Who's bugging who? : was- Wild West

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 31 Dec 97 at 13:41, Travis S. Casey wrote:
[snipped, I agree]
> 
> To make some more analogies: 
> 
> If you don't want strangers to see your private parts, don't join a
> nudist's club.  If you don't want people to try to beat you up, don't join
> an amateur boxer's association.  If you don't want people to send you
> music you don't want and then expect you to pay for it, don't join a
> record club.
> 
> All of these are things that are illegal (in most countries, at least)
> when done to you without your consent -- just as recording what someone
> does and says is.  

In the US, any participant in two-way or multi-way communications may
record the communication with or without the other parties knowledge.
Only one person needs to be aware that the communication is being 
monitored.

However, it is illegal for a third party to monitor or intercept the 
communications of others without their knowledge.  A recent example of 
this would be the interception of and public disclosure of several 
congressmen's cellular phone conversations by shortwave listeners. 

There are exceptions to this.  Court ordered bugging, obviously.  Also, 
property ownership entitles one to certain priviledges.  For instance, I 
may place video cameras in my house or bug my own phone lines.  Corporate
offices and phone lines may be legally bugged by management.  
  
This gets into fuzzy ground in the case of muds, IRC and the like.
The safest bet would be to provide a warning that all communications
with this server our logged. 

There is another interesting angle here.  If you do not "own" the server
that is running "your" mud, the server "hardware owners" may be logging
all communications.  ;)

--
Jon A. Lambert
"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato