In message <9408101956.AA04136@portola.com> Joichi Ito writes:
Please excuse me if this has already been discussed... but... What about the trend of busting the sysops of bbs'? The recent Fidonet bust in Italy seems to support this trend. It sounds to me like any remailers remailing illegal stuff may get caught in the dragnet.
I think that perfect ignorance is a perfect excuse. If the traffic going through your remailer is encrypted, and you do not have the key, and you have no other way of knowing what it is, you can scarcely be held responsible for the contents, so long as you do not knowingly invite illegal use. This is a frequent topic of conversation among Internet access providers (IAPs) who are concerned about the contents of various ALT. groups which are either pornographic or copyright violations or both. The consensus seems to be that you are responsible if EITHER you are aware of the presence of these materials OR you are ignorant of any specific materials but you know that people have subscribed to your service in order to gain access to these materials. There have been no test cases, as far as I know, but I have read opinions ascribed to lawyers. IAPs would seem to be providing the same sort of service as remailers and in fact if operating remailers were a viable business they would be in an ideal position to provide the service. -- Jim Dixon