"Hallam-Baker, Phillip" replied:
Suppose the original message, copied into the bounce,
contains pornography which is illegal under English law.
First off, there is nothing that requires you to copy anything into the
bounce.
If I reject at SMPT time with a 5**, it is common practice, over which I have no
control, for the offering MTA to include the message content. Nevertheless I
will have been the 'agent' requesting that message to be propogated, when it was
I who knew that it had been forged.
Also note the repost of terry(_at_)ashtonwoodshomes(_dot_)com
Secondly if it is an automatic process your liability would be no greater
than it would be following original SMTP.
I am legally liable for any process I put in place, automated or manual.
Original SMTP had no way of telling me 'this is a forgery'.
The whole point of this thread is that it appears to me that Sender-ID may
change the legal liabilities and obligations. In the absence of authoritative
legal advice, I choose caution, I choose not to deploy Sender-ID.
There is no English law against 'pornography', the actual offense is
publication of obscenity.
I never said there was. I was using teminology which would be appropriate for an
international readership.
In any case, substitute Phishing a.k.a. Attempted Fraud throughout my argument,
if you prefer.
There is a whole rack of issues here, first publication on the Internet has
been addressed in the English courts, there has to be actual knowledge or at
the very least a constructive effort to avoid knowledge of the contents for
publication to have occured. Then when you get into the obscenity
definitions you have a whole rack of further intent issues.
Are you / your employer / Microsoft / the IETF prepared to indemnify my
businesses against prosocution?
If you are worried about creating liability don't copy information.
All I need to do to avoid this worry is to not deploy Sender-ID. Then I can
continue with my business of copying and moving information with a clear
conscience.
Chris