Re: More on digital postage

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 08:33 PM 2/15/97 -0600, snow wrote:
>Mr. May wrote: 
>> At 11:40 AM -0600 2/15/97, snow wrote:
>> >	That is a ridiculous argument. The door to my home is connected
>> >to the street,m and I know full well that that makes it easy for anyone
>> >to come wandering in to my home. Is it legal, just because I have my
>> >home hooked to the street, for someone to come in and help themselves to
>> >a beer out of my fridge?
>> 
>> The proper parallel is to _knocking on the door_. Talking about "unwanted
>> phone calls" or "unwanted faxes" as being equivalent to entering a house
>> and wandering around is incorrect.
>
>	With phone calls, yes. With unwanted faxes no. With Phone Calls, 
>and knocks on the door I have the option of simply not answering. Faxes
>(in certain enviroments) you can't do that with. 


That's a technlogical problem, and deserves a technological solution.

>
>> Our society fairly reasonably allows tort relief for, say, having one's
>> doorbell rung frequently or at odd hours. On the fax issue, similar tort
>> relief could be obtained if a person or business was truly "under attack."
>> (Purists, like me, would probably prefer technological solutions even in
>> these cases. Leave a phone on answering machine mode, only switch on the
>> fax mode when a fax is expected, etc.)
>
>	Or simply a societal acceptance of retaliation(sp?) Someone who
>constantly wakes you up in the middle of the night, well you just arrange
>it so they get no sleep. 

Well, I've proposed such a system before...


>> These tort actions are a far cry from proposals that anyone whose knock on
>> the door, or phonecall, or e-mail, or fax is subject to criminal
>> prosecution under proposed new laws.
>> (I think the courts are already clogged enough, and I have faith that no
>> court in the land will accept a case where no real harm was done. A friend
>> of mine got mailbombed with 25,000 e-mail messages in one day, shutting
>> down his account until the mess could be cleaned up, and it's not even
>> likely he'll ever get any relief.)
>
>	I (I think like you) feel that almost no one will get convicted
>of these "crimes" unless the attacker simply goes too far. 

Which is why my first choice is, uh, and alternative method of "justice."


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com