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Site Says 'Go Away!'; Federal Court Says No
CaptainEbo writes "Michael Snow was the webmaster of Stop Corporate Extortion, a private support group website for 'individuals who have been, are being, or will be sued by any Corporate entity.' In order to access his site, users were required to register a username and password, and agree to a statement saying they were not associated with DirecTV, Inc. Several defendants in suits brought by DirecTV would discuss their cases on Snow's site. When DirecTV's employees and lawyers ignored Snow's user agreement and accessed his site anyway, Snow sued, claiming they violated the Stored Communications Act (SCA) by accessing his site without authorization. In an unanimous opinion, the Eleventh Circuit rejected Snow's suit."
Where does this leave things like EULAs?
It seems more and more like we have a double standard when it comes to "computer trespass" laws. People can be threatened with prosecution for downloading files which a company mistakenly posts on a public webserver, yet when it comes to a citizen and their own personal site they have no mechanism to keep people out.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Well, interesting story. There once was this website called ThePirateBay.org, that had a whole lot of things readily accessable to the general public, but uh ... not so popular with los federales. In fact, they claim that many people accessed their stored communications without authorization!
Seriously though, this seems so vaguely worded that I think it's almost useless as a precedent. "Readily accessible" is pretty subjective to a given individuals knowledge (I happen to find whois queries readily accessible, but I don't think everyone wouuld), and what people feel like using at that time, in that place.
They lied, they cheated, they broke and entered in the digital sphere. Let's just hope Mr. Snow doesn't get counter-sued if they happened to fall through a skylight and break their leg on the trip through.
"My heart is in the work." - Andrew Carnegie
You really can't expect someone to sit there and interview everyone who wants to become a member of this sort of thing... it just isn't really possible. Just imagine if there was some guy who had to sit there and interview each new member of slashdot. No way would that ever work.
What makes something readily accessible to the general public? According to the article they didn't even give an example (apart from that "hint" which I just went over). That is just way too vague.
Where does this leave things like EULAs?
... that is, if you are a big powerful rich corp, then the courts will happily uphold your EULA but if you are a small-time nobody, then your EULA doesn't mean jack squat and the courts will trod all over it. Nothing has changed.
And no, I'm not intentionally being cynical... I'm just simply being observant of the way things really work.
I know you can't extrapolate from online laws to real-world ones, but...
On Snow's site, any member of the general public could access the site by merely registering with a username and password and clicking on the words "I Agree to these terms." Such an easily surmountable barrier to access is, according to the court, insufficient to make a site not "readily acessible to the general public."
If I own some land, and don't want people trespassing to pick berries but have no problem with them hiking across it, I can put up signs to that effect. If they come to pick berries, I can kick them out for trespassing. Were online standards applied to this law, even putting up a short fence wouldn't be sufficient to allow me to enforce my signs; I'd need 15-foot concrete barriers and hired guides to chaperone all visitors.
Hypocrisy is the first thing that comes to mind here.
The closest physical manifestation of this situation is for a man to walk into a private meeting room such as a boardroom, then use the information he heard for personal gain.
Or someone wandering into a Lawyers office and listening in on a Lawyer-Client conversation and using that information against the client.
Its truly frightening that the US legal system supports such gross violation of privacy, so long as it is perpetrated by a company, not a person.
Can't we all just get along
This isn't a double standard by any means. It's what many call the "American standard".
This man's first offense was not being a corporation. His second was daring to question the actions of corporations.
The standards are quite clearly set. Individuals are not allowed to take a stance against corporations or their actions. Corporate greed trumps all. It's very evident how the system works.
What he *should* have done was create a blacklist of IPs known to belong to DirectTV and any business partners they may have had.
It occurs that after an initial setup using existing 'No *PAA blacklists' the process could have been automated fairly easily by scanning his web logs for uncool IPs.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Now that those "Acceptable Use Policies" don't mean anything, I no longer have to bother reading them before clicking the checkbox... No more losing sleep worrying about getting sued when I write scripts that blatantly violate the AUPs either.
Last time I checked, the idea behind creating a "corporation" was to give it a legal title as a person, hense the root of the word... Slightly astounded at how this court could fail to grasp not only the law but common sense and english vocabulary.
Hah! Just kidding, I don't really expect the courts to go by morality or, god forbid, simple logic. All those little corporate trolls on here that seem to snipe at me from time to time, you may now go ahead and explain to me how judges and courts are somehow restricted by the nuance of law, and cannot find any way at all to rule in favor of ethical good.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Is by far one of my favorite blogs. A blog that actually has people who know what they talking about giving analysis on important subjects. Are there more blogs like this?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Whatever happened to freedom of association? A private entity---i.e., anything that is *not* the government---should be able to discriminate on any basis it chooses.
Even if you agree with the legality of civil rights laws, the employees of a particular company are not a protected group under that legislation.
[ home ]
The SCA isn't applicable here. He should have brought a civil suit citing breach of contract. That's just standard licensing/contract law.
Ironicly enough, the user/pass they used to acces his site was:
bugmenot/bugmenot
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
...or up for sale? Accessing the site gives a banner "click here to buy this domain" in a nice little frame, followed by no page found.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
I can't help but wonder what kind of precedent this sets for activities like spamming. Essentially the courts are saying if it is easy to do, even if clearly not the desire of those seeking privacy to not be invaded by you -- go ahead anyway. Lots of cool things are unworkable on the internet because people don't respect clearly posted guidelines for activities, this is just one more ruling making it harder for online communities to self-govern.
Sadly if the ruling went the other way, I could see bad outcomes as well. Still Direct TV seems more than a little slimy in ignoring the request. Perhaps their anti-social behavior should be more widely disseminated -- say by some well read online community of some sort, perhaps one that provides news to the technically inclined or what the general public calls geeks.
Letter To Iran
The ruling makes no mention of EULAs or contracts. I think this would have been a far more interesting case had Snow argued that viewing the website was a breach of contract rather than attempt to apply some anti-hacking law someplace that it doesn't belong.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
The crucial difference being that race is a protected class in anti-discrimination legislation, while employer is not.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
What is so hard about that? If I don't want some people from a certain organization accessing my site - I simply deny them access. They think my server is down or doesn't exist, leave, and don't come back.
Bah - lawsuit, he just wanted some attention.
Why shouldn't you be allowed to say no blacks should enter on your own personal website? Why in the world should you get sued for such a thing? It is your website...seriously.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Seems to me like he is discriminating against Direct TV personel. Could I create a website that says no "blacks" can enter? NO! Could I be sued if I did? YES! He should not be able to create a website saying no Direct TV personel and they have every right to counter-sue in my opinion.
No "blacks" may read this post. Don't like it? Sue me.
I'm sure some corollary of Godwin's law applies here.
"Bother," said Pooh, as lightning knocked out hi%#&(F*@NO CARRIER
Would I really want the headache of dealing with an organization like this? I don't think so.
It's bad enough I'm running Windows.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Does this mean I as a man can now go into woman's bathrooms and showers and such? There is just a sign! There is no real screening process! Woot!
And if the Supremes uphold the 11th Circuit, then every SCA conviction so far should be overturned pronto!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It's missing a brown envelope sticking out of her packet pocket...
Do yourself a favor and learn what "protected class" means.
Which classes are protected varies from location to location and situation to situation but:
Age, Race, Sex, Religious affiliation and Ethnicity are usually at the top of the list. Sexual orientation is an option often ignored as protected.
I wouldn't get upset. Snow lost because he's a god damned moron. His case should have been one of contract, not one under the SCA. Furthermore, even if he wanted to argue the SCA, he was not precluded from arguing BOTH points of view, SCA *and* contract law. Why he didn't is a mystery to me.
I hate printers.
Why not go after them for plain old fraud? They made use of his services under false pretenses. How could he possibly lose on that?
IANAL, but could this also be wire fraud?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
if not, then what would have happened if Snow had put this agreement up as a EULA in more fancy legalese and claimed for violation of contract?
* lon3st4r *
Could I create a website that says no "blacks" can enter? NO! Could I be sued if I did? YES!
Yes you could create such a website in the US and on what grounds could anyone sue you?
Private citizend engaging in discrimination is perfectly legal. Being an asshole is not a crime.
He should not be able to create a website saying no Direct TV personel and they have every right to counter-sue in my opinion.
I would respectfully submit that you have no fucking clue of what you're talking about. Under what law could they counter-sue?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I agree.. although out of "Age, Race, Sex, Religious affiliation and Ethnicity" I think that Religious affiliation should not be included.
The rest are kind of implicit in that you can't do much about them so it should never be an issue - whereas Religious affiliation is just a choice.......
This sums up my feelings...
--
Written By:Russell Nelson
On June 2, 2006 03:15 AM
Wow. That's an interesting decision. So if I post my land against hunters, and hunters trespass anyway, I can't exclude hunters because my land was public because hunters trespassed while claiming that they weren't hunters? They were never authorized. Even if I was unable to identify them on casual examination, THEY knew they were hunters, and THEY knew their use of my land was unauthorized. The law is fully capable of taking one's internal knowledge into account -- that's why manslaughter and murder are different crimes.
Sheesh. Idiots.
--
This was a private person working against corporations, and it was shot down. When the corporations with their army of lawyers and legal fud wants to persuit this against people, expect it to be fully enforcable. They will have no problems what so ever.
Ok, so I don't know that, but I'm pretty sure that's how it will turn out.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
If this is a contract, why couldn't a site that did not want certain companies to access it state so in the countract clearly specifying that if you do so in violation of this agreement you agree to pay say 5 Billion dollars for each individual offense (http hit). And then take them to court for the money they owe. While this would not achieve the intended purpose of baring one from legaly entering a site, it should give a protection if the amounts set are unreasonable for those companies to pay and place them and or individuals in jepardy of loosing all they have when violating the agreement. Make sure this part of the statement is in the largest possible letters upfront of the agreement. (It would be fun to see this go to court though, although legal system that it is, they prolly would through it out unless you were from Redmond or some other large muscle.)
The GNU General Public License grants recipients of a product various rights, but (as in this case) they don't give any considerations in return. Also (as in this case) nobody "screens the registrants before granting access".
If it's legal to access the Stop Corporate Extortion Website while apparantly breaking its terms of use and copyright, would it also be legal to use GPL'd software while breaking its terms? What's the significant difference, if any?
Reduce, reuse, cycle
There've been already a few people sent to jail for "hacking" because they gained access to sites they were not supposed to get access to by claiming to be someone else (or, in this case, not being someone specific).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Click-through for access to allow pubilc the access to x-rated websites "if you are an adult and porn is not illegal in your juristiction" (like anywhere south of the mason-dixon line)? Seems like the same logic should apply here.
The copyright/patent holder grants to the bearer full and unlimited rights, including rights to use, copy, distribute, modify, reverse engineer, and disassemble this product. This agreement supercedes any and all others, implicit or explicit. By clicking on the button, you accept these terms.
...then hold that paper over the top of whatever license terms are displayed on the screen and click the button. Problem solved.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Not at all. This is still self-authorization. He would have needed to do a third party check - enter your full name and ssn, and then do a credit check to verify whether or not the user's employer was either DirecTV or one of their publicly known retained firms.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Every time you go to a website and don't read the 10 pages of fine print, you would risk committing a federal offense.
People, this is not a contract issue. If it were, he would probably have won.
He was trying to use the biggest weapon available and he screwed up, because he does not use anything to keep people out.
The court made the only interpretation of the statute that would be reasonable.
So if you strike oil or gold on your European property, it's owned by the state? Incredible.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
I hate to tell you but this is also the case if you find gold or oil on your property in the US. (although it may not be the govt who owns it) You would have to check your specific titling/deed for the property, but most of them specifically exclude "mineral rights".
I am sure that the prevalance this sort of thing varies from one locality to another, but the concept is the same wherever. The mineral rights do not necessarily go with the ownership of the surface of the land.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Instead of trying to come up with analogies that, if you're lucky, only half of /. readers will agree with, and each of the other half providing what they think is a better analogy, repeat ad nauseum...let's just cut to the chase, as it applies to this topic.
The man said, this is private property, and if you're in *this* group of people, you're not allowed to enter.
Create all the analogies and argue all the finer points of the laws regarding trespassing you want, some of those that were in *this* group of people entered anyway, and as such violated the webmasters rules of access.
All that talk of "screening" and "self-screening" is just a bunch of bullshit spewed out to justify a ruling that creates yet another loophole in a law that shouldn't even be necessary to begin with. You're either allowed in, or you aren't.
A person of average morals and a sense of decency will not go where he's obviously not wanted. The rest should be held accountable for their actions.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Then court should also think this is totally stupid and shouldn't protect porn sites from liability, if that is the case. After all, it's only click away from kids to access porn. I can hear that "for the Children" antic coming up.
Some judges need a lesson on how internet works. Probably most judges think internet runs on some magnetic tapes and flashing light bulbs with occational "beep.. beep" noise.
pr0n for everyone!
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
You can most certainly create a site that doens't allow access to black people. Or Jews. Or fat chicks. Whatever group floats your boat. It's your private property, you can discriminate all you want. Only public property and private property that is meant as a public gathering place such as malls are subject to anti-discrimination laws.
Anyone know who made this quote?
Money talks and bullshit walks
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
They're only for the rich and wealthy, the mega-conglomerates. The little guy gets no protection.
So why should we care....
In Finland, wherever you erect a house is considered completely private property, but if you own forest beyond your back yard, you can't prevent people from using it.
This makes perfect sense, as the only other alternative would be for the government to own all forests, to prevent crazy landowners from destroying everyone else's enjoyment.
How can you even remotely consider that a landowner actually OWNS that land if he does not have the simple right of preventing others from taking its resources without permission? Berries on MY land are MY berries, if you take them, you are stealing MY berries. What you have described is simple, homeowners have 0 property rights.
In practice, it means you can't start posting stupid signs telling people what they're allowed to do. Just like that website couldn't...
Yet its ok for other land owners to post stupid signs telling me how to use their land? Example: the government is a fairly large landowner, and streets are riddled with signs telling me to stop, slow down, no left turn, one way, do not enter.
Again all that you have demonstrated is that in Finland, landowners have 0 rights, their is actually no reason to own or take care of or protect property in Finland.
So, If I were still under 18, and I went to a free porn site that prompts me to verify that I am indeed 18, then I would not be legally bound to tell the truth? And if I lie, then aqire access to the site and my parents were to decide to sue the website operators for providing me with such content, how would the courts rule?
I'm sure a lawyer could chirp up with details, but a few years ago the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the police needed to get a search warrant to examine the contents of a tent. They ruled that tents were temporary domiciles, same as hotel rooms, and entitled to the same protection.(*) His closure of the tent, like closing your hotel room door, indicated that uninvited visitors were unwelcome. That includes police sans warrant.
Is a zipped tent, or a locked convertable with the top down, any practical limitation? Of course not, but neither is a window to a man with a rock. But legally it's the intent that mattered in that case.
In the parent case, I have a mixed mind on the decision. I understand the reasoning, but I also understand that "freedom of association" protects the right of a group to exclude unwanted persons (primarily police) just as much as it means that a group can get together for peaceful purposes.
(*) The old Dragnet series had a horrible scene where the cops searched an apartment under the authority granted by the landlord. Uh, no. Odd, iirc my ugrad business law class made it clear that only the occupants can consent to a search. (Details undoubtably differ by state.) Residental rental contracts universally provide access exemptions, but in every one of my leases it's been immediate if there's a critical problem that requires immediate action (e.g., burst pipe or smoke), and after 24 hours if there's a legitimate business need (e.g., to perform city-mandated annual inspection of the smoke alarm). Otherwise, keep out. The landlord can unlock the door for a search warrant, but can no more open the door to the police for an unwarranted search than he can open the door for my "visiting brother" who's dropped by to pick up my "unwanted" computer.
On the other hand there have been cases of residents suing their landlord after they discovered hidden cameras installed by their landlord... and losing. That's not the same as a government agent, of course, but it highlights the need to check with a local lawyer if there's a question.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I'd say that, de facto, we already do. I.e., you can't get blood from a turnip, but you can sure get blood from a..., well I don't think I want to finish that analogy. Anyways, my point is that juries routinely hand out fairly large settlements against companies (McDonald's coffee, anyone?), and companies with more financial resources are those companies that will actually have the wherewithal to pay.
On the other hand, even if a jury awarded you a $10 million dollar suit against me, well, good luck with you - or, more importantly for your point, your lawyer - collecting it.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If the site owner presented an emphasized statement.. Like "I certify that I have no association whatsoever with Direc... my nickname, e-mail, and unique password entered below constitute my digital signature."
Emphasizing and specifically separating the statement from all other agreements. And required registrants to type in text like "AGREE" by hand; so it wasn't just click to agree.
Maybe there's still such a thing as fraud, and people certifying to a false statement are still misrepresenting themselves...
The criteria of effective means of control as a requirement to receive judgement against unauthorized users to register and use a site above and beyond their allowed access seems like a new one -- bad hackers could enjoy this; now suddenly hacking isn't hacking, unless the site was secure to begin with?
And what about the cases where people have been prosecuted for sending e-mail on the basis of unauthorized access to otherwise publicly accessible mail servers?
As someone mentioned, just clicking a button won't protect you. But if they go through the process of signing up for an account, then they have to accept the terms of the site as a product and should be protected by law.
IIRC, The Boy Scouts were allowed by the courts to ban gays from being scout leaders. The court's opinion was that the BSA is a private organization and is allowed to restrict membership on whatever criteria they choose.
It's disgusting, but I heard a radio ad for a service which allows individuals to incorporate for no reason other than to gain the legal benefits of being a corporation. That's right, you pay fewer taxes if you're legally a one-man corporation than if you're legally an individual.
Slashdotters, join me in spamming thousands of one-man corporations!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You don't have to sue "under" any law. You can sue for anything. You can sue the state seeking to make the official state song "Teenage Enema Nurses In Bondage" if you feel like it, and the case will get its time in court before a judge. Suing is a civil action, the grounds of which need not be governed by a specific law.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
The legal argument is that the user agreement implicitly denies authorization and they gained access through fraud.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
There has to be a law authorizing the type of redress that you seek or else your case will be dismissed before you get to present any evidence.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Could he have gotten around all of this by making his signup and "application" to join a private community? Seems like an easy way to avoid all this mess and it also seems more solid from a legal defense standpoint.
An application does not imply acceptance. Just that you WANT to join. It does not mean the site has to accept you.
I didn't say that it wouldn't get dismissed, I said that there need not be a violation of law in order to sue.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Actually, in several countries you couldn't even do that. In Finland, wherever you erect a house is considered completely private property, but if you own forest beyond your back yard, you can't prevent people from using it.
"
That concept does exist in the United States (there's a Roman law concept called the public trust doctrine that carried to common law.) In basically all states (particularly California) the beach beyond the high tide line is public property and freely accessible, regardless as to who owns in it. (Essentially, that's the part of the beach with wet sand.)
That's not to say that this issue is clearly settled (even in California where there's a lot of litigation) or universal (my Ohio, for instance, seems to push the public area of the beach beyond the high tide line to the water...so you can walk along the 312 miles of Ohio coastline without issue...as long as you are always standing in water, which is a tougher standard than always being on the wet sand.)
If you think about how Californians prize the beach and their cultural attitudes to it, simply transfer that passion to Finland and their forests.
We have the Bush administration being as clear as cars' windows parked on lover's lane and now the courts are being more shifty than JFK's magic bullet?
What for?
A goodnight kiss takes the queen but protects the king's life.
It has nothing to do with being a corporation. It has everything to do with having money. Corporations simply tend to have more of it.
The law is extremely complicated. If you can afford good lawyers, you can raise enough doubt to defend yourself against most anything. If you don't, you and your public defender will probably just plead to a reduced charge to save everyone time and money.
I'm not saying that this is necessarily the best way for us to live, but if you're gonna be a cynical coward, you should atleast define the situation properly.
EFF actually stepped into this case to help DirecTV with this suit.
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/Snow_v_DirecTV/
IANAL - But the issue appears to me that Snow didn't adequatley make his website private because he allowed the public to gain access in a self-registering manner. The question becomes how would you then make it private - is that simply a screening process so after a user registers there is then an approval?
From EFF:
"The lower court had rightly dismissed the case, but for the wrong reasons. It held that the "Stored Communications Act" portion of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 did not protect websites at all, even if they were configured to be private. It reached this privacy-destroying decision because DirecTV's lawyers had failed to make the better argument: that web sites are protected by the Stored Communications Act (or "SCA"), except when they are configured to be readily accessible to the general public."
So...If I read this right, this should nicely apply to the "click here to access our free wireless" pages, right?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Seems to me that the authors of the various comments and such still hold copyright claims on thier "work". In the same way that people get sued for using limewire to suck down movies that they have no rights to couldn't somone of these people sure DirectTV for copyright infringement via browser?
If motive is meaningless then you must believe that there shouldn't be a difference between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree murder. Also, I suppose you are against anti-terrorism laws. If you are not, I'd be interested in why you consider certain motives are permissable as worth extra/lesser punishment, and why others are not. And while I believe you could probably come up with a case of misuse of hate crime law, just using a derogatory term is not enough to be charged with one. What laws include a specific race? Hate crime laws apply to any hate crime. Maybe there are some laws that favor some group that you are thinking of, but it is not hate crime legislation.
In most legal jurisdictions you are required to have license to engage in sexual intercourse, but are forbidden to contract it.
KFG
Temperature of 180 degrees F isn't unusual for coffee. The recommended brewing temperature is 199 degrees. After brewing, you don't typically wait for the coffee to cool, you serve immediatelly after. It is up to the coffee drinker to determine when it has cooled down sufficiently to drink by sipping, and sipping the 199 degree coffee will not cause you to burn yourself, because you'll realize it's too hot way before you actually take it in.
I've burned myself before by spilling extremely hot coffee on me (yes, of the temperatures described above). There's no way it'd cost $47k for medical expenses. There's no way that you'd even require a doctor's care unless we're talking about continuously pouring the coffee on the same location. You'd expect her reflexes to take over, and she'd jump out of the way as soon as she starts to get burned.
Now, I think a lot of these new tort reforms are really ill conceived and end up stopping people who have legitimate cases from suing. However, you don't need to defend that crappy lawsuit in order to hold that belief.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
The only two that are constitutionally protcted are race and sex, and are legal extensions of the sufferage amendments. Since Ethnicity is a vague concept completely without meaning these days, that's a hard one to justify giving protection to as well.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
'electronic bulletin boards are not "in electronic storage," and, thus, are not protected by the SCA.'
... Oh, but I guess databases somehow don't count as "electronic storage", either..??
Uh, so, are they in some kind of as-yet-undiscovered electronic void, or something? What else would you call a bunch of PHP/ASP scripts sitting on a web server? That's pretty fucking "electronic", and I think a computer's hard drive is generally accepted to be "storage", too. Maybe even electronic storage.
Seriously, files/scripts/databases on a website are 100% in electronic storage. There is absolutely NOTHING about that description that doesn't apply.
In fact, even if they somehow arbitrarily didn't consider files on a website to be "in electronic storage", which appears to be what has happened, there's also the fact that essentially all forums store their posts in a database such as MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, etc.
I'm actually more shocked that the court's ruling was actually in line with the reality of the situation than that the Boy scouts don't want gay leaders. The latter seems fairly reasonable, actually, as it adds the potential for sexual activity which was implicitly removed by the normal standards of the group (no girls, etc).
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Ethnicity has a closer tie with cultural personality traits -- that is to say non-genetic or non-inherited characteristics. Race is a term that is too often abused. But I could place Japanese and Korean people into the same "race" category, but not the same ethnicity. The same would go with Black Americans and Black Africans. Make sense? That's the way I understand it anyway.
Take a look that this link http://attrition.org/security/advisory/AusCERT/SA- 93.03.Suggested.Login.Banner take specific notice of the advice regarding the use of the word "Welcome" near the bottom.
The DirecTV employees DID have authorization - they were given valid usernames and passwords to access the site.
DirecTV employees may have FRAUDULENTLY OBTAINED the authorization, but they were none-the-less authorized. Snow should be suing them, or encouraging his local DA to prosecute them, for fraud (obtaining access to his system through deception).
paintball
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Statutes ARE laws. Regulation, et all must be authorized by a law.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano