From: Mklprc@aol.com Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 09:26:11 -0500 To: scottr@hevanet.com Cc: alano@teleport.com, brew@mtek.com, GERICKS971@aol.com, 74710.3505@compuserve.com, furseor1@hr.house.gov Subject: future entrapment

Something to think about...(fwd)

Thought you all might be interested in this excerpt from CPSR list regarding copyrights on the Net and especially how police can use the Web to set up stings.

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Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 07:45:31 -0800 From: Charlie Stross <charless@sco.com> (by way of marsha-w@uiuc.edu To: cpsr-global@cpsr.org

Philosophically, I see most journalists as being filters. Some of us read press releases, strip out the propaganda, and supply the results (with interpretation) to the public. Some of us go and try to nail down the story by poking around and asking questions. But ultimately we rely on sensory input at some level -- and all we do is rearrange it, comment on it (by referring to prior input), and punt it out again at our readers. This is fundamentally an editorial process, and there will be more need for it -- not less -- as the information deluge gathers momentum.

There's a huge problem on the net: how does copyright apply to a reference? For example: I can't stitch a Far Side cartoon into my WWW home page. But I _can_ embed an <IMG SRC= ...> directive in my page, pointing to a Far Side cartoon that is _legitimately_ stored somewhere else on the net. When you look at my page you will see the cartoon ... and will have a bit of a headache when you stop to think about the copyright implications.

The precise question of what constitutes a copyright violation runs into a wall of mud as soon as you start asking questions about sources and hyperlinks. For example, here's the kind of havoc you can wreak by classifying all embedded link dereferences as deliberate actions. Suppose I am a cop in some redneck area, and I want to nail someone who uses the net locally. I could run a _very_ neat entrapment sting to nail people for posession of kiddie porn:

* establish a local WWW server hosting some useful information * configure the server to record the IP addresses of people who access it, and cross-reference them to obtain geographical locations as registered with NIC. Feed this into a GIS and track local accesses. * have a list of people who I want to nail. * filter all HTTP requests through a script that - checks the list of victims - if a request for a file comes in from one of the targets, munge the outgoing web page to include a <IMG SRC= ...> tag pointing to a foreign site carrying images deemed pornographic in my jurisdiction - ring the console bell

As soon as someone on the hit list downloads a file, you have prima facie evidence that they are probably in posession of some kiddie porn. Instant search warrant time ...

(And in case you were wondering, this is just a technology twist on top of the recent Adult Action BBS case in Mississippi.)

Basically, as far as I can see, conventional notions of copyright are going to have to change -- because copying is no longer the only mechanism for gaining posession of information. Our notions of intellectual property may also have to change ...

-- Charlie

(Who happens to write a column in Online World, and who can be found most months in Computer Shopper and some months in PC PLUS -- all three of them UK-based magazines unrelated to any US titles of the same name.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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