History
- Splash Page Required
- reasoning (no corp, personal liability of involved parties)
- Splash Page Suggested
- suspect (but do not know) this was changed due to imminent disbanding of the ops team and cessation of PTP-operated nodes, which lasted around a month
Present
- As mentioned, PTP has resumed constructing new nodes and operating them directly, on behalf of interested sponsors. New devices operating with new protocols are negatively impacted by requiring a web browser (VoIP). There is movement towards just capturing web requests, and allowing everything else through.
- Problems
- To me, it makes sense now more than ever to require agreement to a TOS.
- No indemnity
Without a TOS, Personal Telco Inc. is entirely unprotected from lawsuits from its own users, noting this is the primary feature of most existing ISP TOS agreements
- Nightmare Scenarios
- VoIP eavesdropping
- Alice calls Bob. Mallory eavesdrops on some information that was to be protected (covered by NDA, medical, whatever). Mallory reveals this information somehow (getting busted for blackmail, extortion, posting it). Alice sues PTP for negligently constructing a network that allows her calls to be monitored willy-nilly. Her voip provider, if any, is likely protected by an agreement they have with her separately. we are the low hanging-fruit.
- Critical Data / Bungled Stock Trade
- Something critical for Alice doesn't make it through. We haven't told Alice that we bear no responsibility, so she thinks we do. Again, Alice has a TOU with her endpoint service providers that disclaim their liability - we are up shit creek, in comparison.
- More To Come
- VoIP eavesdropping
- The downsides of ISP status
- CALEA
- Requires the ability to transparently wiretap/pen register/trap and trace at court order. Beta version of PATRIOT.
- PATRIOT (shudder)
- Requires the ability to transparently gather non-content information at written LEO request (sub poena with no judicial review), no notification to anyone (probably outside the board) allowed
- Doesn't Even Solve All Of Our Problems
Still no indemnity to our own users, Et tu TomFitz? etc.
- CALEA
- Problems
Options
- Do nothing
- Eventually get bent over, a la MSBLAST email archives debacle, everybody on the board loses their house
- Get out of the Hot Spot Business, Become Teachers
- Focus on relatively boring relatively non-hands on education. snooze fest. turns us into a WUG. yikes.
- Get out of the Hot Spot Business, Build a Network
Turn into SeattleWireless/NoCat. Worse ways to go, one expects. Still would require a TOS to prevent liability in case of defamatory information, etc. but makes it a little harder for people to do things that would get the attention of FedGov.
- Deny transit until Terms Are Agreed To
- Either per connection, or via centralized account registration. In the hot seat as far as LEO, but at least there's an actual legal framework here - force users to recognize common carrier status wouldn't bind on injured 3rd parties, but general YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN SHIT, DUDE honking is always good
- COMPULSORY MASSIVE CRYPTO
- We can't see shit, fuck you copper. Etc. Unlikely.
Disclaimers: I am definitely not a lawyer, but I did read the cypherpunks list in the 90s. By parsing this text mentally, you agree to the following terms:
- FNORD