Mailinglist privacy: MY NAME ALL OVER GOOGLE!

[Anthony Atkielski]

Alex de Kruijff writes:

> So? As long as your system is protected by a password nobody has a legal
> defence.

Unfortunately they do.  For example, if they guess a user name and
password and it works, they can enter your system and claim that they
believed it was okay because nothing told them otherwise.  You have to
specifically advise them that they must be authorized, otherwise if they
accidentally or deliberately enter the system through a technical
compromise, they can defend themselves on this basis.

> A admin that doesn't put up a warning like "breaking in is a criminal
> act" is not at fault legaly or otherwise.

Not at fault, perhaps, but he does leave the door open to certain types
of compromises.  Windows NT was developed with a specific OS feature to
provide for this: it displays site-selected text at logon time and
requies that the user click to acknowledge the text before logging in
successfully.  A great many organizations use this feature.

-- 
Anthony