Re: Comcast man-in-the-middle attack - ethics

[John Hall <j.hall () f5 com>]

I am not a lawyer and apparently neither are you, but I bet Comcast is
quite fully covered by section 2511.2d, if you check your terms of service.

        It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not
        acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic
        communication where such person is a party to the communication or
        where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent
        to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the
        purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of
        the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State.

It is arguable whether this section is even applicable to an ISP sniffing
customer's traffic.  Unfortunately in the US, ISP's are not "common
carriers" by the FCC definition and don't have to follow any of the
restrictions required of them.  Nor are they "persons acting under color
of law" (who, under Bush's new anti-terror law, can now do just about
whatever they want).

So far the current legal decisions seem to allow an ISP or other Internet
service (such as a business providing Internet access to it's employees)
to do just about anything to or with the resulting network traffic.

Regrettably, if you sign (or otherwise agree to) terms of service that
remove any of the (surprisingly few) rights you have with regards to your
electronic communications, you won't really be able to gain any traction
in a legal complaint and complaining to everyone here is probably preaching
to the choir.

Run for office, I might vote for you.

JMH

J Edgar Hoover wrote:
...
> This is consistent with how I understand the applicable federal law as
> posted at;
>
> http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2511.html
... 
> z