On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 05:16:03PM -0800, Tim May wrote:
The legal fight over whether the monitor was legal and whether the information so obtained are in fact records of criminal activity is a side-show. It remains practical evidence of how insecure computer equipment / OS's and pass-phrase based identity authentication combine to reduce the effective security of a system.
I fully support this comment that the whole issue of "legality" is a "side show."
Exactly - not every attacker represents law enforcement, and not every law enforcement attack is performed with the intention of creating admissible evidence. The US' exclusionary rule is the exception, not the rule, worldwide - most courts take more or less whatever evidence they can get. And thugs and goons and spies of many flavors don't give a shit about even pretending to cover their tracks when they're not following the rules. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@netbox.com PO Box 897 Oakland CA 94604