HI Mark,

On Thu 2038-Jun-03 22:49, mark lewis (1:3634/12) wrote to Ed Hulett:


 EH> I can't imagine why anyone would want to read that many echoes. 

ml> i don't necessarily want to but as a sysop and a hub for fidonet, i
ml> do carry them on my system... i've been doing this since before
ml> fidonet's policy 4 was put into place and, in fact, cast a vote in
ml> that selection process... that was back in '89 but i'd been involved
ml> with fidonet for about two years or more before then... i'm thinking
ml> at least '87 but may have been as early as mid-'86...

As are some of us others.  These days I feed only one other
node, but back in the day I think I had as many as 20 other
bbs systems feeding from me .



ml> something else that comes to mind is that in many places, a sysop is
ml> responsible for what his system contains... this means that one
ml> either monitors everything or nothing... there is no half-way and
ml> deity forbid that a sysop misses something that could bring him
ml> down... that, however, falls into the category of encryption and
ml> hiding messages within what appear to be legitimate messages... some
ml> of what i have seen has been legitimate messages with more than one
ml> hidden one within them... real fun to suss /that/ stuff out...
ml> really fun... not! 

Yah know that feeling too.  AS I understand it from reading
articles here and there back in the day when everyone,
including the legal community was still feeling  his/her way in the legal
world of cyberspace was that if you didn't read person to person mail, i.e.
private netmail and email, then
you weren't responsible for the contents.  But, echomail by
its nature being a public forum one could be held
responsible for what his system carried.  So, if my board
carried it as accessible to my users I've alwys monitored
it.  IF it's just passed through to a downlink then it's his responsibility
to monitor traffic for legality.  The
exception of course was points.  IF a point downlink carried a conference
that no listed node downlinks carried then I
monitored it as well, as I was held, as per policy
responsibile for all traffic entering the network from the
point.
THese days that monitoring task isn't as onerous as it once
was.  WAy back when before everybody pretty much had an
internet connection one had to watch carefully for illegal
traffic in echoes.  These days you might see some heated
flame wars, but often the illegal activity goes on in other
places than fidonet .


Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+