On Friday 31 October 2003 11:29 am, HaywireMac wrote: > Relying on politicians and lawyers to protect us has never served us > well in the past, I see no reason to expect anything different for the > future.
The answer however, is not to reject everything out of hand and adopt the position that no law can be useful. At some level, we need to engage and where it makes sense, such as extending property rights to networks and machines, defining fraudulent practices such as phishing and fake websites, and enforcing laws against digital activities that in the real world would be considered criminal activity. Some of the same activities engaged in by spammers, such as postage paid advertising, deceptive practices, etc. would be illegal if done in print or snail mail. I say that if we already recognize that those activities should be prohibited, there is absolutely no reason to hold the same activities, in the electronic world as being legal or somehow deserving of more protection. It may be that the power of government is dangerous and should be watched closely. All the more reason for us to take an active role in helping prevent it from becoming so and not adopting the position that if it can not be perfect, we will stick our heads in the sand, make dire paranoid predictions and pretend that it won't happen with our input or without it. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer
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