anonymous@extropia.wimsey.com writes:
Now, the point most internet people forget is that FIDOnet hosts are hobbyists with 100% privately-owned machines and generally pay for the entire participation of their userbase out of their own pockets, excepting a few who get some dollars here and there from their generous callers.
While I agree that this is laudable (in fact, I hereby laud such sysops), I don't think this is much different than small, medium, and large businesses and some private individuals which route Internet and USENET mail without question and without charge on a constant basis.
As a completely justified consequence, they can decide if they allow encrypted traffic _on their individual BBSs_.
Encrypted "traffic"? Encrypted traffic to/from the BBS itself, maybe. However, it seems to me that it's an open question in this discussion as to whether it's legal for the BBS operator to enforce such a restriction on traffic flowing through the machine as part of a multi-hop route.
In that there is considerable fear of the consequences of illegal activity being conducted on their BBSs via encrypted mail, many sysops (such as the one you mention, leaving aside, for now, that he apparently confused a PGP key with an encrypted message) do not wish to take the risk and forbid encrypted traffic.
This is the issue: are such sysops, in the quest to prevent illegal activity, engaging in an illegal activity?
They also monitor e-mail, if only incidentally during the course of routine system maintenance, and notices to this effect are generally contained in log-on screens and new-user info files.
Well, it seems to me that to actually prevent encrypted traffic from flowing through the site, pretty much *all* mail would have to be screened.
In that these sysops are extremely, _personally_ vulnerable, they are generally more cautious than those internet folks who can hide behind institutions and businesses.
But the sad truth may be that they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Being the owner of the machine and providing a free service don't seem to be relevant facts when examining the practice of e-mail filtering by examination in light of the ECPA. -- Mike McNally