[eff-austin] Antispam Bills: Worse Than Spam?

[mindfuq at comcast.net]

* Sunder <sunder at sunder.net> [2003-08-04 17:00]:
> 
> > Yes, this is the problem I'm trying to address.  Normally when Alice
> > tries to transmit information to Bob, if Mallory decides to sabotage
> > the communication, this is a denial of service attack, forbidden by
> > criminal law.  
> 
> Why is it forbidden by law?

I can think of hundreds of reasons DoS attacks are illegal.  Now I'm
not sure if it's illegal everywhere; I'm only familar with the way
it's written in the California Penal code, which is where Mallory is
located in this case.  But to answer your question, just look at all
the damage that's caused by DoS attacks.  Look at the Slammer worm.
It would be a seriously neglectful to allow such damaging attacks on
people and businesses.

> Bob signed a contract with Mallory waiving certain rights in
> exchange for the service provided by Mallory. Mallory provided full
> disclosure of it's rights to Bob along with Bob's responsabilities,
> etc.  Bob chose to accept those terms, how is this illegal again?

First of all, Bob was coerced into this contract because Bob had no
idea that the fine print said there may be cases where he doesn't get
the service he thinks he's paying for.  Specifically, Mallory didn't
tell Bob that she would be filtering his mail for him, and certainly
didn't tell Bob that she would take the liberty of blocking some
non-spam mail as well.  Such a contract is quite questionable, and I'd
like to see it put before a court for fair analysis.
  
> If the service Mallory provides Bob is inadequate, that's between Mallory
> and Bob, not between Alice and Bob.  Alice and Mallory have no contract
> what-so-ever.  It's upto you, Alice, to convince Bob of this fact.  If you
> can't, that's Bob's choice, not yours.  And you have no business to
> interfere between Bob and Mallory.

The problem with this argument is that Mallory is not just denying
service to Bob, but Alice as well.  Furthermore, Alice may not even
have the option of explaining the service problem to Bob, because
Mallory is preventing Alice from talking to Bob.

Mallory is everyone's business, because a malicious attack on the
Internet affects everyone.  The fact that Bob is paying Mallory money
doesn't make it okay- in fact, it worsens the problem, because the
perpetrator is being compensated by her own victims.

> > However, if the communication passes through Mallory's back yard, we
> > can let the attack happen because it's on Mallory's property.  
> 
> Wrong.  Bob agreed to those terms of service, it's not a denial of
> service, it's part of Bob's agreement with Mallory.

Such a contract is predatory, and has no business in this country.  It
prays on ignorant users, and provides a false representation for what
the user is signing up for.  FYI- you can't put anything you want in
fine print, and expect it to be legally enforceable.  Even if two
parties agree that an illegal activity is okay, this does not legalize
the activity.

> > At the
> > same time, if I sabotage the city water line that passes through my
> > property, I can be held accountable.  And rightly so.  
> 
> No.  Either you have agreed to live in said house by purchasing it, and
> have therefore become a citizen of said city, and by such actions agreed
> to abide by it's laws, or pre-existing laws allowed the city to run such
> water services through your propery.  This too is by contract.

This is just what I said.  You're making my point here.  Absolutely, I
cannot sabotage the city water line that goes through my property.

> Where, Ms. Alice, is your contract with Mallory again?

No contract necessary; criminal law is enforceable w/out a contract.
Even more so, actually, because there is no chance of a contract
removing the effect of Alice's claim.

> > AOL isn't even a human, so to put the private property rights of AOL
> > above the well-being of any human is a silly mistake.
> 
> So, in that case if you need a red stapler, you should be able to break
> into AOL's offices and steal one?????  Since fucking when?

Certainly not- there is no superceding free speech right or anything
of the kind that would entail stealing a stapler.  Blocking email,
OTOH, violates multiple rights: free speech, right to assemble and
petition the government, freedom of enterprise.. it could even run
into public safety issues.  So this stapler analogy doesn't really
work here.

> > In my particular case, AOL is blocking me from talking to friends and
> > family.  
> 
> That's the choice of your friends and family, not yours.  Take it up with
> them, not AOL.

While I have gotten all but one friend and all family members to drop
their AOL/Earthlink services, this still remains an issue for users
whome I don't know personally.

> > and AOL is vandalizing my property by destroying
> > these packets.  
> 
> No, dumbass, you placed those packets on said network repeatedly after you
> have discovered that they will be dropped in the bit bucket, that's too
> bad for you.  You've vandalized your own packets.

I didn't do this, I created them- AOL is the one destroying things.
I'm the aaahteeest, the creator.. AOL is the destroyer, using their
property destructively.

> > You can argue that how you want, but the bottom line
> > is that AOL is using their property to gain power to control who may
> > talk to who.  
> 
> And that is their right, as contractually agreed to by their customers -
> your friends and family members included.  You have no stake in this, nor
> any relationship with AOL.

Like I said, DoS laws don't require there to be a contract between
Alice and Mallory.  In fact, it *usually* is the case that Mallory and
Alice have no contract.  If you do a ping of death attack on
victim.com, do you actually think that absense of a contract between
you and victim.com gives you the right to do this?  Absurd.  Contract
or not, DoS attacks are illegal.  

If Bob signs a contract with Mallory allowing Mallory to do a DoS
attack on him, he's the only one who may not be able to take action.
But the state can still take action, as well as other victims who
didn't sign their rights away (Alice, for example).

> > This is clearly an abusive use of property, and I have
> > no tolarance for it.  
> 
> No, you abused your own property knowing full well it would be dropped
> into the bit bucket right after the 1st time you tried it.  And since
> you've got no contractual agreement with AOL, you have no expected
> reasonable expectation that AOL would forward your packets to your f&f,
> especially if AOL deems your packets to be harmful to it's network for
> whatever reason.

It's quite reasonable to expect corporations to abide by all laws in
their jurisdiction.
 
> > They need to be removed from power, and the
> > consumers who contributed to the purchasing of their property need to
> > be given some rights.
> > 
> > So if you're saying that AOL's private property rights are supporting
> > their effort to stop me from talking to my family, then of course I
> > have very little respect for private property rights.  I often see
> > people using their private property to cause damage to others, so it's
> > not real top on my list in these cases.
> > 
> 
> Your idiocy is showing.

Ad hominem.  It's natural to get frustrated when your words don't
carry much weight, but this only decreases your credibility.  You just
need to work on better angles, and find better ways to illustrate the
points you're trying to support.

Even I could come up with a better argument against myself than this
worthless argument you present.  Need some help?  You might argue that
AOL's property rights are sacred, and above all other rights.  You
might challenge me to produce an example of private property being
used to damage others.  You could argue that it doesn't matter who
gave AOL the money to buy their property, it's theirs regardless.
Just pick one.  The only idiot here is you if you can only produce an
ad hominem.  You need to work on that.