I found it somewhat ironic that this should happen in the midst of
these discussions about whether one should authenticate
From/Sender/Return-Path or something else.
Yesterday I received a forwarded notice from my ISP. It was a legal
threat from Universal Studios, accusing me of posting copyrighted
material, and threatening to sue my ISP if they didn't make me stop.
As the complaint said:
Under the penalty of perjury, the undersigned is authorized to act
on behalf of Universal with respect to this matter and the
information contained in this transmission is accurate.
Their evidence?
The From: address of a Usenet posting that had
"someone(_at_)somewhere(_dot_)com" in it.
And when I objected?
"We are aware that this is most likely a spoof, so please disregard
the notice for this case."
Thank goodness I have an ISP with some technical acumen. If that
complaint had gone to my Cable ISP they probably would have just shut
me down without even telling me.
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/2003/Copyright.Complaint.From.html
for the complaint and my response.
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/2003/Re.Universal.Studios.DMC.html
for the followups.
And please--if you have friends in the press or the U.S.
Congress--send them a copy. This kind of negligent behavior should
not go unpunished.
And yes. I think that domain authentication, even if not perfect, is
a good idea.
In the meantime, it's clearly time to restart my somewhere.com Usenet
cancelbot.
--
Kee Hinckley
http://www.puremessaging.com/ Junk-Free Email Filtering
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/ Writings on Technology and Society
I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.
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