Doug writes:
Some time back (maybe quite a long time ago, I forget) I heard rumors that a BBS that someone had uploaded child porn or some such to, without the sysop's knowledge, resulted in the sysop's arrest. Was that merely a rumor?
Or is that a different category than the mail traffic you're commenting on?
Uploading a GIF to a BBS is definitely a different issue from those raised by ECPA, which has to do with electronic mail. For one thing, presumably an uploaded GIF is not a private message, so there's no reason for the sysop or anyone else not to look at it. In a child-porn case, the sysop may be arrested, but his criminal liability will likely depend on whether he knows about the image and his knowledge can be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Nothing I have written here should be construed as telling sysops they can't look at a) public files on their systems, and b) private files on their systems that aren't communications. --Mike