Are You Being Served? Don't Open That Email!

An unnamed reader writes: "A federal appeals court has ruled that legal documents can be served by email. Since the party had no physical address, the court ruled that email was a viable option. So, before you open that next email, you might want to consider if it's something you might want to avoid! And it wouldn't be spam..."

Comments

This is unreal

[EricKrout.com]

Another karma-busting post.

OK, I'm going now. I'll be back on Monday. Time to get some more stuff done :-)
See you all later

Re:This is unreal

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, Eric Krout. You are gay on the Katz level, and we really don't care to hear for it anymore.

Re:This is unreal

[Anonymous Coward]

And an anonymous COWARD spewing garbage left and right is ... ?

Re:This is unreal

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU, I wouldn't waste karma on a gay prick like Krout.

Prove I opened it

[Archfeld]

I use hotmail for a reason :)

Re:Prove I opened it

[bmongar]

If you use html views of a message they can prove you opened it by embeding a web-bug in the address. That is an image that loads remotely, if the image is loaded from that location you opened the mail.

Re:Prove I opened it

[linuxrunner]

I download all my "home" e-mails at night and read them on my laptop.. not online.

Come get me now!

Re:Prove I opened it

[Anonymous Coward]

So Microsoft has a royalty-free license to use your subpoena?

Wow! Cool!

Re:Prove I opened it

[mystik]

Right --- and MS under supoena woulden't provide their web logs to authorities ...

Re:Prove I opened it

[56ker]

Yes but this assumes people actually view HTML e-mails - if they view them by text as default this doesn't work.

Re:Prove I opened it

[Signa1 11 on]

would using lynx not get you around that?

Re:Prove I opened it

[Ooblek]

It doesn't matter if you opened it or not really. After a while, they assume you are avoiding being served and just call it done. Too bad if you never knew about it. I believe there was a lawsuit that Art Bell had going against some dork that was accusing him of being a child molester. The guy was avoiding being served, so the deputy eventually concluded that he was illegally avoiding service.

Re:Prove I opened it

[Zeekamotay]

All the Pine, Elm, and Mutt users are chuckling right now...

Re:Prove I opened it

[apg]

That would be circumstantial evidence at best. The fact that your Web server recorded a request for a given resource -- even a moderately unique one (such as a URL crafted specifically for that email message) -- doesn't prove anything other than a request was made for that resource. There's nothing in your server logs that says the intended recipient opened the email message, or even, for that matter, that the email message was opened at all.

Re:Prove I opened it

[viking099]

or you can do what I do:
Use Pine to check your emails...
or another text-based email client...:-)

Re:Prove I opened it

[Destoo]

Cannot use Lynx for hotmail anymore, unfortunately.

Is that still true for Links?

Re:Prove I opened it

[Technician]

It doesn't work for me. I always drop the connection before opening mail. I do this for two reasons.
1, Stops mail viruses. If it tries to open a connection it gets deleted. I don't spread viruses.

2, Stops advertiser tracking. If it tries to open a conneciton, it gets deleted. I want a mail advertiser to know most of their mail hit the bit bucket unseen.

Sending anythng with a bug or fetch anything ensures I don't see it.

They may say I received it, and I can say it was auto-deleted if it met any of these spam/virus modes of operation.

Re:Prove I opened it

[geekoid]

actually its proof someone or some program, opened it.

Re:Prove I opened it

[jon787]

yep having a nice BIG party, want to join us?

Re:Prove I opened it

[AJWM]

Heck, I just "vi /var/spool/mail/$USER".

Re:Prove I opened it

[ethereal]

Not even if you alter lynx to provide the correct browser detection string?

Re:Prove I opened it

[M@T]

No... that proves that someone with access to your machine/account opened it... is that really enough?

Re:Prove I opened it

[ncc74656]

If you use html views of a message they can prove you opened it by embeding a web-bug in the address.

Sounds like yet another reason to block HTML email.

Re:Prove I opened it

[Alien54]

I remember that.

What happened was that his son. artbell jr (or whatever) had been molested by a teacher, who was sent away to jail for a very long time.

The idiot had his own small time talk show on shortwave (I think) Someone had sent the idiot a rumor that had it all backwards, accusing the talk show host father Art Bell of peodophilia. Art Bell had been trying to keep it quiet to protect his son, and eventually came forward with the information on the air, when the rumors got to heavy, and he had to file a law suit. Needless to say, the father was not pleased, hired the best of lean and hungry lawyers, and had at the jerk.

Now there are programs like Mailwasher that let you erase and bounce email before you download it. Of course, Unix admins have been able to do this since the dawn of time.

Re:Prove I opened it

[telstar]

Now prove it wasn't my 5 year old nephew that accidentally switched over to Outlook while playing "Grover Learns to Read".

Re:Prove I opened it

[Zrealm]

Of course, you're one of a minority that's continually growing smaller. As more and more people go broadband, even thinking about disconnecting will make less and less sense to most people.

Re:Prove I opened it

[dgroskind]

sapientia potestas est

Per contra, scientia ipsa est potestas. Sapientia est donum deorum.

Re:Prove I opened it

[Tjp($)pjT]

Another reason for the Mac OS X mailer option to not download HTML not embedded in the message, and have the option to bounce it back to the sender as if the mail server bounced it... Good security means no proof of service.

Re:Prove I opened it

[Tjp($)pjT]

Considering in some states (NH in particular) the delivery can be to the last known abode of, rather than the individual. I know that the state routinely ignores the statute requiring certified mail for delivery and accepts statements that an item was mailed as proof it was delivered, _without_ any concrete proof other than a stement or log entry to the effect it was mailed. The state will often mail traffic court notices to addresses that are years old... even though they have access directly to the registration and drivers license address changes ...

Re:Prove I opened it

[Anonymous Coward]

You could as of a week ago. I haven't tried since. You just have to recompile with SSL support, and then acknowledge about 17 invalid cookies, then when you get a screen saying that your browser might not work, click through anyway.

Try it sometime.

Re:Prove I opened it

[roju]

vi!? What kind of haughty pompous user are you? Real men use cat. Real men don't even use less or more, they just read really fast.

Actually, back in the day, I'd use tail to check to see if the prompt was lying about new mail. Now I just fire up pine, since everyone insists on sending mime multipart messages, and all tail shows is lines of "SFGJL4534traZGFZ" followed by "---Next part.." or whatever, leaving me with no idea what the actual mail was.

Re:Prove I opened it

[Anonymous Coward]

AOL's new tag line "You've got served"...

Re:Prove I opened it

[CrazyDwarf]

Then wouldn't there be a log that you downloaded it? As far as I understood, it isn't necessary that you read a summons, merely that you receive it. If this is true, then you'd still be screwed.

I prefer to simply delete any email from anyone I don't know or wasn't expecting email from. But even that wouldn't protect me if all I had to do is receive it. Of course, I only use email at work, it is on an exchange server. I guess I'm still screwed, too.

Re:Prove I opened it

[stilwebm]

Real men use cat. Real men don't even use less or more, they just read really fast.

You mean real men read at 38400bps on a serial console.

Re:Prove I opened it

[servanya]

Hmmm. The only thing they need to prove is that the email didn't bounce. Even then, they might get away with it. Serving papers is a joke - if they can't find you, it doesn't matter. (in most states) They just leave it at last known address, and ta-da, you have been served! Email would be the same way, or at least one could argue in court that it is the same. SO really, if it bounces, they still tried to deliver it to the last known address....maybe all they need to do is prove that the delivery attempt was made. Scary.

Re:Prove I opened it

[Grax]

Don't use html email. It serves no useful purpose. Anything that can be said in large font green flashing text can also be said in plain text.
If you must use html email use one that doesn't follow outside links for images and such from within a message. (Don't ask me which program does this. I don't use html email.)

Re:Prove I opened it

[Anonymous Coward]

Search google for 'gotmail'

It's a lovely perl script that uses curl-ssl to download and optionaly forward the mail form your hotmail account

Re:Prove I opened it

[Anonymous Coward]

I can share my hotmail password with 8 other people and use it as a joint account. All I have to do is have someone say they deleted everything by accident. I also have my email set to text only, and download headers only of anything from someone not on my accept list. I would probably never ever even see the email unless it was nailed to my physical door.

How is proved the papers were served?

[moankey]

At least in the past you could just not answer the door or run around your lawn in circles having the server chase you. Now email is good enough? How will they confirm the person actually recieved it?

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Kamel Jockey]

How will they confirm the person actually recieved it?

You can send email with a return receipt requested, however, you are typically prompted to send the acknowledgement. Supposedly you may not be looking at the email when this prompt comes up and you might accidentally agree to send one.

Its also conceivable that the sender could look at your mailserver's logs to see if you downloaded the message, but that doesn't necessarily prove that you have read it.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Maybe by using those lamo "read receipt" messages that outlook sends. Unfortunately for lawyers, (and for non-tech-savvy people) most geeks turn them off.

graspee

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Signa1 11 on]

Its also conceivable that the sender could look at your mailserver's logs to see if you downloaded the message, but that doesn't necessarily prove that you have read it.

IANAL, but wouldn't downloading the message be enough proof of delivery. Just because you don't read the summons doesn't excuse you.

If an attorney servers me with papers, they have been delivered whether I read them or not.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Chiasmus_]

IANAL, but I work for one.

Serving someone by e-mail is probably the legal equivalent of serving someone by newspaper. Yes, if the court is entirely unable to locate somebody, they can serve them as a "last resort" on one of the back pages of the newspaper. (Come on, someone has to have seen those). I believe the laws are set up in this case so that if a person fails to read (or be told about) that summons, the court has met its obligation and that party is considered to have defaulted.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[dossen]

well, not that I do that regularlly, but mail can be checked on the server, so maybe you never download the mail. Nobody can tell, that it was you and not your mail-client that deleted it unread, right of the server. Not that I care, don't think we'll get that kind of rules here in Denmark, for a while anyway. ;-)

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[rikki_t]

In Deed. Maybe it was deleted immediately, unread. I'd liken email summons to leaving the summons at someone's door. You can't insure that someone has read it - just that you sent it to the location they were at.

Hell, how do they know that _I_ read it? What if my roommate routinely downloads my mail and deletes it, to be a punk? What if it was d/l'ed, and crashed in mid read, corrupting the mail?

It's just a bad idea, imho.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[johnburton]

No. FOr example my mail program downloads the mail messages but discards about 90% of them as spam and I never see them.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can be served in many ways:
The server can drop it in front of your feet.
The server can nail it to your door.
The lawyer can publish it in a couple of newspapers.

So, you can't avoid it, short of going off planet maybe...

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that this type of delivery (e-mail, dropping in front of your feet, nailing to the door, publishing in a newspaper) is a last resort, typically only used for deadbeats who want to go to jail for not paying child support...

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Deed. Maybe it was deleted immediately, unread. I'd liken email summons to leaving the summons at someone's door.

If the papers fall in your general vicinity, and you hear "you have been served", it doesn't matter if you even touch the papers, let alone read them, you've been served.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[geekoid]

No, it just says someone downloaded the message to a computer. My wife and I use the same email account, for instance.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Anonymous Coward]

Suppose papers served are in Microsoft Word format. So it will be illegal not to have word to read them.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[mmol_6453]

Something I've learned during my four years in high school...just because something isn't fair doesn't mean it isn't or won't be true.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[Arrian]

Actually, you have a really good point. In sending a real world summons, don't they have to physically hand _you_ the summons. They can't mail it, even certified, can they? Email is less private than your mailbox, it's a federal crime to go through someone's mailbox, but there are no laws against reading someone's email, especially if sent to a work address.

Sounds like an excuse for lawyers to get lazy and cheap when delivering summons'. You can find who owns an URL, and whoever owns it ought to know who runs it. Under todays laws, isn't the URL owner responsible for the content.

Whay wasn't this taken up with ICANN, anyway. Looks like a domain dispute to me.

Re:How is proved the papers were served?

[nurightshu]

Yes, but can they nail a newspaper to your feet?

Anyone else frightened by this?

[bytes256]

Isn't it kinda easy to forge emails and say that they are from the government? And couldn't someone along the way simply alter it? At least with snail mail it's easier to determine if it's been tampered with....just my $0.02

Re:Anyone else frightened by this?

[Chiasmus_]

As a part-time legal secretary, I assure you that it is the easiest thing in the world to forge a court document and stick a government return address on an envelope.

(I can also assure you that there is little point to doing this unless you're looking for the free room and board of jail).

Re:Anyone else frightened by this?

[bytes256]

how is this a troll? i didn't support microsoft or insult free software?

Re:Anyone else frightened by this?

[mmol_6453]

Tampering is easy to detect in email...if the sender digitally signs it with something like PGP.

Re:Anyone else frightened by this?

[screwtheNSA]

This is VERY simply done!
My wife was handed a blatantly falsified court document concerning her divorce, her EX being a sheriff deputy, he decided to serve me through his girlfriend, with papers that "appeared" valid as they had the docket number, judges name and plaintiff/respondent in the header. He also faked the seal, signed the document and his girlfriend then drove 70 miles to serve me with it.

We made contact with the D.A. who read the faked papers, then told us that anybody can do that, it's not illegal, when in fact, forging ANY document is fraud, and IS a criminal act. But the D.A. told my wife he was not going to pursue any charges. Again, we know, because her EX is a sheriff deputy, and you know they NEVER do anything illegal</sarcasm>!

We retained the papers in either respect, because it WILL be used against him in our upcoming case against him. Documented child abuse by a doctor and a registered nurse are all we need to have him jailed.

Happy days will be seeing a cop in jail for criminal acts against those he is sworn to protect..YIPPEE!!

I didn't read it

[bdevlin]

Can't I just claim I never read it and delete it?

Re:I didn't read it

[British]

Well, you can play a step further and claim stupidity. Don't say "No, i didn't receive nor read an email summons to court on April 14, 2002", just say "what email?"

Re:I didn't read it

[Matthaeus]

Funny thing happened to me on April 14, a coupla years back. I was just sitting there in the womb, minding my own business, when a summons came from the 7th District Court of the State of Being. Naturally, I ignored it. But...I was born anyway. Go figure, huh?

Blocked

[ruvreve]

What if the reciept is using blocking software and thus never receives the summons or whatever? If the government can't find you they can't serve you with papers. So if you block email the papers "can't" find you.

Re:Blocked

[Score Whore]

They don't have to find you. If it appears that you are unavailable, intentionally or otherwise, and the plaintiff has made a serious effort to contact/locate you, you can be served by publication. Which means that if the court thinks you are in Los Angeles, CA, then all they have to do is put a small add in the classifieds (public notices) in a major LA paper, and then you've been served. Regardless of whether you've ever been in California or not. And yes you will by default if you don't show up for your court date.

Re:Blocked

[mmol_6453]

It sorta doesn't make sense, though. Does that mean I can put a civil lawsuit to some random name and look for them where I know they won't be?

Sucks to be John Doe, I guess.

proof of receipt?

[e40]

The only problem with this method is there is no proof the recipient took delivery. When some "serves" you court documents, they are the proof you were served. With email, who will provide this proof?

Re:proof of receipt?

[Calyth]

Well they can always use the reply reciept method, but then you can always deny the reciept..
Guess lawmakers are out of their minds again. Why do they keep making laws on things that they're not knowledgable in?

Re:proof of receipt?

[Webmoth]

All they need to do is select "request return receipt" in Microsoft Outlook.

And hope that the recipient is also using Outlook and lemmingly click's "yes" when asked if the return receipt can be sent.

What? You say that pine doesn't send return receipts? You say you can read /var/spool/mail/fred without altering it in any way? We'd better make Outlook the law!

Re:proof of receipt?

[Glove d'OJ]

Actually, in the State of New York, you don't have to give it to the person for them to be officially served... if you have a recent address for them and attempt service three times within a 24 hours period, it is legal (and binding!) to staple it to their door.

My brother is a part-time process server, and has to do this often when people don't answer their door. Then I believe he has to either sign or swear it was so attached, and provide a record of the service attempts.

As for email "proof," I can always have my mail client slurp mail from the server, and then unplug it before I read the email to stop any sort of "read-receipt."

In the article, it states that these papers were being served via email because the company was an Internet company w/o a physical address. I would not count on getting email services here in the states for quite a while...

Re:proof of receipt?

[Negadecimal]

And hope that the recipient is also using Outlook

Ummm...return receipt isn't a Microsoft standard:
RFC 1891.

Re:proof of receipt?

[JCCyC]

What? You say that pine doesn't send return receipts? You say you can read /var/spool/mail/fred without altering it in any way? We'd better make Outlook the law!

Working on it.

Microsoft strikes again....

[Ogrez]

Microsoft convinces the DOJ that all email servers HAVE to be exchange... so they can enforce return reciepts on the email papers they are serving... Next stop, outlook becomes a federal regulation on all computers... please not the preview pane.. anything but the preview pane...

Re:Microsoft strikes again....

[mmol_6453]

lol

Not to ruin the joke, but they just might make RFC 1891 the law, instead.

This is just another precedent to Internet regulation again.

Niiice

[darkworm]

Man, I thought it was difficult to get away from speeding tickets, now along with all the spam and pron in my mailbox I'll have to filter out summons. Will it ever stop!

addicted to email

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

wtf thats like the third story on email..

if you are tired of reading stories about email please send one dollar to happy dude...

Re:addicted to email

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry no thats 4 stories on the front page. forgot about the yahoo one.

Enlarge your penis - GUARANTEED!

[mossmann]

You've been served.

Re:Enlarge your penis - GUARANTEED!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post reminds me of hungry baby birds. Or is that spring in the air?

Re:Enlarge your penis - GUARANTEED!

[darkonc]

This actually raises the point of the interaction between spam and service via email.

I can actually understand it in this case, where there wasn't an obvious alternative to email service -- and it actually makes sense in the context of the BC rules of court (which I've read) which allows a judge to OK non-standard methods of service, in a specific case where traditional methods have been proven non-fruitful.

This decision does not appear to approve email service as a general method. It does, however, mean that if you're playing electronic hide-and-seek with someone who is trying to sue you, you may get 'tagged' by email.

Where I worry about it as a general solution is where someone serves me by email with something that looks like spam (or where spammers catch on to email service, and start to use 'service' envelopes to force people to read their stuff (on pain of default judgement if it was a real notice)).
I would then be stuck between the rock of having to read every piece of spam that comes through my mailbox, and the hard place of missing a notice of lawsuit that the RIAA is suing me for $1,000,000 because I had a DECSS link on my web page.

Re:Enlarge your penis - GUARANTEED!

[HiThere]

And what if they send it to a non-working address?

I've had a couple of addresses that I just dropped. I rather doubt that the e-mail sent to them was bounced (at least not for the first month or so), as I never used them. (They were going to be spam traps, but I never got a round tuit.)

So if I never saw it, and didn't know that I had received it, how does it count as being served? They might as well have sent it to "General Delivery" in a large city that I once visited.

This may have made sense in this case, but it's certainly a method that's wide open to abuse.
.

Re:Enlarge your penis - GUARANTEED!

[darkonc]

So if I never saw it, and didn't know that I had received it, how does it count as being served? They might as well have sent it to "General Delivery" in a large city that I once visited.

One of the other options is to simply post it in the clerk's area of the courthouse. How often do you visit the courthouse of the last city where you lived?

For alternative service to be accepted, (I hope that) they have to show that it has a reasonable chance of succeeding (better, at least, than posting it in the courthouse). In this case, it was (presumably) emailed to an address that the defendants openly used, and was associated with their alleged activities.

Just click "No"

[FortKnox]

If they request a return reciept, just click "no" to giving them one (requires little configuration).

Welp, that solves that problem.

Re:Just click "No"

[thepoolguy]

My mailer is not allowed to initiate connections without my express permission. I firewall everything, on the way in and the way out. Unless the reciept mechanism is coupled to the delivery mechanism, I fail to see how this can work. The problem with coupling the reciept mechanism to the delivery mechanism, is that many mailers will pull the email, without human intervention. I believe to make this work, you need a bioauthenticated pull that is coupled to the reciept. The email pull cannot happen without the bioauthenticated individual being present and because the individual is present, the act of the pull can be construed as delivery and a reciept of the subpoena (or whatever).

Now that we have figured out how to make this work, would you use this as a reliable, authenticated email delivery mechanism?

-tpg

they should

[Zanek]

They should have a system that sends emails with a URL to confirm you have seen it, or they could go
the spammers route and just add 1x1 images to detect if you've opened it

Re:they should

[Anonymous Coward]

...and be auto-filtered into the trash and deleted, just like the spammers.

Re:they should

[SquirrelCrack]

Sure, but all you have to do is disable html emails, and you could edit a url to remove any identifying info (with the exception of IP and such that is passed along with an HTTP request) from it.

It seems that as long as most email delivery confirmation systems require the receiver to be using (or have enabled) optional features in their email app, then email delivery of legal documents just won't work.

Yucky

[68030]

Guess it's time to get an email address on a non-US server. They can't send a US court jury duty
request to a non-us email address, can they?

Re:Yucky

[Chiasmus_]

They can't send a US court jury duty request to a non-us email address, can they?

No. Then again, this is an article about being served as a defendant in court, not about being called for jury duty.

Can the U.S. serve someone outside the U.S.? Usually - it has treaties with most other nations exchanging that privilege. Granted, if you had a server in, say, Iraq, you'd probably be out of their jurisdiction. Then again, try finding a mail server in Iraq where locals won't dig up the cable and sell it for the copper.

Re:Yucky

[LoudMusic]

May I suggest http://www.fuck.it ? Lets hear them read that one in an official court.

"Well, we sent the documents to his email address ... johndoe at fuuu.... fuuu... well it's writen there on the court agenda."

~LoudMusic

Re:Yucky

[Deag]

Well in the europe (the EU bit anyways), you won't be extradited if there is a treat of the death penalty being sentenced in the USA.

Re:Yucky

[KatieL]

Why not?

We get the spam about reducing our federal income taxes sent us...

Re:Yucky

[mpe]

Can the U.S. serve someone outside the U.S.? Usually - it has treaties with most other nations exchanging that privilege. Granted, if you had a server in, say, Iraq, you'd probably be out of their jurisdiction.

When did US courts start taking much notice of the concept of "out of jurisdiction?

Then again, try finding a mail server in Iraq where locals won't dig up the cable and sell it for the copper.

Any Iraqi embassy is considered to be "in Iraq". Embassys are typically in urban areas where paved surfaces and police tend to discourage digging up telephone cables.

Oh but it *will* be spam

[Fucky the troll]

The amount of Spam I've had recently with "IRS Payment LATE notice" as the subject... I can't help feeling sorry for the people that open it all thinking it's for real..

And now they're going to have court summons' notices as spam too? What happens if you set a rule to auto-delete anything like this, and then you get a real summons? I'm not sure about the legality of accidentally ignoring a summons.

Re:Oh but it *will* be spam

[Kamel Jockey]

What happens if you set a rule to auto-delete anything like this, and then you get a real summons?

Well, it *is* a summons, so you actually have to acknowledge receiving it. Presumably, if you never get the thing because of deleting it, then the plaintiff would have to pursue other means of sending it to you.

Re:Oh but it *will* be spam

[arkanes]

From what I understand, there's a certain amount of due diligence required by the court, but once thats reached, you're responsible for retrieving your mail. If the court decides that sending an email with a reciept request is sufficent, well.... you're kinda up the creek. Of course, it seems to me, if there's no physical address, how are you going to find them to force them to pay the judgement, or discovery, or any of those other things?

Side note: They're claiming a trademark on RIO SPORTS? Against a company based in Brazil? WTF is the court thinking?

Re:Oh but it *will* be spam

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to sports betting (which is legal in Nevada), yes. There's a big hotel/casino in Las Vegas named the Rio. Considering that the domains were registered to "Harrah's Entertainment", when Harrah is *famous* name in the gambling industry, I don't think it's a coincidence.

Re:Oh but it *will* be spam

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly have no idea of what a summons actually entails, so why the hell did you even post? If you had to acknowledge a summons for it to be effective, why would anyone ever ackowledge it?

Similar thing in the UK

[cperciva]

If you order something online, you have a fixed period (usually 7 days) within which you are allowed to change your mind and cancel your order. This cancellation can take place by postal mail, telephone, or by email "to the last known address" of the merchant.

Re:Similar thing in the UK

[Atlantix]

If you order something online, you have a fixed period (usually 7 days) within which you are allowed to change your mind and cancel your order. This cancellation can take place by postal mail, telephone, or by email "to the last known address" of the merchant.

Goodness, every online order I've placed has been shipped in plenty less than 7 days. Assuming UK-based online merchants aren't remarkably incompetent, how do they begin to deal with this? Do you get to just return the goods after they've been delivered, and at which party's expense? Plus, if you cancel by postal mail, I can almost guarantee a non-backordered purchase would have already left the warehouse.

Re:Similar thing in the UK

[cperciva]

Actually, you have 7 days after the product arrives in which to change your mind. Normally you have to pay to send it back (and it has to be in good condition, unopened in the case of software/music/etc).

In the case of merchant error (eg they shipped you the wrong product) they are responsible for retrieving the product (although you are still obliged to keep it in good condition).

Getting these rules enforced, however, isn't necessarily easy. A few days before Christmas I ordered Civ3 and received a different game, and I'm *still* trying to get my money refunded. (FWIW, I paid with Mastercard, and they have been "investigating the complaint" for two months now; the merchant was gamer.uk.com, and they failed to either answer the phone or respond to emails I sent them.)

Oh YEAH!!!!

[www.sorehands.com]

I know a spammer that is going to be sued!!!!

This spammer uses phony physical address in California and has no voice number!

This reminds me of

[56ker]

Our Inland Revenue (UK equivalent of IRS) who for anyone who registers to file their income tax online sets up a secure mailbox. They class any e-mail that's been sent to this as being received by you (whether or not you've actually read it). However they do send a reminder to you if one you haven't read has expired. Does anyone know of any other government departments acting in this way to save costs?

um ... whois ?

[legLess]

Sheesh - how hard can it be? They're both registered in bloody Las Vegas already ...

Harrah's Entertainment, Inc (RIOSPORTS3-DOM)
1023 Cherry Road
Memphis, TN 38117
US

Domain Name: RIOSPORTS.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Wilkins, Bobby (BW1169) hwilkins@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
1023 Cherry Rd
Memphis, TN 38117-5423
(901) 537-3785 (FAX) (901) 820-2570
Billing Contact:
Howard, Anika (AHU21) anhoward@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
One Harrah's Court
Las Vegas, NV 89193-8905
702-407-6456 (FAX) 702-407-6500

Record last updated on 14-Jan-2002.
Record expires on 23-Feb-2004.
Record created on 23-Feb-2001.
Database last updated on 21-Mar-2002 02:57:00 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.36
NS2.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.38

Registrant:
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc (BETRIO2-DOM)
1023 Cherry Road
Memphis, TN 38117
US

Domain Name: BETRIO.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Wilkins, Bobby (BW1169) hwilkins@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
1023 Cherry Rd
Memphis, TN 38117-5423
(901) 537-3785 (FAX) (901) 820-2570
Billing Contact:
Howard, Anika (AHU21) anhoward@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
One Harrah's Court
Las Vegas, NV 89193-8905
702-407-6456 (FAX) 702-407-6500

Record last updated on 14-Jan-2002.
Record expires on 23-Feb-2004.
Record created on 23-Feb-2001.
Database last updated on 21-Mar-2002 02:57:00 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.36
NS2.HARRAHS.COM 12.104.204.38

Re:um ... whois ?

[56ker]

Yes but there's always the possiblity they've moved and those addresses are out of date - or that those weren't valid addresses in the first place - that mail is returned from those addresses etc! I remember once when I wanted to buy a domain I e-mailed the billing contact & they said they hadn't had anything to do with it for about 3 years - neither of the other addresses for the domain replied. The whois record isn't necessarily up to date or accurate (and this applies to the e-mail address too).

Re:um ... whois ?

[ocie]

companies and groups have no problem finding the ISP, or upstream provider in order to put pressure on individuals with content they want to suppress. Why should this be any different?

Re:um ... whois ?

[BacOs]

According to the article,

The ruling was a victory for the Rio hotel-casino in Las Vegas, which claimed a Costa Rican online sports book infringed on the hotel's trademark by operating gambling Web sites at www.riosports.com and www.betrio.com.

The whois information now points to Harrah's Entertainment, Inc., which most likely means the domains have since been transferred to Harrah's. The Rio casino is owned by Harrah's, and I doubt they'd have a problem with themselves hosting gambling sites at *rio.com or rio*.com.

Re:um ... whois ?

[Chiasmus_]

Yeah, I'm sure a company set up to dilute the Rio's business has provided nice, valid addresses.

Hell, look up my domain - you'll find that my address is 123 Fake Street in Springfield, 90210.

I'm not terribly interested in getting postal mail regarding my online prescence, and I'd guess this company would be even less interested, if you catch my drift.

Re:um ... whois ?

[cybermage]

Well, nice try. I'd bet (pun intended) that the information from whois, before Harrah's took the domains, was probably more obtuse.

Harrah's operates the Rio; they probably took over the domains as part of the story.

My first thought was the same as yours, but the information seems to reflect the results of Harrah's legal actions.

Of course, even if the whois information isn't accurate, the money going to the sites had to go somewhere. Follow the money.

Re:um ... whois ?

[cballowe]

but, that person would have the ability to transfer it to you. If the registrar thinks they're responsible for it, then they might as well be. Especially with something like verisign (network solutions) mail back authentication.

and the whois databases sync with the registrars twice a day. If the transfer occured without notifying a registrar, then it hasn't been transfered.

Re:um ... whois ?

[hesiod]

Record last updated on 14-Jan-2002.

I'm guessing that info was changed as a result of or in anticipation of the case...

Registerred Email

[ksw2]

Until you can confirm the receipt beyond a reasonable doubt, I don't think this will become a widespread practice. How hard is it to forge a bounced message?

Anyway, undoubtedly if you do have a physical address, it will be used instead. The case mentioned in the article seems to be an isolated one.

Re:Registerred Email

[Signa1 11 on]

Check the mail server logs, they won't lie... was the message downloaded? Then it was delivered... Who cares if it's read.

Re:Registerred Email

[blair1q]

How can they tell that you "received" the email? If I were a spammer or cybersquatter, I'd set the server to forward all email to the bitbucket.

--Blair

Re:Registerred Email

[Winged Cat]

And if the mail server (and its logs) are under control of the spammer, so the logs can be faked too...?

Re:Registerred Email

[J'raxis]

What if I own my own mailserver? You realize that logs are plain text, right? If you happen to know the mail traveled through various relaying servers, you could check those and confirm it almost made it, but thats about it.

Re:Registerred Email

[gewalker]

Man I can't believe most slashdotters are so stupid. This is not a problem, it's a business opportunity!

Set up an new email server with special features needed by your clients.

1. Non-logging fetch option.
2. Forced bounce for individual emails on request
3. Forced bounce based on filters (customer per account)
4. Forced bounce based on spam filters (opt out per account in case someone wants spam)

Customers will be glad to pay for premium service. You can add virus-filtering, etc. once you get enough base to pay for the add-ons. You can be rich.

Re:Registerred Email

[Hawk65]

Actually the usual condition in non criminal cases is different than in a criminal case. usually it is that a person is guilty by a preponderance of the evidence.

Re:Registerred Email

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the mail server logs, they won't lie...

Um. No. My mail server logs will read anything that I care to cat or vi into them. When you're old enough to run your own mailserver, little one, you'll understand...

Read carefully - "hide-and-seek" comment

[Seth Finkelstein]

"When faced with an international e-business scofflaw playing hide-and-seek with the federal court, e-mail may be the only means of effecting service of process," the court said. "We acknowledge that we tread upon untrodden ground."

I think the court is NOT saying that it will allow service by e-mail as a routine matter. But in cases where the party is trying to claim to be both available (by e-mail) and NOT available (physically), the court will allow the party's obvious prefered method of being reached :-)

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:Read carefully - "hide-and-seek" comment

[daoine]

where the party is trying to claim to be both available (by e-mail) and NOT available (physically)

Agreed, and that's the weird thing -- since the whois shows that Harrah's owns the site, which is a perfectly accessible land based casino.

You can bet that they aren't web hosting...they've probably just created a shell company to try and gain more the of the market share from Rio.

I guess I'm just surprised that they haven't tried to go through Harrah's...one would think there would have to be some linkage to a 'physical' company.

Re:Read carefully - "hide-and-seek" comment

[cybermage]

You can bet that they aren't web hosting...they've probably just created a shell company to try and gain more the of the market share from Rio.

I guess I'm just surprised that they haven't tried to go through Harrah's...one would think there would have to be some linkage to a 'physical' company.

Harrah's operates the Rio. The whois records probably reflect the result of the legal action.

A short future scenario in haiku form...

[MonkeyBot]

Opening email,
I realize she found me,
Child support sucks ass.

Re:A short future scenario in haiku form...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe... That's pretty good.

Moving to Britain
Was the wisest of choices
Fuck alimony

Re:A short future scenario in haiku form...

[Anonymous Coward]

Deadbeat fathers suck major assage. Welcome to the world of taking responsibility for your actions.

Re:A short future scenario in haiku form...

[Anonymous Coward]

*She* could have had an abortion.

Re:A short future scenario in haiku form...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mother could have had an abortion.

Re:A short future scenario in haiku form...

[Anonymous Coward]

She still can.

Easy!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The sender of this summons has requested a return reciept. Send return reciept?"

(click)

NO

Example of what to avoid

[Waffle Iron]

If you see this:

From: Judge133838201@courtcentral.cc
+++ L@@K +++ YOU HAVE BEEN SERVED _,.'``'-.,_,.-'``'-.,_,.->> THIS IMPORANT SUBPOENA!!!!!

Just delete it. Turn off your preview pane, too.

Dangerous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else find this a little dangerous? Not that I don't have faith in our judicial process, but to extend orders of the court to the insecure and wild as hell internet is not a wise decision. How long will it be before you are served a warrant for your arrest because you didn't get your e-mail court summons 2 months ago. This has just increased the potential damage that can be inflicted on the average citizen 10 fold. Perhaps it is time to become anonymous!

What's a sig?

Editors posting skills suck!

[GSloop]

Most of us have physical addresses, so this doesn't matter to the rest of us.

So, lets make the story more shrill, lets just infer that opening any email might be a binding legal document.

Sheesh!

It's a novel legal argument, that certianly has some problems, but generally used it's not, and most certainly won't become widely used either.

How about leaving sensationalism to the Weekly World News, the Sun or the National Inquirer, and just post stories without the whining "the sky is falling" prose?!

Cheers!

Re:Editors posting skills suck!

[dillon_rinker]

And if email is legally binding, then a post to /. probably is, too...

BY FOLLOWING THE LINK THAT LEADS TO THIS POST, YOU AGREE TO ABSURD TERMS OF MY CHOOSING.

And am I the only one who thinks it's funny that the color scheme for this story is yellow?

Re:Editors posting skills suck!

[switcha]

Finally a post with some thinking behind it gets modded up!

Are any of you running offshore businesses?
Are you hiding with no physical address?
Does the thought of even having a PO Box scare you?
Then this story is for you, Mr. Black Helicopter! For everyone else, this is pointless and will have no effect on you. As an average citizen, doing average crimes, and hiding like an average no-gooder, a physical service will be the only one to stand up. This was an extreme exception.

Re:Editors posting skills suck!

[Thing 1]

How about leaving sensationalism to the Weekly World News, the Sun or the National Inquirer, and just post stories without the whining "the sky is falling" prose?!

I just want to add that, even though it is the case that the text in question was written by "an unnamed reader", it was timothy who copied and posted it onto the front page.

I think the editors should do a lot more editing of the submissions. Especially now that they're asking for money to do this job.

Re:Editors posting skills suck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well, I read in nested, so your absurd terms can blow me!

This is great!

[FeatherBoa]

Now, if they don't know where you live or your e-mail address, they can sign up for Hotmail in your name, and serve the summons there. What an excellent way to leverage modern technology.

I wonder if this means the courts can serve summonses by telex, fax, pager or telephone? Can they just leave a message on your answering machine?

<beep><beep>... "You are late for court; Police are coming."

Cool!!!

[Romancer]

So I can legally send a notice to a spamming company that serves as legal notification if they do not list a phone number or physical address, and it will be backed by this precident.

I love it when a ruling can affect something intelligent, especially when the ruling itself isn't that smart.

Re:Cool!!!

[yasth]

So I can legally send a notice to a spamming company that serves as legal notification if they do not list a phone number or physical address, and it will be backed by this precident.

Well think of it his way, how else are you to reach them, the old no known adress solution (a newspaper ad) doesn't apply. Oh and this won't be precedent unless you live in the court's jurisdiction of course.

I can see the fakes flying already.

[IPFreely]

So someone starts sending fake summons via email with faked return addresses. How do you know what's real in E-mail.

Now hundreds of people are hiring lawyers and showing up in court on dates they were never expected for summons that were never issues.

There are reasons why papers must be served in person; so everyone on both sides knows it happened for real. Summons by regular mail is bad enough.

Re:I can see the fakes flying already.

[garett_spencley]

One thing to consider:

Headers never lie.

Now obviously "average computer users" would not be expected to interpret their e-mail's header to decide for themselves if the e-mail is authentic or not but I have thought of one possible solution.

The government could set up some sort of automated authenticity system. You receive an e-mail claiming to be from the U.S gov., you forward that e-mail to a designated U.S gov. address and upon being received by the server it parses the headers and sends a reply confirming it's authenticity.

Pretty much the same idea with online sign-ups requesting a reply to confirm that you did actually intend to sign-up.

Just a thought.

--
Garett

Re:I can see the fakes flying already.

[(H)elix1]

Headers never lie.

These are government boxes.... With the exception of the hard core secured stuff, most of these boxes are not known for 1337 security... It would be fair to assume you could find a .gov spam relay wide open.

As far as checking, when was the last time you actually checked a digital cert to see if it was revoked? Joe Six-Pack keeps trying to send me a "security update" from microsoft.... If they miss that one, I don't have high hopes for checking an email.

Re:I can see the fakes flying already.

[karb]

I'm too lazy to look it up, but I would imagine filing a fake summons would be a fairly serious crime, because you would be impersonating an officer of the court. If someone did it to you as a prank, you could have them thrown in jail. If only we had that fallback for spam.

Re:I can see the fakes flying already.

[A coward on a mouse]

I suspect you're a troll, but here goes anyway:

I suppose you've never heard of a forged header. Anything can be made to lie, if you try hard enough. Forging a header is not rocket science, and is (as the story linked to points out, just above the heading "Corporate headaches getting worse") a tactic already in widespread use by spammers.

I guess you're also shocked that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Gillian Anderson have posed for so many nude photos. Here's a tip: those are fake, too.

Re:I can see the fakes flying already.

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious crime, thrown in jail? You're thinking to US centric.. All it takes is someone from another country to send the mail, then you'd have to mess with the murky laws about can you prosecute them in the US legal system.

Re:I can see the fakes flying already.

[Bartmoss]

That's what PGP is for. Nuff said.

Another judge that doesn't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

When will these ID-10-T people realize that there is no confirmed anything with the Internet.

Whose to say I read the message? What if the address is an auto-responder?

What makes this worse is that if the mail gets trashed, they can overide the summons and convict you guilty by default. The same thing happens in the paper world. Refusal of a summons does not stop the judicial process.

Service-Of-Process rules

[Seth Finkelstein]

I am not a lawyer, but take a look at the following exception to Service Of Process rules

* Personal service--When the person served is physically handed court papers notifying her that she has been sued, she is said to have been personally served. With almost all lawsuits, the complaint and summons must be personally served unless the defendant agrees to accept service. If the defendant does not agree to accept service and is not personally served, the court cannot take any action in the case, unless the plaintiff can show that personal service was impossible.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:Service-Of-Process rules

[Anonymous Coward]

From the last paragraph of that article:

"It is important to note that proper service of the summons and complaint can be a very complicated matter and is often governed by the particular laws and rules of the courts and jurisdictions involved."

So, unless you know which state/county/etc letclaw.com is quoting, that paragraph you quoted could be inapplicable.

Re:Service-Of-Process rules

[Anonymous Coward]

righto. you can run, but you can't hide.
AND, most process servers only try once, and if
they fail they just lie, and that's how
justice is served up in the USA.

Re:Service-Of-Process rules

[pcwhalen]

You don't need personal service. Showing "impossibility" of service is as simple as documenting several attempts.

"Nail and mail" service allows for affixing a copy of the summons and complaint to the physical address of the defendant and subsequently mailing to the same address.

The 9th Circuit followed that logic: if there is no physical address and defendant does business only on the Internet within the US, then service by e-mail is adequate.

I'm sure that you have to document your attempts before a Judge will allow this kind of service to give jurisdiction.

An ORDB-like system blocking serving papers...

[MonkeyBot]

I can see it now--some future entrepreneur making an ORDB-like system blocking any servers that have sent out serving papers in the past...

But acourding to Hotmail.com's logs...

[josquint]

... you accessed the page the email was on...

there again, prove the hotmail account is mine! i have several bogus accounts...

Re:But acourding to Hotmail.com's logs...

[Anonymous Coward]

i have several bogus accounts...

and they all belong to you, what's your point?

big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

this is a sign of things to come.

get a physical address, anyone who is legit should have one. i do. i have no reason to hide it unless i plan to rip people off. while i am a conspiricy freak, paranoid up the wazoo, and yes, those are black helicopters, this person didn't have a physical address and why not? why hide unless you are a punk

i sense trouble...

[jeffy124]

during the initial Bernie Shifman exchange several months ago, he asked for someone's address for legal contact. Anyone else catch what I'm fearing....?

Re:i sense trouble...

[SilLumTao]

during the initial Bernie Shifman exchange several months ago, he asked for someone's address for legal contact. Anyone else catch what I'm fearing....?

That reminds me of this quote:
Don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity...

Re:i sense trouble...

[mmol_6453]

That was from Lazarus Long...Aka Robert Heinlein. (He's dead now...he'd never leave a wife behind voluntarily.)

Checks and Balances...The Good with the Bad

[nickynicky9doors]

The Good Thing is that an email address with attached legal considerations brings more power and greater legal definition to the community of internet users. In the way ButterFlyWings and StrangeAttractors this could impact Bad Things like Spam. The courts are really just coming up to scratch with the burgeoning legal hassels of the internet. As a Canadian I would think in a country like America with a very proactive judiciary this could ultimately force a more stanardized set of laws perhaps in favour of the enduser. Either way these issues will make their way into the courts and call for more legislation. Ah for the days of the WildWest.

proof of reciept...

[thepoolguy]

I see a couple of problem-

The act of a mail user agent receiving the email, does not equate to the intended individual receiving it. Nor does an unauthenticated user. The only way this makes sense is if the intended recipient uses some form of biometric authentication.

I am making an assumption that the entity in question is in fact a human and not a virtual entity. As long as we are dealing with people, we should maintain the same high level of bioauthentication that we use today. Handing a subpoena to the identified individual relys on human based bioauthentication. That has been the legal standard. Not being able to find the person has not been an excuse to serve a subpoena without this level of bioauthentication. I don't believe that it is permissable to deliver a subpoena via the telephone.

I'm still waiting for a bioauthentication scheme as ubiquitous as human recognition...

-tpg

Re:proof of reciept...

[hyrdra]

Subponea's don't have to be mailed certified, in fact if you have ever filled out the paperwork you are given many options:

- 1st class mail
- Certified mail
- Public notification (in newspaper)
- etc.

The only reason certified is the poision of choice is so you have recourse when someone says they didn't get the subponea. You have proof that they did and will usually win by default.

Re:proof of reciept...

[NanoGator]

Depending on how anal they get, they could go to your ISP and demand the logs of your access into your POP account.

There are cases where this may not be practical, but in most cases you'll be able to tell if the message was ever retrieved or not.

Certainly by saying "You automatically lose if you don't acknowledge..." would be enough to get most mail dodgers interested in recieving it.

Re:proof of reciept...

[thepoolguy]

Getting the pop logs only shows that the email has been downloaded. It does not show who downloaded them, If *I* retrieved them, or if it was done by a proxy on my behalf. Of course, If the act of retrieving mail becomes equated with receiving mail, my email downloading habits will have to adapt accordingly...

-tpg

Re:proof of reciept...

[gartogg]

My ISP logs must look mighty strange to a lawyer, especially where my script looks to see if I have mail from a particular address and downloads all of it, or downloads all mail and forwards all that contains my full name, etc.

The only way that this would work is if the recipient actually admitted receiving it (or maybe even if they told someone that they did.)

Then again, IANAL (BIWTOT)

Re:proof of reciept...

[NanoGator]

Wouldn't the IP address get traced back? Seems like unless somebody is trying reaaaaaaaally really hard to avoid getting that mail... (guilty? Heh) ... then it wouldn't be that hard to prove they got it, if it ever went that far. I see what you are saying, though. I have my email forwarded a couple of times before I actually get it. (a rube-goldberg setup to get my phone to beep when I get email...) It'd be harder to prove, in that case, I got a mail... or maybe it'd actually be easier. Who knows heh.

It's hard to get around the net without getting traced.

Re:proof of reciept...

[thepoolguy]

In your argument, you make the implicit assumption that an IP address equals a person. In my house, I have 1 IP address, running through a NAT box that supports 4 people. I can download the mail for everyone (using fetchmail), but that in no way implies that any of the people using this IP address has received their mail, or that they even have been notified that new mail has arrived.

This leads back to my original point- unless the downloading of mail is coupled with biometric authentication, you can contrive many instances where the mail may seem to be delivered when it has not.

-tpg

Re:proof of reciept...

[NanoGator]

They can trace that IP you mentioned to your house (theoretically, anyway). If somebody else recieves it, it still goes to your house. Somebody could make the same argument that post office mail could be recieved by your room mate. It's really not that different.

There are cases where it's a lot harder to trace. You could have a friend download it, and then you could get it from him. That's fine. That would break what I'm saying, I agree with you etc etc etc. In most cases tho, unless somebody has a convoluted setup like this, it should be fairly easy to say "it's really likely he got this message."

In any case, I'm not trying to say that it would work in every single case. I never made that claim. There are some cases it'll work and some that won't. There's really no point in debating what you could do to get around it. It wouldn't be all that hard to do. Question is: do you want to try to get around it, not can you.

Re:proof of reciept...

[Jonny 290]

I work for an ISP. We don't log that shit. Seriously.

At best, by default (e.g. no investigation being performed) ISP's log dialup sessions, and Caller ID strings.

How long untill we see...

[josquint]

... online restraining orders?
Food for thought... "dont come within 2 subnets of this server under penalty of law"

Re:How long untill we see...

[HamNRye]

Domains being handed over because they contain a city name in them?? I fail to see how "rio" constitutes a trademark. Will they be suing Duran-Duran too??

Considering they will not let papers be served by normal first-class mail should preclude the e-mail being binding. E-mail has a much better chance of being faked, modified, and otherwise abused without leaving obvious traces.

~Hammy

$$$$ MAKE MONEY NOW $$$$

[ocie]

Just send out a TEX formatted letter to 100 people informing each person that you are taking them to court. Maybe 2 people will be able to read the letter and show up to defent themselves, 10 may write back to tell you they coun't read the attachment, but the rest are all yours !!!

give me a break....

[soap.xml]

Serving legal documents via e-mail could become more common in a world linked by the Internet where commerce and commercial disputes span international borders, said Ann McGinley, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"This is an important decision, which, if it is followed by other courts outside the 9th Circuit, will make it easier for lawyers to find elusive defendants," McGinley told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "I think we are moving in the direction of service by e-mail."

Moving in the direction of service by e-mail!?!?!?!... I can see it now, You got sued as the next AOL advertisement.

I mean seriously, e-mail as a source of legal document service? In this case, yes it made sense, but in normal day to day activities and lawsuits this sort of action is just not reasonable. If I have a legal battle that I have to fight, I do it on paper, and via certified mail for a reason. E-mail was never intended for something like this. I hope this just goes away.

E-mail for a subpoena..... sheesh!

-ryan

Re:give me a break....

[Tensor]

Well,

Actually all this really is is an extension of the digital signature. I mean, if you recieve an encrypted, digitally signed email as a subpoena the email itself should be a valid legal document. The problem will reside in proving that you got the email and that you read it.

I guess only that you got it ... cos it could be alleged that the receipt of a signed email with a subject such as court subpoena, case # .... and NOT opening it to read the details is just as bad as getting the note in person and not bothering to read it to know where and when you are supposed to show up in court.

So only a DELIVERY receipt is needed and not a READ one ... granted not all MX send deliveries ... but the implementation can't be all that hard.
I know not all problems are solved with this(i've email accts i barely check once every couple of months, just to keep them active) but i see it as a step in the rite direction towards speeding as simplifying the exchange of legal docs.

Re:give me a break....

[soap.xml]

Yes, if you receive a digitally signed document, it could be considered to be a "valid legal document". But I still don't think that E-mail is a viable solution to simplifying the document exchange process. For some things yes, E-mail is great. It is a great way and cost effective method of communication for many people, but for legal documents and other such items (credit card disputes, applications for loans etc...) paper and the good old fashioned USPS seem to be the best way to go. Paper and a "wet" signature are very important and I think need to remain that way.

Until there is a valid way to really ensure that you are you and that you read what your email client/server said you read this just doesn't seem to me to be a good course of action.

Maybe I need to take off my tin-foil hat, but I just don't think this is the way to go....

-ryan

e-mail filter update

[JonWan]

Well I guess it's time to put "suponea" in my e-mail filter. Hmmmm... May have to check the spelling first that just dosen't look right.

What format?

[treat]

An important aspect that has been as of yet unmentioned, is what format were these documents sent in? If they were sent in a proprietary format, is the recipient required by law to purchase software to decode the document?

Re:What format?

[gartogg]

If I send you a subpoena (or any other legal notice) in aramaic, do you have to hire a translator, or are you just not responsible for the contents?

If there is a free reader, you have no arguement, and if not then my above arguement should hold.

Re:What format?

[Artagel]

There is no reason a complaint can't be ASCII.

Auto responders?

[mjh]

Hmm... I wonder what the implications of something like this are on auto responders. I use TMDA to autmotically respond to any emails that I get from people that I don't know. I wonder if an auto response constitutes being served.

Hmmm...

Re:Auto responders?

[J'raxis]

What does your autoresponder do? Does it tell them that youve simply recieved a message, or does it tell them that it hasnt been received: and they need to resend in a particular way to make sure you receive it? This is a common spam-prevention tactic, bounce mail with something like Please resend with Jraxis in the subject for me to receive your mail.

If it does the former, then yes, in fact your autoresponder is providing exactly the kind of documentation necessary to say the mail reached you. In the second instance, common sense would indicate that you obviously did not receive the mail, but I would not be surprised if legally it was considered received the mail did reach you, even though it was tossed immediately.

as a last resort only?

[tcyun]

"U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro had allowed the Las Vegas business to use e-mail to serve legal documents because no physical address could be found."

As no physical address was available, this seems like a not so absurd option. However, what if they had a mailing address and the folks just did not want to be bothered to walk over and serve the docs in person? What are the conditions under which email is appropriate?

Why bother emailing them?

[kindbud]

If you don't receive a bounce, is that proof that the defendant was served? If so, then you may as well just toss the documents out the window and hope the breeze carries them to their destination. If they aren't returned to you by Divine Providence, then you can assume the defendant was served.

There has been enough erosion of due process already. This is tantamount to giving plaintiffs a license to manufacture summary judgements. If the defendant doesn't show because he was never served, then a summary judgement is the likely outcome. The plaintiffs have every incentive to take this ball and run with it, and no incentive to refrain.

The flipside of course, is that this will streamline the docket quite a bit.

Prove it was *me*

[meckhert]

So lets assume that somehow they can prove that the message was actually opened and viewed. How does this mean that it was actually *me* that read it? Is there really anyway to consistenly prove that it was in fact me that read the message, and not my kid brother or some dude that hacked my account? It seems like it would be too easy to sniff the password to an email account, send a summons to it and view it. So the question is, how can they prove that the person who i was intended for is actually the one that opened it? I see how common sense would say this is a dumb question, but legally this seems like it would pose a very interesting dilemna.

EXITCODE=67

[weave]

Sounds like a case for procmail, some keyword scans of the body, /dev/null for delivery, and a nice EXITCODE=67 status! :-)

Do you hear that? It's a herd of problems coming.

[ProfMoriarty]

Having Legal documents "served" over the Internet is a "Bad Thing" because of several problems ...

1) In the "real world", you can serve legal papers by a couple of methods. Registered (return receipt) mail (or courier), local county Sheriff, an officer of the court. This provides that the person getting the papers is actually the person that should be getting the papers. On the Internet, the person reading the email may not necessarily be the person to contact for the serving of documents.

2) E-Mail (and its address) can be faked. Though in the "real world" it can as well, it's not as easy.

3) E-Mail can be intercepted and modified. This isn't even that tricky to do ... all you need is access to a mail server.

I could go on for a while here ... but let me just say that because the courts said that it can be done, doesn't mean that it should.

#include <std\disclaimers.h>

Proof of reciept

[Signa1 11 on]

If you download the message, then you recieved the summons. If you don't read it and/or don't open it, its your problem. Its just like if the papers were handed to you and you don't even look at them and throw them in the trash. You have been served.

In the case of a hotmail account, it may be more difficult to prove that the account is truly even yours.

Re:Proof of reciept

[J'raxis]

My .procmailrc sits on the server my mail is sent to. I download (POP) my mail from there. Which means if I were to start aggressive filtering at that level, I would never download the mail as it would be devnulled before I ever downloaded it.

I do not filter much at the server level at the moment, right now only known spammers go in that file (specific hosts that are reluctant to deal with their spammers). But Ive been contemplating a system such as You must include $SPECIFIC_TEXT in the subject or your mail will be bounced or even ONLY known senders can send me mail here, or it will be silently deleted policies.

Re:Proof of reciept

[M@T]

If you download the message, then you recieved the summons. If you don't read it and/or don't open it, its your problem.

Based on your thinking, if a spammer sends you some kiddie porn with a subject of "Hey", and you don't (have time to) read it/or open it/or delete it before the police break down your door, then you're automatically a paedophile - even though you don't know what is in the email prior to them arresting you...

Re:Proof of reciept

[Signa1 11 on]

There is a difference. If you are going to deny, knowledge that your were served, yet you download the message and choose not to read it, then that is your fault, not the court's. Just as if someone serves you papers in person and you choose not to read them. They indeed were delivered to you.

If some moron spammer sends you kiddie porn with a subject of Hey... and you open it see what it is and delete it, it's kinda like walking down the street and some moron pervert handing you a kiddie porn picture, you look to see what he handed you, see what it is and throw it away.

Re:Proof of reciept

[Cro Magnon]

Downloading email is NOT like being served in person. It's more like tossing the papers on your front porch. You might have found them and read them. Or maybe your wife thought they were junk mail and tossed them. Or your dog ate them.

Subpoena Assassin

[gabbleratchet]

X-Subpoena-Checker-Version: SubpoenaAssassin 0.15

X-Subpoena-Report: 9.9 hits, 6 required;
* 1.1 -- BODY: Refers to you as 'the first party'
* 4.5 -- BODY: Contains many words like 'whereas' and 'aforementioned'
* 2.0 -- BODY: Text is in ALL CAPS and poorly formatted
* 1.1 -- BODY: Includes a link to a reputable law firm
* 1.2 -- OTHER: Looking through your files, and it appears you've been BAD

Not all "papers" served are "bad"

[Glove d'OJ]

Not everything for which you may be summoned to court is a bad thing. My brother serves papers for various lawyers in NY, and every so often while visiting, I would go with him if he had a tricky paper to serve. On several occasions, the papers were "come to court and collect your inheiritance" type papers, where the people actually welcomed him in and offered food+drink.

Were the legal system to start contemplating e-Service of paperwork, these "warmfuzzy" services could be first served electronically, as their degree of repudiation ("I never got served") would be extremely low.

Isnt' this a Good Thing?

[lysurgon]

I'm curious why so many posters seem to think this is a Really Bad Thing, or a Really Stupid Thing. Are we all just eager to stay one step ahead of the law?

I for one think this is a Very Good Thing.

1) It's a big step toward legitimizing legal transactions online.This is something that needs to occur for the internet revolution to relaly take hold. The ability for people to make binding agreements virtually would usher in the next generation of e-business. Got an e-summons? Get an e-lawyer! If you can legally serve someone with an email, how long before you can represent someone online?

2) Of course, there are a lot of security issues to work though, but that's good to. Why? Jobs for geeks.

3) They're going to be able to serve a process against this scam artist. That's always nice.

Truth is, if you're actually being served a process, either someone bad is after you or you've done something wrong, like skip out on child support. Making virtual process serving possible doesn't make it easier to file lawsuits, it just makes it easier to let people know about them.

Re:Isnt' this a Good Thing?

[GigsVT]

Your number 1 reason is irrelevant. A law has already been passed in the US making electronic signatures just as valid as paper ones. I filed my taxes without signing anything.

Re:Isnt' this a Good Thing?

[lysurgon]

I'm aware of this, but it does not explicitly allow for complex legal and contractual procedures to be carried out online. The e-signature law is nice, but we also need precident, precident, precident.

What Constitutes Service

[plgs]

The important question here is what actually constitutes service by email.

Usually, for "personal service," you need someone to actually hand over the document (or, if not accepted, to advise the subject of the nature of the document, and to leave it in their presence. Old Common Law legal procedure required that the server touch the recipient with the document. Don't think this still applies in most jurisdictions).

Since there is generally no way to know when an email has been received (return receipts are under the control of the recipient) it is likely that the Court simply required the server to prove that the email was sent. It would not have required the server to prove that the email has been read or even received.

The risk, of course, is that the recipient may not receive or not recognise the nature of the document, and will lose their rights when they fail to appear and the plaintiff obtains a default judgement.

In summary, this is not necessarily a good thing, and you can't avoid being served simply by willful blindness to your email, or by turning off return receipts.

Fox News

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we're talking sensationalism.

Kellogg's wackiness

[totallygeek]

Just move your email to a server in Michigan. When you get mail you don't want, claim that it goes against the 1979 Michigan Computer Crime Act because someone used a computer to write information to your computer which can quantify some cost in space and processing. Have them arrested for attempting to serve you.

What happens if you don't read or even see it??

[amigabill]

What happens if you just delete it but don't open and read it?

What if it gets eaten by a spam filter?

Are you then still legally obligated to appear in a courtroom on some date that you honestly are completely unaware of? And can you be fined for having never seen such an email?

or worse...

[theConstruct]

Enlarge your subpoenas - GUARANTEED!

Re:or worse...

[56ker]

We'll be seeing TV adverts along the lines of - "Have you just been served by e-mail?" "Have you got a lawyer yet?" Well why not choose us - we've thrown out 95% of e-mail served cases on the basis that the person never actually read the e-mail due to thinking it was a SPAM/ a prank.

soneone tried to serve me once

[geekoid]

fortunatly, I was able to break the alien language just in time to relize it was a cook book.

Re:soneone tried to serve me once

[Creedo]

nice reference:)

Re:soneone tried to serve me once

[geekoid]

thanks.
say,weren't you shot in a bar fight? ;)

Re:soneone tried to serve me once

[GigsVT]

No one will get that joke, unfortunately.

Good one though. :)

Re:soneone tried to serve me once

[furiousgeorge]

your wife is quite a DISH...........

Re:soneone tried to serve me once

[unicron]

Well if you wanted to make Sarlac the Preparer Cry, mission accomplished!

It is interesting to note that the name Sarlac was the same name that was unpronouncable earlier in the episode..of course, unless you didn't mind your tonque being ripped out.

Re:soneone tried to serve me once

[Anonymous Coward]

no, I think it was is twin brother Greedo.

(one day I will have an account @ /.)

Re:soneone tried to serve me once

[Datafage]

That's Greedo, sorry. ;)

We can't have our cake and eat it too

[Anonymous Coward]

In a previous story , there was the tale of a Lawyer who successfully sued a spammer against their defense of "we never read our replies .

Either it doesn't matter whether you read it, or it does? If nothing else, we need to be consistent in the way we treat mail, its reception and any implied legal status of it. Breaking down by type of mail can only lead to another long set of loopholes for spammers and the rest to wiggle through.

US Government meets Visual Basic

[s20451]

I send you this subpoena in order to have your advice.

See you later. Thanks.

Define 'read' for me?

[syukton]

What constitutes an email being read? When it's downloaded from the server? When it's opened in your mail reader? If I telnet to my pop3 server and read my email there, but it never gets onto my computer, would the summons still be considered 'served' ?

This is a bad ruling made by stupid people who don't understand the technology or the implications thereof. I don't think anybody who isn't a geek should be making geek-rules.

Re:Anybody have....

[Technician]

Osama Bin's e-mail address? We have been having a little trouble finding him at home..

Duh, solution

[tomstdenis]

send the email with a HTTPS URL link. They enter there SIN on the secure page and it gives them the paper they would have gotten.

That way you can make sure of a few things

a) Privacy
b) They actually read the message

Tom

OT: (Re:Just click "No")

[he-sk]

(+1; Total Geek)

DOWNLOADing webmails without OPENING them ?

[Taco Cowboy]

You said:
"If you use html views of a message they can
prove you opened it by embeding a web-bug in
the address. That is an image that loads
remotely, if the image is loaded from that
location you opened the mail."

That's scary.

Is there a way to DOWNLOAD webmails without opening them, much like POP3 or IMAP ?

I'm no rocket scientist

[Anonymous Coward]

But I don't think this concept is unique to email. You can actually throw real dinkum physical mail in the trash and claim you never received it either.

When are people going to realise that most things you can do in the digital world are simply metaphors of things that can already be done in the analog world? Sheesh!

Re:I'm no rocket scientist

[matrix29]

But I don't think this concept is unique to email. You can actually throw real dinkum physical mail in the trash and claim you never received it either.

When are people going to realise that most things you can do in the digital world are simply metaphors of things that can already be done in the analog world? Sheesh!

Why at this moment I'm downloading in my pants.
Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk!
Any more obvious insights to share?

This is a good thing..

[RandomInAction]

..it's another step towards electronic documents getting the same validity as paper documents. We need this. Digital signatures would be nice too.

Great for my sex life

[Anonymous Coward]

Now instead of hand delivering a summons to my wife when I want sex, I can just send her an e-mail. Great!

What are the standards ...

[LL]

... because if the courts accept that it is valid, then it could also be used for contracts. The legal bar for communications of acceptance can be pretty stringent so any relaxation (a la postal rule) should be looked at closely. Some generally accepted guidelines
- must be some objective manifestation (or evidence) of acceptance.
- if a 3rd party agent guarantees delivery (a la British Post) but this rule is being deprecated with modern instantaneous methods like fax, the business should have recognised delivery pathways
- if all reasonable steps have been undertaken to bring communications to notice of recipient, then courts can deem the delivery to be effective (e.g. receipt of telex during normal business hours)

So I would guess that email by itself is not enough but if you combine registered mail, personal phone calls, delivery to registered offices of business premises, and then email, the courts will proably accept that if they were a legit business, they should have at least under reasonable expectations be aware. Of course, different jurisdictions may not accept this argument which makes enforcement difficult. Note that notification of delivery is not the same as mental assent (which requires a human to read it! ... unless smart agents are enpowered by law).

The problem is that the old mail system was not intended to be used as the standard for legal communications. Some recent discussions on next generation mail systems like IM2000 (http://www.ultraviolet.org/mail-archives/im2000.2 001/ , http://www.manxome.org/~samael/projects/im2000/) might be worthwhile considering.

LL

PDF

[dfenstrate]

The Adobe PDF format seems to be widely accepted by the legal community- many of the rulings that have been posted on slashdot were available in only .pdf format.

Considering that adobe offers a free PDF reader for every relevant operating system- including linux- your point is moot. No purchase is required, anyone with the connection to receive email can download a reader

Re:PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Access to email != access to the web. Juno is/was one fine example. I can get email no problem, but I don't have access to download files.

Or, what if the person got thier mail from the public library? Its likely that a normal user can't install programs in that environment..

Either of those cases, and all of a sudden free to download != easily accessable.

Just my two pence.

Re:PDF

[ethereal]

Wow, I'm glad to hear that I'm immune from service if I use a non-relevant OS, like GNU HURD (no, I wouldn't, but just fr'instance). Although I suppose you could compile xpdf from source on almost any platform and use it. Hopefully "relevant platform" doesn't become the legal standard that's used in these situations, or else we'll be seing a lot more Plan 9 users :)

Obligatory semi-ontopic The Register link: MS judge in shock MSWord to WordPerfect defection

Re:PDF

[CTalkobt]

Really? They offer one for the C-64?

Seriously, a guy Cameron Kaiser ( I think that's his name ) is routinly reading / posting on the comp.sys.cbm newsgroup from a C64.

Re:PDF

[mmol_6453]

I'm not sure, but to the best of my knowledge PDF wasn't invented by Adobe...so it's not really requiring anything proprietary.

It's interesting, though. I read on /. a long time ago that classified documents can't be transferred in any format other than plain ascii. (Has to do with things like revision tracking and saved data for "undo" features.)

Re:PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

i think that would qualify as non-relevant. Unless you happen to think more than a hundred or so people world wide connect with a C-64. I doubt it's more than half a dozen. Hell, I'd be suprised if it's more than him.

Re:PDF

[bryan1945]

Didn't John Katz say that he knew some Afghan guy who got on the 'net via a C64?

If true, which I highly doubt, I say make a PDF viewer just for that guy! I'd say he earned it, maybe open source it?

Just a thought.

Re:PDF

[stilwebm]

If your public library doen't have a PDF viewer, you should ask them to add one on at least one workstation. If their computers can't support Acrobat 3, it is probably time to move out of that rural mining town to a place that actually values education.

Re:PDF

[smyle]

I'm not sure, but to the best of my knowledge PDF wasn't invented by Adobe

Of course it was, as was PostScript before it. Now, Adobe has published spec's on it so you don't have to use their products to read or write PDF's, but that doesn't make it "non-proprietary".

Re:PDF

[screwtheNSA]

Considering the vastness of "word" programs, I would suggest that should this somehow become the defacto standard for process serving/s, then every court that makes use of this type of service be regulated to use ONE standard text format, font and style, no others would be allowed, plus an encrypted signature along with a digital signature must also accompany the E-poena.

This way, every court system has their own unique method of authentication, it allows all the court systems to identify every jurisdiction in the nation, where it originated and by whom, and for what cause/reason.

Watermarking legal documents are another method of authenticating the sender to the recipient/s, why stop this method?

E-mail is NOT foolproof, it requires that only one person has access to the computer and the mail server, when more people are introduced into this "equation" the level of security falls dramatically so that being "served" can NOT make absolute that the intended person or parties were indeed, served.

All court/legal documents should be so "airtight" as to make abuses and omissions absolutely "impossible" to occur, and the ability to forge a fraudulent paper all but impossible(see U.S. mint)as well.

If this is ever allowed to stand up in any court as "valid", then I see every EULA for software also become valid....make your choices carefully!

This is just a small step, but, like all branches of government, they get bigger and more intrusive over time from lack of actions on OUR part, this too, WILL become law, and after that, you can forget having it obliterated from the law books.

What you allow in one part, has the ability to also make allowances for still more "inclusions" into that one law, and without anybody ever knowing the difference, nor wil we ever be told of such changes, they will just "happen", then it's too late to rid ourselves of it, forever.

Re:DOWNLOADing webmails without OPENING them ?

[Matthaeus]

Dude. Tools->Internet Options->Advanced->Images off.

That being said, if you don't answer, they'll just find another way of getting a hold of you.

Okay.

[mindstrm]

Claimant has a valid trademark dispute
Defendant is not reachable, most likely on purpose
Defendant does have an email address

So you send the mail as a last ditch effort
and then hold a trial in absentia.

How is that not fair?

Soooo.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I opt-out? ;-)

reminds me of the Hithiker's Guide

[mmusn]

Something like "But the notification that Earth will be destroyed for a hyperspace bypass has been available at your local planning office on Alpha Centauri for a decade. If you can't be bothered to get involved in your local affairs, you will just have to live with the consequences."

The US seems to have a really Vogon attitude towards legal notifications. In most countries other than the US, the only notification that is considered acceptable is something that involves independent proof of delivery to the recipient: registered mail, courier, police, etc. In the US, in many cases, it seems to be enough to drop it into a mailbox. Really weird.

It seems to me that the case where only the E-mail address of an accused is available, someone needs to do their homework and track them down physically. Yes, it's a lot of work, and yes, that's unfortunate. But the alternative of establishing a principle that lets people serve legal documents through E-mail just seems much worse.

new feature in AOL 7.x

[shr3k]

[AOL-guy voice]: You've been served.

Spam Filters?

[martyb]

I'm thinking of what happens when the recipient of the e-mail summons has a spam filter in place which flags it as being spam? I could well imagine a case where a summons would list explicit samples of the material for which the recipient is charged, and these samples could trigger the user's and/or ISPs spam filter. Consider the bold text in this example.

You are hereby summoned to appear (insert legalese here) because you have been accused of engaging in a scheme which promises "clients" could make money fast and/or engage in on-line gambling in conflict with the laws of the United States of America.

The court could truthfully state the summons was sent. The "recipient" could truthfully claim s/he never received it.
I'm NOT claiming this would be a valid way to claim non-receipt of the summons; only that this is an entirely possible scenario.

Worse, still, is someone attempting an [im]practical joke on an unsuspecting user while they are away from their computer -- set up private spam filters in their e-mail program to delete e-mail containing: ("Federal" OR "State") AND "court".

With April 1st approaching, I suspect this has given a number of people some interesting ideas for April Fool's Jokes. ;^)

UGH

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be UGH then, right? Unsolicited Governmental Harassment...

Re:page length

[Anonymous Coward]

,I ,like ,wide ,pages ,I ,wish ,all ,pages ,could , be ,as ,wide ,as .this .dont .you .wide .pages .ar e .much .cooler .than .those .narrow .pages .you . are .used .to .reading .because .you .dont .have . to .worry .about .the .lameness .filter .telling . you .that .you .don't .have .enough .charaters .pe r .line .that .really .sucks .when .that .happens . and .you .have .to .put .some .lame .lameness .fil ter .defeater .text .in .there .i .wonder .how .ma ny .people .will .read .this .whole .comment .I .c ertainly .hope .it .doesnt .annoy .too .many .peop le .This .is .just .the .beginning .because .PAGE . WIDENING .IS .BACK .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish . all .pages .could .be .as .wide .as .this .dont .y ou .wide .pages .are .much .cooler .than .those .n arrow .pages .you .are .used .to .reading .because . you .dont .have .to .worry .about .the .lameness . filter .telling .you .that .you .don't .have .enou gh .charaters .per .line .that .really .sucks .whe n .that .happens .and .you .have .to .put .some .l ame .lameness .filter .defeater .text .in .there . i .wonder .how .many .people .will .read .this .wh ole .comment .I .certainly .hope .it .doesnt

How can they prove *I* opened it?

[og_sh0x]

Serving documents by snail mail is acceptable because it's a federal crime to open someone else's mail. If I open the document, it's mine. It's not a federal crime to open someone else's e-mail. If it was opened, it was not necessarily by me. Also, despite that the court acknowledged that it's appropriate in situations where there is no physical address, I think this could easily become a slippery-slope issue.

Re:How can they prove *I* opened it?

[LogicAli]

Of course here in the UK opening someone elses email is likely to constitute a breach of the Misuse of Computers Act 1980 (or some similar year.) Unless that person has specific permission to read the mail, but the with snail mail you can give another permission to open your mail. How many CEOs of companies open their mail? I bet they all have PAs to do it.

Here's why...

[Da VinMan]

It's a bad/stupid thing (depending on your perspective) because this ruling is effective with TODAY'S technology. That means that there won't necessarily be any evidence that the notice was really served, that it was secure, etc. Do you really trust POP/IMAP/HTTP enough for this purpose? Do you really? This probably has implications for contracts too. I would be very careful about this, or you'll get what you wish for (example below).

You: "Your honor, I am not bound by this contract because this email did not come from me. It was forged."

The judge: "Prove it."

You: [Blank stare.]

It would be pretty easy to drum up a whole stack of lawsuits based on forged mail. Hell, you could fake contracts of all sorts and pretend people owe you something in the hopes that they'll pay you something just to go away and not have to show up in court.

I doubt any self-respecting law firm is going to use this as their primary means of serving papers anyway, despite the ruling.

Also, think of this: if the party in question is so elusive that you are totally unable to serve them in person, then what real means of enforcement do you have in dragging them to court? So maybe you can get their site shut down? What if they're not the hosting company? What redress really occurred then?

No sir, I don't like it. Between this and e-voting, I smell real trouble.

Re:Here's why...

[Anonymous Coward]

You: "Your honor, I am not bound by this contract because this email did not come from me. It was forged."

The judge: "Prove it."

You: I GPG sign all my mail, and this wasn't signed.

Just another reason to sign mail.

Oh come on!

[Artagel]

The defendant never said he never got the documents. In fact, his lawyer obviously did get the documents somehow.

He was 1) actually notified, 2) actually represented, and 3) trying to hide behind some hypertechnical fig leaf. He was trying to tell the courts that because he hadn't been physically whacked with rolled up piece of ink-on-dead-tree, that the courts were powerless.

Would he have been happier losing the domain name because the complaint was published in the Miami Herald or the like? Good grief. He was a loser messing with everyone who got whacked. Looks good to me.

No physical address?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter if you read the subpoena. The governement already admits it can't find you. Let's see them come and get you. If they do, then they admit since they found you that you do have an address, rendering the subpoena, um, fucked up. BTW, I am a Lawyer.

POP logging?

[WasterDave]

What's the status of logging on POP servers? As best I know there isn't any, hence the only "proof" that you got the email would be the combination of the SMTP logs showing the mail was received at your ISP, and the fact the mail wasn't on disk any more.

Anyway, could always "steam the letter open" using POP's TOP command.

Dave

Evolution option..

[sterno]

Actually, in evolution they have the option to not view images in HTML to avoid people tracking your reading. So, it's entirely possible that there won't be a record of it.

Not a Surprise - Read the Rules

[davidebsmith]

This is not a surprise if you actually read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. FRCP 4 (f) says (in relevant part) (italics added):

Unless otherwise provided by federal law, service upon an individual from whom a waiver has not been obtained and filed ... may be effected in a place not within any judicial district of the United States:

(1) by any internationally agreed means reasonably calculated to give notice, such as those means authorized by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents; or

(2) if there is no internationally agreed means of service or the applicable international agreement allows other means of service, provided that service is reasonably calculated to give notice:

(A) in the manner prescribed by the law of the foreign country for service in that country ...
...
(C) unless prohibited by the law of the foreign country, by

(i) delivery to the individual personally of a copy of the summons and the complaint; or

(ii) any form of mail requiring a signed receipt, to be addressed and dispatched by the clerk of the court to the party to be served; or

(3) by other means not prohibited by international agreement as may be directed by the court.

Plus, under FRCP 4 (d) (2) (b) the defendant has a duty to avoid costs of service if a waiver of service is requested "through first-class mail or other relaible means."

The touchstone of whether service of process comports with due process is whether it is a method reasonably calculated to give notice under the circumstances. Our office regularly files cases requesting emergency authorization to demolish buildings that are in an imminently dangerous and hazardous condition and we provide notice by fax or by leaving messages on voice mail or by posting a notice on the door of the building. Under the circumstances that someone may be killed by a falling building if something is not done quickly, that is always sufficient notice under the circumstances.

In this case, the defendants were in a foreign country, at a concealed address, and the only known method of providing notice was via e-mail. Under many state laws, service by publication (those little ads in the back of the newspaper) is effective and constitutional. Certainly service via e-mail to the address provided by the defendant is more reasonably calculated to give notice than publication in the Law Bulletin would be.

This is yet another case of somebody seeing a high-tech buzzword and thinking it's hot news when it's really something that people have been doing for years.

Re:DOWNLOADing webmails without OPENING them ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if worse comes to worse they send the FBI out to figure out why the fuck you don't read your mail ala Ruby Ridge.

Does this mean mass mailed legal injunctions?

[MongooseCN]

I can just imagine companies that sit there all day mass mailing anyone with a trademark remotely similar to their own and threatening them with legal action. Or how about the RIAA mass mailing threats of legal action against every mp3 using person they can find on the net?

Gives new meaning to..

[Anonymous Coward]

This may give a new meaning to the term e-mail server....

Very hard

[shawnmelliott]

Just because you live in the same town doesn't mean it's easy to serve somebody. They can refuse to be there. They can have the secretary lie about whether or not they are in the office ( even with their car there ) because the police aren't going to sit there for 8 hours waiting for the guy to walk out. They can refuse to answer the door unless it's somebody they know and so on and so forth... One person me and some other people tried to serve took about 2 months to do the job. And that took a hired agent to do it ( It took him 3 days of constantly following the guy )

A surreal parallel anti-universe????

[pixelated77]

And then the left side of my brain looked at the right side of my brain and said "it's dark in here, and we may die".

M$ Outbreak preview?

[PotatoHead]

So the message is HTML, and contains a web bug to track the opening of the mail.

So what if someone has their preview pane turned on. The bug gets triggered, but they are not there.

What happens to the burden of proof in this case? Does it remain with entity doing the serving, or does it fall on the the entity being served?

hmmm

[blocsync]

oh, great, they think they've served me

glad my client doesn't respond to the notify when read requests....

*weeks later*...
you should have been here, didn't you get the e-mail?

what e-mail?

The return of MS BOB

[prizzznecious]

"It looks like you are frantically trying to erase the record of your having been electronically served papers. Would you like help with that?"

Re:Anybody have....

[ethereal]

Send it care of that kid watching movies on his C64. But you'll have to wait a bit; it takes him forever to download the movies on his 300 baud modem and he's still in the middle of The Matrix :)

huh? no snail?

[Anonymous Coward]

whois betrio.com

Registrant:
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc (BETRIO2-DOM)
1023 Cherry Road
Memphis, TN 38117
US

Domain Name: BETRIO.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Wilkins, Bobby (BW1169) hwilkins@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
1023 Cherry Rd
Memphis, TN 38117-5423
(901) 537-3785 (FAX) (901) 820-2570
Billing Contact:
Howard, Anika (AHU21) anhoward@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
One Harrah's Court
Las Vegas, NV 89193-8905
702-407-6456 (FAX) 702-407-6500

whois riosports.com

Registrant:
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc (RIOSPORTS3-DOM)
1023 Cherry Road
Memphis, TN 38117
US

Domain Name: RIOSPORTS.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Wilkins, Bobby (BW1169) hwilkins@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
1023 Cherry Rd
Memphis, TN 38117-5423
(901) 537-3785 (FAX) (901) 820-2570
Billing Contact:
Howard, Anika (AHU21) anhoward@HARRAHS.COM
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
One Harrah's Court
Las Vegas, NV 89193-8905
702-407-6456 (FAX) 702-407-6500

oxxy-moron

[ironfroggy]

This is a step in the right and wrong directions at the same time. It is wrong that we can so easily be sued or whatever the email is about, but at the same time, its a good thing that electronic documents are gaining some weight!

I can here it now...

[leinerj]

The new AOL email notification!
"You have subpoena"

Good point

[mmol_6453]

A con artist (read telecom provider or spam mailer) could send you an email authorizing them to suspend your anit-slam rights, and then trigger the authentication themselves by just making the HTTP request from another computer.

They'd have to prove that you, and only you, were capable of having knowledge or record of the authenticating URL. On the Internet, that means everything from certification that their software is bug-free and uncracked to certification that the packets weren't sniffed on the Internet to gaurantee that your employer doesn't archive your email as company policy. That reaches a point of impossibility after a while.

This means there'll be more demand for public key encryption. They'll need my public key (and they can't give me a private key...it might be intercepted on the Internet) to prove that the request I send to them really comes from me. This would have to happen by me sending a response encoded with my private key.

Battle Creek, Michigan

[coyote-san]

Am I the only one who wants to see a summons sent to the Battle Creek, Michigan city servers... using a technically correct but problematic header? (I would like to the earlier /. article on ORBZ here, but it seems to have disappeared.)

I would love to see them try to threaten a Federal Court with a felony trespass charge because they're exercising their own sovereign rights to summon parties before the court. My money is on the federal courts in this case.

You Don't Have to Read a Subpoena to be Served

[MoNickels]

I am not a lawyer, but my father delivers subpoenas for a living to men who have not paid child support. I asked him in the past about people refusing to accept subpoenas when he hands them to them. He explained that telling the party of the subpoena is sufficient for the subpoena to be served, and all that is required is that he a) notify them of the subpoena, and b) make it available to them. Refusing to accept the subpoena, not reading it, dropping it, ripping it up, or even claiming you aren't the person the subpoena is supposed to go to, do *nothing* to cancel the fact that the process server has, in fact, found you and given you sufficient notice of the legal document. In fact, a process server can simply used the scattershot method: deliver subpoenas to your home, your work, your gym, your parents' home, your girlfriend's house, your past addresses, everywhere, and in most cases it is sufficient to shove it in the mail slot, leave it in the mailbox, put it inside the screen door, hand it to another family member or household resident, put it under a windshield wiper, etc. Such a subpoena is considered served. You have been given sufficient notice. The court would prefer you pay attention to that notice, but it's your loss if you don't. So claiming you didn't get or didn't read an email message which you did indeed receive is likely an insufficient argument in the eyes of the court, particularly if there's strong evidence that you do, in fact, use the email address in question.

I should add that contrary to what you might think, most of the people who are served subpoenas are apologetic and civil, even a little bashful about having to have someone official notify them of a legal matter related to their own mistakes.

Re:You Don't Have to Read a Subpoena to be Served

[centauri]

What's a job like that pay? What qualifications does one need?

Re:You Don't Have to Read a Subpoena to be Served

[morcheeba]

$12 if done by the govmn't (but I suspect that this is for simpler cases)

Otherwise, $50 to a couple hundred dollars depending on the difficulty of the case (at $50/hr surveillance!).

A friend of mine helped out a guy who was getting screwed for child support payments. Basically, his ex-wife was living off of the child support payments (and I think remarried) and not giving a dime to her at-college kids. So, he paid the kids directly, too. To get his payments re-evaluated, he needed to serve his ex-wife with papers. He wasn't allowed to do it himself... he needed a third party to do it. He hired a firm to do it, and they did... but she kept lying under oath that she never received the papers and the judge kept letting her delay. Why the judge didn't witness the supoena right there in court, I don't know. Anyway, after many attempts, the ex-husband was running out of money. My friend agreed to do the delivery. They knew where she went to church, dressed up in thier sunday best, and followed her. Aparently the rule they had to follow was that the documents had to touch her person -- leaving at her doorstep wasn't good enough. And this lady was smart (dumb?) enough to literally run away everytime she thought she was going to be subpoened. But, she didn't know my friend, and when they handed her the package in the middle of the church (a huge cathederal, and just after the service), her shriek echoed through the building. She tossed it up in the air and ran out. As paritioners filed out, they had to step around the package on the floor- with her full name in big red letters. Plenty of witnesses, hopefully. A videocamera would have been more effective, but this was back in the day when they were bigger. It's amazing what denial some people can get into thinking they can avoid subpoenas...

Re:You Don't Have to Read a Subpoena to be Served

[Zspdude]

Yes, but where does this argument hold with the infamous "subpoena filter"? Block the reception of the subpoena, and you need never know that it ever came. How do you notify a blind deaf mute of a subpoena??

Beware the "mailbox rule" in cyberspace

[Anonymous Coward]

The Uniform Computer Information Trasactions Act (UCITA) and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) have versions of the "mailbox rule." UCITA is only effective in Maryland and Virginia. UETA is effective in many states.

A recipient is deemed to have received a legal notice when the email enters the ISP's system. Even if nobody sees it. Even if it gets dumped by a spam filter (and it is possible to format an email to induce its being dumped by a spam filter). Even if the ISP subsequently loses it and it never gets delivered to the recipient.

The original mailbox rule is that a legal notice is deemed to have been received when it is put in the mailbox (i.e., delivered to the Post Office).

Wing Chun

[Anonymous Coward]

with a name like that, you'd have to be a practitioner! anything else?

Re:DOWNLOADing webmails without OPENING them ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Pegasus mail. It does not download any web images, and so is imune to webbugs.

Cool!!!

[mmol_6453]

Lemme know when you finally figure out the email address to that spamming company. I could use a place to forward my spam.

(offtopic)
Good way to use snail spam: Stuff as much of the stuff as you can to the "Business reply mail" envelopes you tend to receive...And make it tight! They get charged by the weight.

Too bad I can't do that with spam.

How does this relate to geography.

[LogicAli]

I'm not lawyer yada yada yada. And not being an American I will not pretend to know anything about the laws in the US relating to subpheonas, but if there is no address how can you guarantee that the subpheona is legal. I assume that the regulations change from state to state and it must get worse if the person being servied lives outside the US. There are treaties and such that must be abided by, even if you can serve someone who does not live in the US. I have an email several email addresses that end in .com, and I am sure I could get one that ends in .us if I wanted, but that does not mean I live in the US. With most legal stuff the wording has to be very precise and if you serve someone and the language is wrong then surely it is invalid. If I am wrong then please point it out.

But

[Catbeller]

But the decision opened the door.

Picture this: the church of Scientology decides to nail you, for whatever reason.

They set up a court case, timing the service of process for some time you are not available, and would be unaware of the matter.

After not finding you in person, they serve up an e-summons to an email account you don't use much. Stipulated in the summons: if you don't respond, you automatically lose your case.

After a set period of time, you are informed that you have lost your house, your car, and maybe even your job, depending on many fake charges they managed to pile on you, because the judge automatically ruled you guilty of whatever BS they thought up.

My family, long ago, lost a civil case because the bailiff mispronounced our last name so badly that we didn't approach the judge. The plaintiff, although he knew we were there, swifty told the judge we were absent, and we lost the case by default.

Wonderful, ain't it?

Re:But

[pcwhalen]

First, this wouldn't happen if you had a street address that could be found by a reasonable search, say, in a phone book. A court would only allow service on an e-mail address if there was no other reasonable way to serve.

Second, default judgments are opened up as easily as a can o' spam. No judge wants to punish the innocent, the idea of service is fair play, to allow both parties the opportunity to be heard.

Third, show the judge that the plaintiffs engaged in spurious motion practice and counter-sue to sanction them. Judges don't like that fast and loose shit.

OK, you can serve them with no physical address ..

[pyramid termite]

... but good luck collecting a judgement if you can't locate assets or the people who own them.

Easy enough to fix

[brandonsr]

:0 * ^From.*\.gov ! cowboyneal@slashdot.org

Does this mean I can subpeona spamsters?

[WillSeattle]

I already send them an error message when they try to post to my email lists, indicating that the lists are run in Washington State by a Washington State resident and may not be used for commercial reasons.

So can I serve them with subpeonas automatically when they try to spam me?

On another point - if I download the header but not the email and hit the delete button - since the email is still sitting back on the email server (not in my house) when it's deleted - have I been served?

I never received the email.

Re:$$$kids don't try this at home

[raresilk]

Anyone who was dumb enough to do this would be in danger of being successfully sued by the recipients. Abuse of process and potentially fraud come to mind. (I know you are only joking, but . . .)

Kmail

[cyberkahn]

This is where the Kmail bounce feature will come in handy. :-)

Link to FULL TEXT of court decision

[Seth Finkelstein]

(from a mailing list)

From: "James S. Tyre"
Subject: Service of process by email

"Finally, we turn to the district court's order authorizing service of process on RII by email at email@betrio.com. We acknowledge that we tread upon untrodden ground. The parties cite no authority condoning service of process over the Internet or via email, and our own investigation has unearthed no decisions by the United States Courts of Appeals dealing with service of process by email and only one case anywhere in the federal courts. Despite this dearth of authority, however, we do not labor long in reaching our decision. Considering the facts presented by this case, we conclude not only that service of process by email was proper -- that is, reasonably calculated to apprise RII of the pendency of the action and afford it an opportunity to respond -- but in this case, it was the method of service most likely to reach RII."

Rio Properties, Inc. v. Rio International Interlink, decided yesterday by the Ninth Circuit. Highly fact-specific.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0115 466p.pdf

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:Link to FULL TEXT of court decision

[danb35]

...or, to get the opinion directly from the court, click here.

Re:Link to FULL TEXT of court decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, aren't you the freak stalking our beloved Michael?

When the lady, aka=liberty was sent to us, there:

[Anonymous Coward]

were aka=like "real" men,

so for all the fakes, if ya stand for something besides, women and children well,

then talk to ya m4m4 or some tang

A simple question

[AndrewNelson]

Ok, so even if you manage to avoid the summons, through no physical address, email/spam filtering, and a healthy dose of being unable to find, why would you *not* want to know you've been summoned?

After all, if they cannot find you, you lose pretty much by default. I cannot imagine they care much, beyond their duty to at least try and serve you. But you might care very much that someone has called you into court...

Postel Services

[salimfadhley]

I use a Korean company called Postel Services to track my emails. It's especially good when I am trying to email people who owe me money who might be pretenting not to read my mail.

Have a go, its free. Just send a freind an email but add confirm.to at the end. If you wanted to write to me you would say scf@spamcop.net.confirm.to instead of the usual scf@spamcop.net .

Postel take your email, add their "web-bug" onto it, and then send you back an email informing you when it has been delivered.

If you subscribe it will even tell you if your message is re-read, or perhaps passed on to somebody and then read again.

Never do business...

[aquarian]

...with any entity that has no physical address or phone number. Never, ever, ever.

The answer is Simple!

[Anonymous Coward]

block all leagle mail servers just as you would spammers/open relays.

I feel like doing this right now infact . . .

Mr. Lucas, are you free?

[MattGWU]

*looks around*
At the moment, yes.

/me ducks!

Re:Mr. Lucas, are you free?

[mgkimsal2]

DAMN - I'd mod you up if I had any points! :0

*I'm free!*

CPHack/cp4break Subpoena E-Mailed

[waldoj]

Those of us mirroring CPHack found an e-mailed subpoena in our e-mail in boxes 2 years and 1 day ago. That was the second-ever e-mailing of a subpoena; the first was in the DeCSS case. In my case, it came as a Word attachment, making a bit difficult to read. I had no idea if it was legitimate or not until the ACLU took on the case and determined that to be the case. E-mailed subpoenas are simply too difficult to determine the authenticity of or to rely on the receipt of, to say nothing of the problems that come with sending the data in a proprietary format.

There's a name for these, coined by Keith Dawson of "Tasty Bits from the Technology Front" fame: "spampoena." He defines the word as follows:

"A spampoena is an overbroad subpoena of dubious validity 'served' by email to unnamed recipients throughout cyberspace. The first spampoena was deployed last January in the DeCSS / MPAA case; the second was just sent out in the matter of CPhack / Cyber Patrol. We may dearly desire that, quashed forthrightly, it will be the last ever served. A judge in Boston -- in a hearing at which no defense attorney was present -- granted a subpoena requiring that a Canadian and a Swede remove certain content from their Web sites. The lawyer for Cyber Patrol's parent company requested and reportedly received permission to 'serve' copies of the subpoena by email to hundreds of unknown others in all parts of the world. Several hundred of the spampoenas have been mailed (and fewer received). Here is an example. The ACLU's motion to quash the subpoena concludes:

"'The subpoenas must be quashed because they were not properly served, because they violate the geographic limitations of Rule 45, and because they impose an undue burden... that raises significant constitutional questions. More fundamentally, they must be dismissed because they are in aid of an underlying case that itself must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction, and mootness. It is improper to impose on a third party the burden of any subpoena -- particularly one that raises a host of thorny privacy issues -- in aid of a case that does not belong in this Court in the first place.'"

I'd hoped that those two incidents would be the last that we'd see of this inappropriate method of delivering subpoenas. Let's hope it doesn't become standard.

-Waldo Jaquith

I send you to court in order to have your advice

[Snafoo]

...other members of the jury selected from you address book.

Re:DOWNLOADing webmails without OPENING them ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It Wouldnt matter if you where using POP or IMAP or anything else, they can still embed a img tag in the email, and if your email client views HTML Eudora/Outlook they can tell it was opened. Just disable HTML emails and view them as text and you won't have any problems.

e-mail subpoenas

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Every lawyer I have ever encountered has advised
me to never not read legal documents that have beensent to me--if you don't read them, you don't know what your opponent is going to do.

2. At least in New York State, personal service
is falling into disuse. However, when substituted
service is used (i.e., service that does not physically present documents to the person being served or his/her authorized representative), the
rules generally require that the papers must be
presented by at least two different methods, such
as taping the papers to a door and mailing them
by first class mail (though certified mail is
preferred). I can see nothing wrong with using
e-mail as one of the methods of presenting papers, provided a second method is simultaneously used.

3. The judge's decision here is only mildly noteworthy, because it does not require the sort of double service required by New York State. Other than that, it is quite reasonable, since the documents were sent to the recipient's last known address. Service of papers to someone's last known address is generally (not always, of
course) considered proper service in New York, and court orders based on such service are valid.

4. So what's the big deal?

New Subject For SPAM

[Myuu]

FROM:sdffd@asdfs.cn
TO:myuu@qwest.net
DATE:March 31, 2004
SUBJECT:You are require for a Court Appearance...

BODY:

Dear Mr sfdasdf,

You are hereby summoned for a court appearance at TheCourtOfLove.com. Thats right, you can find attractive young singles like your self...

...

Call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including
Sundays and holidays.

1 - 3 1 3 - 5 5 7 - 5 9 4 5

OR

1 - 7 7 3 - 9 1 3 - 6 4 6 9

All calls kept strictly confidential.

DON'T WAIT ANOTHER DAY!

href="mailto:remove1586@xmarketing.org?subject=m er chant account tbt3">off of mailing list
572819141198

The answer: Public-Key Encryption

[piranha(jpl)]

So someone starts sending fake summons via email with faked return addresses. How do you know what's real in E-mail.[?]

I'm personally a big fan of crypto, and the idea that lots of things (for instance, being served legal documents) can be conducted online securely with existing technology.

If you've ever played with PGP, you should know what a signature is. If not, try reading the GNU Privacy Handbook (some parts are GnuPG specific, but lots or most of it pertains to OpenPGP in general). The result is there could very well be a standard public key for every court jurisdiciton (and if you want to get detailed, these keys could have a chain of signatures, higher districts signing the keys of lower districts). These keys could be used to sign documents being served, and the availability of the public keys could be used to verify the document's authenticity.

AFAIK, crypto won't solve the issue of documents being served to dead addresses, or people denying that they were ever served.

If we're going to rely on PKE/PKI, we need to get this "security" (particularly Windows security) travesty in order. Public advocacy of the importance of general system security, and the responsibility of big software vendors (cough, Microsoft) to release patches quickly and make it easy for home end-users to get patched regularly (automatically?) could play a role in removing the number of worms and trojan horses spreading on Windows-based PCs. Lack of system security compromises the integrity of people's online identities and the potential role of PKE in the legal system.

IANARC (I Am Not A Real Cypherpunk); there's probably a host of issues I haven't covered that must be taken into consideration.

It's not a big deal; read the decision

[Animats]

This isn't a case of someone e-mailing a subpoena arbitrarily. The plaintiff tried serving a subpoena at the address associated with the domain name, which was a courier service. They then heard from the defendant's lawyer, who had a copy of the supoena but refused to accept service of process. After that, the plaintiff asked a Federal District Court for a court order allowing them to e-mail a subpoena. The defendant's lawyers filed motions, and there were appearances by them in court.

This wasn't a default judgement with no response by the defendant. In the words of the Court, Thus, when RIO presented the district court with its inability to serve an elusive international defendant, striving to evade service of process, the district court properly exercised its discretionary powers to craft alternate means of service. All this really means is that ducking a subpoena that you know about ultimately won't work.

Anyone ever here of spoofing?

[Dark0n3]

What is this, the court system is going to start e-mailing you to serve you legal documents? Ok, first off, how are they going to legally bound your e-mail address to you, and second "I" if I wanted to could send an e-mail from the court system to "pretend" that I was serving documents to you. This system that is going to take place is very faulty. If they are going to do this, god help us all!

Can we bounce it?

[AntDaniel]

Maybe I should just set my email server to bounce anything from any countries govenment agency?? List those email addresses. Or how about adding them to the email black hole!!

Tax form have email addresses.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you didn't notice more and more federal,state and local tax forms have a place next to your signature for you to enter your email address. Just leave it blank since if the signature block is leagally binding and since the email address is in the same block, it will also be legally binding. Moreover, if the tax collector tries to contact you a few months later via this email address, and you have changed ISP's or don't like computers/internet anymore within the last year (i.e. forms are filed yearly) then wouldn't you be legally held responsible when they email this address and you don't receive it and they say we contacted you? So don't give the tax or any government agency your email address on any tax or other form since that is the cheap and easy way to try to get in contact with you. Let them do the leg work that they are paid to do.

In the Offices of Andersen...

[Captain Large Face]

Imagine it....:

You have 1 Unread Mail Message and 1 Unread Subpoena.
Would You Like to Start Your Virtual Shredder?

Interesting hook

[CrazyDwarf]

First, I want to say I like your sig.

Second, in Oklahoma, the police were always contacting people to say they had won a prize and they were to meet at the Myriad Arena on a certain day/time. At the announced time, they'd get up on the podium and call out a few names, sending those people (the innocents thrown into the mix) into another room where they could claim televisions and such. The rest of the people in the room were then arrested. This is a good method of picking up warrants, or so I'm told. Why not do something similar for serving people?

Re:Interesting hook

[Dynedain]

Thats entrapment, and as such, probably unconstitutional. I'm suprised no-one has used that as part of their defence.

What about me?

[CrazyDwarf]

I don't get the newspaper. I read my news on /. and various other web sources.

Cynic's take...

[Anonymous Coward]

Next year they plan on introducing trial by email too. This way the RIAA can subpeona and have everyone that downloads mp3 tried! Bulk justice... now where did I leave that spam filter?

do you know what a subpoena is?

[Ionized]

hint, not just anyone can send one.

I once got a virus like that!

[BACbKA]

About a month ago I got a virus (blocked by spambouncer, and then verified as a virus by text-only mail user agent) very similar in its idea to what you describe. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact subject line, but the social engineering line was along what you propose.

The subject and the main body part were telling that I am violating software license agreement for the senders' software, according to the license excerpts attached. An attachment, disguised as "license.txt", but actually an executable file, was there, too. Deleted it...

And Therin lies the problem

[WyldOne]

I was 'served' a subpoena just becase some idiot server figured my last name matched. I was not related by blood or relationship to the person in question. I even went to the court the next to have them correct this issue.

The result? I got lots of junk-mail(spam) from attourneys who thought I needed their help. They could not even read the full case jacket to see that yes indeed I was not the person in question.

I don't see how e-mailing is any help in gettting the process papers to the right person.

Similar problem

[WyldOne]

On three different occasions I've had 'Registerd /signature required mail fail.

One I was shipping a part to a company. They say they never got. I get back a return receipt with no signature. That was the United States Post Office.

One was a package sent to me Fed-ex. Was a pricy Optical drive. They left on my back door without any signature.

Just recently UPS did the same. Four new 120gb dirves left on backdoor steps. Even though it was clearly marked signature required.

Until there is a way to guarentee that the postal/package carriers do their part of the job nothing will change.