From owner-freebsd-isp Mon Apr 21 11:54:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA06681 for isp-outgoing; Mon, 21 Apr 1997 11:54:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from works.co.uk (root@calvary.works.co.uk [194.217.193.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA06674 for ; Mon, 21 Apr 1997 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pavanne by works.co.uk (NX5.67e/NX3.0M) id AA01096; Mon, 21 Apr 97 19:54:22 +0100 Message-Id: <9704211854.AA01096@works.co.uk> Received: by pavanne.works.co.uk (NX5.67e/NX3.0X) id AA01600; Mon, 21 Apr 97 19:54:19 +0100 Content-Type: text/plain Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2) In-Reply-To: <335B87BF.752DDE15@denverweb.net> X-Nextstep-Mailer: Mail 3.3 (Enhance 1.3) Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.118.2) From: Mark Konkol Date: Mon, 21 Apr 97 19:54:15 +0100 To: isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Binaries in Usenet (was: News...) References: <9704211358.AA00543@works.co.uk> <335B87BF.752DDE15@denverweb.net> Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Blaine Minazzi wrote: > The sqid cache is not there for users to access directly... True, but then again, do you let users access the news spool directly? A cache that users can't access at all isn't really much use :) I still think the distinction is a bit arbitrary. Squid certainly can store stuff on disk - if you're running BSD it can't help but do so! (Not in any easy-to-read form, granted, but it's still there...) In the end, you're still offering a service that people can access in order to retrieve potentially illegal material. In any event, suppose someone were to write a web cache that wrote pages to disk (to save memory and make sure the cache didn't empty on a reboot) and to prefetch pages from commonly visited sites (to increase response time over ever-scarce bandwidth). Would the ISP then become liable? > If the stuff is being retrieved from a server inside > the USA though, the person who made the images available is subject to > prosecution. Indeed, so why does this not apply to the originator of a news posting rather than the hapless ISP? If you caught me in a cynical mood (perish the thought :) I might suspect that the real distinction is one of finger-pointing. Web servers are easy to find, ISPs are easy to find, posters to newsgroups can be as hard to grab as greased eels :) --- Mark Konkol Complete Works Ltd. 399 Strand London WC2R 0LT Tel: +44(0)171 836 0808 Fax: +44(0)171 836 0440 http://www.works.co.uk/