On 2006-01-12T11:32:46+0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:

Welcome to Teletubby land.

----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh -----

From: Declan McCullagh Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 01:41:34 -0800 To: politech@politechbot.com Subject: [Politech] New law targets online activities designed "to annoy" others [fs] User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (Macintosh/20050716)

The prohibition: "Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Incomplete. There's an exception carved out: Here's the bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.3402: version 6, section 113, adds 47 U.S.C. 223 (h)(1)(C), which is as Declan quoted, but...

(h)(1)(B) does not include an interactive computer service.

47 U.S.C. 230

(f)(2) The term interactive computer service means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.

So it appears not to apply to multi-recipient communications, such as online forums or usenet or even mailing lists. -- The six phases of a project: I. Enthusiasm. IV. Search for the Guilty. II. Disillusionment. V. Punishment of the Innocent. III. Panic. VI. Praise & Honor for the Nonparticipants.