11.15.1. (ditto for CompuServe, GEnie, etc.) will exist
11.15.2. "What kinds of monitoring of the Net is possible?"
- Archives of all Usenet traffic. This is already done by
commercial CD-ROm suppliers, and others, so this would be
trivial for various agencies.
- Mail archives. More problematic, as mail is ostensibly not
public. But mail passes through many sites, usually in
unencrypted form.
- Traffic analysis. Connections monitored. Telnet, ftp, e-
mail, Mosaid, and other connections.
- Filtered scans of traffic, with keyword-matched text stored
in archives.
11.15.3. Records: note that private companies can do the same thing,
except that various "right to privacy" laws may try to
interfere with this
- which causes its own constitutional privacy problems, of
course
11.15.4. "How can you expect that something you sent on the UseNet to
several thousand sites will not be potentially held against
you? You gave up any pretense of privacy when you broadcast
your opinions-and even detailed declarations of your
activities-to an audience of millions. Did you really think
that these public messages weren't being filed away? Any
private citizen would find it almost straightforward to sort
a measly several megabytes a day by keywords, names of
posters, etc." [I'm not sure if I wrote this, or if someone
else who I forgot to make a note of did]
11.15.5. this issue is already coming up: a gay programmer who was
laid-off discussed his rage on one of the gay boards and said
he was thinking of turning in his former employer for
widespread copying of Autocad software...an Autodesk employee
answered him with "You just did!"
11.15.6. corporations may use GREP and On Location-like tools to
search public nets for any discussion of themselves or their
products
- by big mouth employees, by disgruntled customers, by known
critics, etc.
- even positive remarks that may be used in advertising
(subject to various laws)
11.15.7. the 100% traceability of public postings to UseNet and other
bulletin boards is very stifling to free expression and
becomes one of the main justifications for the use of
anonymous (or pseudononymous) boards and nets
- there may be calls for laws against such compilation, as
with the British data laws, but basically there is little
that can be done when postings go to tens of thousands of
machines and are archived in perpetuity by many of these
nodes and by thousands of readers
- readers who may incorporate the material into their own
postings, etc. (hence the absurdity of the British law)
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind