one-to-many messaging

[Roland Perry]

In article <20080403115408.GC2871@olann.net>, John Lamb 
<ukcrypto@lawnjam.com> writes
>> A "404" being defined as modifying the contents of my computer seems to
>> fall within the same sort of are as downloading an image being construed
>> as "making" it, and opens a huge can of worms. In what way is the 404's
>> arrival "unauthorised" (rather than "unexpected" or "frustrating" etc).
>
>The forged 404 will be cached on your computer, which would not happen
>if the connection was simply dropped. It may affect future requests to
>the same URL, and may cause your browser to take other actions which it
>would not have if the connection was dropped.

That's merely "unexpected and "frustration" rather than "unauthorised". 
It's not possible to simply declare certain things as "unauthorised" out 
of thin air.

I find that multi-megabyte attachments to email are often "frustrating", 
(and people on international roaming connectivity may find them 
expensive). But I can't criminalise all their senders under CMA by 
simply exuding an invisible thought bubble that says "I do not authorise 
anyone to send me an email with an attachment over 100k bytes".

>If an ISP drops the TCP packets containing your request to a blocked
>site, it is implying that it has no route to the site. This isn't
>entirely true - it is actually *refusing* to route to it - but this is
>still the most appropriate action.
>
>If the ISP sends you a 404 or 403, it is representing you that you have
>reached the server you wanted to connect to, and that the server is
>refusing or unable to respond to your request. They are impersonating
>the server, which seems like it *should* be illegal.

In which case we need to think about impersonation laws, not try to bend 
others to do things they weren't intended to do.
-- 
Roland Perry