What is a "communication"

Andrew Cormack Andrew.Cormack at ja.net
Tue Aug 14 12:42:36 BST 2012


Offline at the moment so can't check, but IIRC the "TwitterJoke" judgment did conclude that a tweet on its way from the author to the Twitter site *was* a communication for Communications Act purposes (therefore capable of being malicious, though this particular one wasn't).

Can't think why the same wouldn't apply to an FTP transfer...

HTH
Andrew

--
Andrew Cormack
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto-bounces at chiark.greenend.org.uk [mailto:ukcrypto-
> bounces at chiark.greenend.org.uk] On Behalf Of Peter Fairbrother
> Sent: 14 August 2012 04:39
> To: UK Cryptography Policy Discussion Group
> Subject: Re: What is a "communication"
> 
> On 14/08/12 03:44, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> > On 13/08/12 11:07, Charles Lindsey wrote:
> 
> >>> Another question here, is traffic between me and mywebsiteserver a
> >>> communication?
> >>
> >> Yes, you sent a communication to your websiteserver and it returned
> >> information of use to you. The identity of your websiteserver is
> >> traffic data. The actual query and its response is not.
> >
> >
> > You probably can't have it both ways - my webserver is not a person.
> Or
> > is it?
> 
> Missed a bit here - I was thinking of me placing something on the 'net
> by ftp'ing it to mywebserver, and whether that ftp is a communication
> in
> RIPA terms, and therefore interceptable.
> 
> mywebsever is (allegedly) at an ISP who do not look at the content
> therein, but for the sake of argument suppose it is a physical server
> in
> in my London flat (I wish).
> 
> 
> I think it may not be a communication, as it does not have an intended
> recipient - except perhaps me, as the server operator, as opposed to
> me,
> as the sender?
> 
> I don't know.
> 
> 
> but maybe ftp prolly cannot be intercepted because it is not a
> communication, even if some b#*#*#*d sees it all.
> 
> 
> -- Peter Fairbother
> 




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