Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!dave From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes) Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy Subject: Re: Possibly nefarious users Message-ID: <1991Jun10.193515.21451@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> Date: 10 Jun 91 19:35:15 GMT References: <2D.-_.N@cs.widener.edu> <1991Jun6.214915.18946@athena.mit.edu> <1991Jun7.164102.672@progress.com> <1991Jun10.052806.4214@qiclab.scn.rain.com> Reply-To: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab - Pasadena, CA Lines: 22 leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes: >>IMHO, unless a "guest" account user is notified somehow (eg. >>/etc/motd) that "this account is _only_ for use by faculty in Uni. of >>X", you don't have a case against anyone outside the U. using the same >>account, since the scope of "legal use" was not made known to him/her. >No. The law is exactly the opposite. Unless *you* know that the account >is for general access, you do not have the right to use it. There are >legitmate reasons for having a "guest" account (with no password) on a >system. But just as with an unlocked door, *you* are not the person >it was left unlocked for. Can you guys explain, then, the case where charges were dropped in an unauthorized entry prosecution because the system said: "Welcome to..."? -- Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ames!elroy!dxh If your own vice happens to be the search for virtue, recognize that it is so.