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From: ooblick@eddie.MIT.EDU (Mikki Barry)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.sysadmin,alt.flame
Subject: Re: Defending Eric Mading
Message-ID: <7427@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 17-Nov-87 11:51:43 EST
Article-I.D.: eddie.7427
Posted: Tue Nov 17 11:51:43 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Nov-87 19:46:51 EST
References: <1043@pbhyd.UUCP> <25092COK@PSUVMA> <6851@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Reply-To: ooblick@eddie.MIT.EDU (Mikki Barry)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 45
Xref: mnetor news.admin:1385 news.sysadmin:458 alt.flame:604

In article <6851@ut-ngp.UUCP> kraut@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes:
>it's all very simple:  noone has any rights here;  we are all at the mercy of
>someone else;  the sponsor of your account, the owner of your machine, the
>machines up/down-stream from your machine.  Our society has simple rules:
>if you offend the group, you become an outcast - the group will not want to
>be associated with you nor support your doings.  if you bite the hand that
>feeds you, you get your but kicked as far as the one doing the kicking can
>remove it.

It isn't as simple as you think.  If a person, as a result of paying tuition
and signing up for certain classes, receives, as do all persons meeting
those requirements, an account on a computer, which includes posting
privs, they should not be removed because of what they SAY on the net,
especially in a group like alt.flame.  However, if the account is a guest
account, in no way linked to tuition, major, or classes taken, and at said
guest account "application", it is made clear that the account is given
solely on the good-will and/or whim of the sysadmin, and that it can be
pulled for ANY reason, it is not protected and can go away at any time.

Unless laws are passed making USENET like television, or newspapers,
and the sysadmins like editors, there is little chance that sysadmins
will be held responsible for articles, no matter how obnoxious.
Then, sysadmins will have to pre-screen each and every article before
being posted.  Of course, very few of them have time to do this, AND
to read the laws and know exactly what is and is not allowed, therefore
most will probably just cut their newsfeeds and reduce the risks.

But my main point is that if an individual's account is granted because
s/he has met a certain criteria, and every other person who has met that
criteria has an account and net access, removing that account because of
what a person SAYS is wrong.  If, on the other hand, it is granted with
the knowledge that it is subject to deletion at any time, there is no
case possible if the account is then removed.
~r
>Nothing worse than an anarchist that claims that being offensive is his
>birthright which society is obligated to tolerate ...

Then, I suppose that Thomas Jefferson and the other authors of the
Constitution were anarchists.  Offensiveness *is* protected under the
first amendment.  If you are talking about someone's "rights" on
a computer system, however, you are dealing with something else
altogether.  Nobody has yet ruled on that, and frankly, I hope they
never do, as attempting to adhere to the definitions would not be worth
the time of most sysadmins.  

Mikki Barry