Re: port scanning withing the US: legal?

From: Ian Gregory (i.h.gregory@herts.ac.uk)
Date: 10/25/02 

From: i.h.gregory@herts.ac.uk (Ian Gregory)
Date: 25 Oct 2002 16:37:20 GMT

In article <k0diru4luq98sks3paageqf9opgr810p79@4ax.com>, Mike wrote:
>On 24 Oct 2002 13:57:52 GMT, eirik@mi.uib.no (Eirik Seim) wrote:
>
>>> >When someone *voluntarily* decides to connect their computer (private
>>> >property) to the Internet they are effectively making it a part of
>>> >the Internet (public property). It is like agreeing to be assimilated.
>
>Therefore, when somebody builds a house with a driveway that connects
>to a public street, the house becomes public property.

In my sample argument (quoted without attribution) I did not mean to
suggest that when you ask a company to configure a switch owned by them
to route a load of IP packets down a wire owned by a phone company into
a box owned by you that you give up physical ownership of your bright
shiny hunk of metal and plasic. I was suggesting that one *could* argue
that it becomes public property on an information level. Note that I
avoided the issue of who the IP packets might belong to!

As most people would readily agree the law has not caught up with
the internet and I don't think it ever will. Things will just become
ever more complex and ambiguous unless/until we give up the curious
notion that one can own information. 

-- 
Ian Gregory
Systems and Applications Manager
Learning and Information Services
University of Hertfordshire

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