Xref: utzoo comp.admin.policy:594 alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:295 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!tcdcs!unix1.tcd.ie!pmoloney From: pmoloney@unix1.tcd.ie (Paul Michael Moloney) Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Is the Information the User's? (was _RFC on my "abuse"_) Message-ID: Date: 27 Jun 91 11:11:42 GMT Article-I.D.: unix1.pmoloney.678021102 References: <1991Jun25.213406.18977@cis.ohio-state.edu> <25.Jun.91.180934.68@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu> <1991Jun26.043640.19539@ms.uky.edu> <1991Jun26.052725.14920@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1991Jun26.134621.15275@ms.uky.edu> Sender: news@cs.tcd.ie Followup-To: comp.admin.policy Organization: Somewhere in the Twentieth Century Lines: 22 Nntp-Posting-Host: unix1 dpassage@soda.berkeley.edu (David G. Paschich) writes: >BTW, at my site, whenever I'm forced to turn off a user's account, I >always do it by changing their shell to a program that tells them why >their account has been turned off, and I always make them able to >extract their files via FTP, or some other solution if they don't have >other net access. I consider that information their property and I >don't have the right to keep them from accessing it. That last line is interesting. I don't know much about law, but I've heard it claimed, at least in Ireland, that copyright exists on something you've written the moment you write it. So keeping files of writing from a user is in effect illegal. So should a sysadmin at least give a user whose account has been suspended some way of retrieving their files, at least hard copies of them? P. -- moorcockheathersiainbankshamandcornpizzapjorourkebluesbrothersspikeleepratchett clive P a u l M o l o n e y "Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the rem james Trinity College,Dublin mind." PMOLONEY%VAX1.TCD.IE@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU vr brownbladerunnerorsonscottcardprincewatchmenkatebushbatmanthekillingjoketolkien