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Ethics of Proxy Servers?

Posted by Cliff on from the a-double-edged-sword dept.

Mav asks: "I was recently asked to host a website for free in return for a lot of advertising. After querying them about how they knew the site would produce traffic they stated the site was going to be running PHPProxy (an open source web proxy). The traffic was a result of him and his contacts (nearly one thousand of them) using the site to bypass his school's firewall in order to view their MySpace pages and get access to their MSN messengers. Given all the attention social networking sites have recently received and the various laws attempting to block or control access to them I feel guilty and unsure making this available. Are there legal implications that I need to worry about? Could I be held liable if one of the students got in trouble? Most importantly, what's the moral thing to do?"

4 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Dear Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear Slashdot,

    Last night when I was standing in front of my local 7-11 waiting for my bus, two teenagers came up to me and asked me to buy them some beer. I like having a beer as much as the next guy, but is it ethical for me to buy it for them?

    1. Re:Dear Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      You rode the bus to a 7-11?

  2. Re:I Don't Know Your Morals by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe most of what's on MySpace is, IMO, crap, but there's bound to be something of value in there.
    You don't use MySpace, do you?
  3. Re:Sounds bad by solevita · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, not everyone can be a firefighter. And it's not ignoble, like being a car salesman or lawyer.

    True, but not every job requires you to log on to Slashdot to see if it's morally correct or not.