=20
> the data is=20
> > "made available" only to a daemon process, not a real or corporate=20
> > person.

Peter Fairbrother said...=20

> I disagree. Not that it's relevant anyway, an interception=20
> has already occurred in the modification of the system,=20
> whereby the mail has been diverted so that the operator has=20
> enough access to it to feed it to the scanner. The act that=20
> caused that diversion is an interception.

What "system"? Which "modification"?=20

I am a start up ISP and I buy a turn-key Mail Relay system from Roland's
Pretty Good Mail Relays Ltd. This is his standard product, written from
scratch in Concurrent APL (TM). It is a sealed box and only responds to
TCP/IP connections on port 25.

The target customers for my new ISP are retired academics who don't like
receiving junk mail and viruses. I chose PG Mail Relay because this
system does automatic anti-virus and anti-spam filtering. These are
necessary requirements for the operation of my new ISP company.=20

I plug the PG Mail Relay box in and I see the mail IN and the mail OUT
lights flickering so I know that it is working. The "system" is exactly
as I bought it and there has been no "modification" of it to get it
working on my ISP premises.

The interesting thing is that Roland's PG Mail Relay system is
functionally identical to Quentin's pretty cruddy Mail Relay system
installed at the University of Newcastle.

Quentin's system was created by bolting together Sendmail + MailScanner
+ Sophos + SpamAssassin. It is neat because it works just as if only
Sendmail was present except that spam and virus mail is automatically
deleted.

Quentin's customers are practical engineering and scientific types and
now that they can read the UKCRYPTO list, safe from malign viruses and
annoying spam, they are wondering what all the fuss is from Peter
Fairbrother?

Quentin
---
PHONE: +44 191 222 8209    Computing Service, University of Newcastle
FAX:   +44 191 222 8765    Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, NE1 7RU.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Any opinion expressed above is mine. The University can get its own."=20