Being safe on the internet (was Re: Here we go again - ISP DPI, but is it interception?)

[Roland Perry]

In article 
<AANLkTi=1mvY2qcJp0+QozvKQm+_4EHe9L0qvjNvPNBP_ at mail.gmail.com>, Francis 
Davey <fjmd1a at gmail.com> writes
>There is no dishonesty requirement in the CDA. The requirement is that
>the defendant subjectively know that the access is objectively
>unauthorised. URL shortening on a site without any reason to believe
>that it is "unauthorised" could not, in my view, ever be a s1 offence
>because of the way in which the internet operates and is known by
>those involved to operate. Things would be different if a website
>(which you had read) had a disclaimer to the contrary, or you had read
>terms and conditions which told you not to do the very thing you did.

The hierarchical nature of most websites means that if you go up a layer 
you expect to find an index of some sort, although many modern content 
management systems don't work like that, and will give an error. Not so 
much because it's "unauthorised" but because on their website "that url 
makes no sense".

Where it becomes trickier is if you go fishing for urls. I'll give an 
example from my day-job, where one of my tasks is to monitor the process 
of governments giving advice to ICANN. At the end of every meeting they 
publish a communiqué, and its arrival is keenly awaited (if only because 
it might give some opportunity to discuss the contents before everyone 
on-site disperses). One day they'll get around to tweeting its 
publication, but we aren't there yet.

The last two have had urls of:

http://gac.icann.org/system/files/Nairobi_Communique.pdf
http://gac.icann.org/system/files/Brussels-communique.pdf

The next meeting is in Cartagena.
-- 
Roland Perry