> Computers are like cars. If you crash your car into someone else's car > (or house, or business), you're gonna pay for the damage you caused.
And if someone STEALS your car, the person who stole it is responsible, even if you are unaware of the theft. With insurane being compulsory, in some places the laws have been changed so that the owner's insurance covers all damages regardless of circumstance, but that is an artifical situation created by the nature of insurance, not the actual responsibility for owning the car. In any event, your analogy is flawed. To match the conditions which you think someone should be sued for, that car would have to be used in the commission of a bank robbery, and then by your logic the owner of the car would be held responsible for all the money stolen? > In your car, you make sure that things like your brakes work. So, big question. When you go out to your car each day, do you CHECK THE BRAKES before you drive anywhere? Bet you don't. Strictly speaking, we rely upon trained professionals to make sure of these things. If I buy a new car, it comes with an implicit guarantee that the brakes and all other components work. If I buy a used car, it has to pass a safety inspection, and once again I know everything works. Now with cars, parts wear out, so there is an obligation to check for wear and tear. To the ordinary computer user, 'wear and tear' can only result in the computer eventually dying, not in being misused. So there is no preception that they should be doing anything to 'maintain' the computer. > 'Cause you don't want to pay for someone else's car. And you know > that if you have an accident, and the cops look at your car and see > it's got no damn brakes, you're liable for the accident. Period. But NOT if someone CUTS the brakes, eh? That's the difference. You're trying to make someone else's deliberate criminal act equal with negligence of ordinary maintenance. Now, if I know someone has cut the brakes on my car (or had a virus on their computer) and they knowingly use it anyway, then that person is THEN commiting a willful act of negligence. > And that's the way I see it from this perspective. ISP's shouldn't be > held liable for the (in)actions of their clueless lusers, clueless > lusers should be held responsible for their own (in)actions. Not once the 'damage' is noted. If I know that someone is about to drive off in a car with no brakes, I am equally culpable if I don't make a reasonable effort to stop them, and then call the police if I am not able to do so. The key point is *knowledge* of the potential for damage. Owning a computer (or an ISP) is not sufficient to assume that damage will occur. Nor should it be the basis for liability. > Sheesh! Ok, too much thinking for an evening. Where's my beer?! Don't drink and surf. :-) - C ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
