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Does the ECPA (the law regulating communications privacy) or the copyright laws apply to material that was written under a *pseudonymous* identity? I would consider this a grey area. A court
Well, there may be some legal precedent to look up: some of the greatest works of literature were published under "pseudonymous" identities. Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Mark Twain, George Eliot: none of these people ever existed. In fact, Mary Ann Evans published under "George Eliot" in order to pretend to be male; I guess you could call her master pseudospoofer, since she specifically created a fake identity in order to fool others. I suppose "Publius" doesn't qualify as a pseudospoofer since the three gentlemen who were responsible for the _Federalist Papers_ were probably just trying to hide their identity (at first) and not go about creating new ones. I'm sort of fuzzy on the distinction between pseudonymous and pseudoanonymous; is it that a pseudonym is obviously so? For example, an id on anon.penet.fi is obviously a pseudonym, so if I were to use it, I would be pseudonymous. In a sense, every mail address you see here is a pseudonym. Now, pseudoanonymous is when a fake identity is created, without it being obviously so. (Right?) So if I were to obtain another account with a different user name, etc. and use that account, I would be pseudospoofing. (?) But the difference between these two seems so slight, a semantic one rather than practical. For example, suppose several people were in communication with someone they had never met. One person (of the several) is curious as to the identity of the mystery person, and tries to find out information about this person. Very little is turned up. So little, it could be that the mystery person is "pseudoanonymous", a fake identity. Are the several people being pseudospoofed? How can they tell one way or the other without actually meeting the mystery person? If they can't tell, then what difference does it make? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLOcsTYOA7OpLWtYzAQFKzAQAyx5MNNNyjs/BeJLLqM0EX5A0ZQADCLge fNkndrgT/nSWiVGubE58girFQdNZlI5a50swKeKOqEHo8zxdqYSEIw8mrAm8iXeB mH5uOi2KHpxuWHQ+nkgmEi+KKkFNI6PQH7jR0euVPgu+GZsj40V52mJ9Z9ZYP/EV GvE6VvFkux8= =CA2o -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----