Court Rejects Intel Electronic Trespass Charge

NearlyHeadless writes "The California Supreme Court reversed lower court rulings that ex-Intel employee Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi committed electronic trespass by sending e-mail to Intel employees, reports the San Jose Business Journal. E-mail has the same protection as other communication, according to the court's opinion, available here (PDF link)." We've covered Hamidi's case more than once in the past.

good...

...now I can try this at the massive state gvmt where I work!

Re:good...

"He ended up getting his job back."

Those vindictive BASTARDS!

Wow. Rational court decisions.

Can we hope the trend will continue?

Electronic Trespass

So, Can we sue spammers for Electronic Trespass?

Re:Electronic Trespass

No, the ruling said that you can *not* sue emailers for electronic trespass.

Re:Electronic Trespass

Wrong! You didn't read the whole opinion. It said that such a claim may not be based on the _content_ of the messages. The court took pains to make it clear that you can still sue for spam that overloads machines. In other words, you can't sue because of what the sender says, only the amount of what he sends.

Victory for Spammers?

This new ruling seems like it could conflict with some of the efforts to fight spam. The ruling says:

"After reviewing the decisions analyzing unauthorized electronic contact with computer systems as potential trespasses to chattels, we conclude that under California law the tort does not encompass, and should not be extended to encompass, an electronic communication that neither damages the recipient computer system nor impairs its functioning. Such an electronic communication does not constitute an actionable trespass to personal property," the high court says.

The ruling tried to address this ("Nor does our holding affect the legal remedies of Internet service providers (ISP?s) against senders of unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail (UCE)..."), but reconciling this ruling with anti-spam rules may be tricky since this gives spammers a defence...

Re:Victory for Spammers?

Well frankly, I'm not so eager to lose rights just to fight spam. I'm happy with this court's decision.

I would say this was a victory for everyone except IBM.

Re:Victory for Spammers?

Your server, your firewall rules. However, if a message properly formated (with a truthful header, and no destructive code of any kind) and it gets past your rule set, that's your fault. You can't let the message through, and then decide you didn't like what it said.

Moral of the story, block the home address of a fired employee if you know it...

Re:Victory for Spammers?

reconciling this ruling with anti-spam rules may be tricky since this gives spammers a defence...

Not really. IANAL, but there's a chasm between commercial speech and noncommercial speech you could drive several dump trucks through. Witness the national do-not-call list.

Now, if this guy had been trying to sell Viagra ...

Re:Victory for Spammers?

How this affects spam was one of the first things I thought about, as well. But from the ruling:

>nor impairs its functioning

I would argue that spam impairs my ability to use my computer - e.g. when 19 out of 20 messages are spam, and I either have to waste time getting to that one message I want to read, or miss it completely. Such an argument is easy to make, and anyone should understand it, even if they're not tech-savvy.

I suppose the difference is between the ex-employee sending one or two emails to each individual, or mailbombing their inboxes with several hundreds or thousands of messages. Which means part of the spam problem is perspective - from my point of view, I am effectively under attack when I receive a few hundred spam emails; from the point of view of each individual spammer, they're only sending me one email, so how can they be blamed for that?

Idle musings on a Monday afternoon.

Re:Victory for Spammers?

The point of the anti-spam laws is that spam does impair functionality and incur measurable damages, at least in terms of company employees' time spent messing with the junk and high-traffic mail servers which process tons of the stuff.

Solicitation?

"After reviewing the decisions analyzing unauthorized electronic contact with computer systems as potential trespasses to chattels, we conclude that under California law the tort does not encompass, and should not be extended to encompass, an electronic communication that neither damages the recipient computer system nor impairs its functioning. Such an electronic communication does not constitute an actionable trespass to personal property," the high court says.

I think the difference can be understood in the realm of non-electronic world. Let's say I have a business. I have a customer inside, and one of his friends sees him and they end up having a conversation outside my door. Do I have a legitimate right to boot them? Probably not.

However, this is different if the person is a solicitor, as I believe businesses do have the right to prevent solicitation on their premises. I would assume the same for email - ie, I have the right to restrict solicitation on my premises, but likely not non-disruptive legitimate communication.

Not to mention which the server could make a strong argument toward spam impairing its functioning not to mention which eroding the value of the service they provide, ie, an email account to customers that isn't nailed by spam. This was alluded to by the decision. In the real world, this would be like a business owner who had so many solicitors on his doorstep that he had to clear them out so the customer could actually see the door.

Umm... blacklist?

Does Intel lack the ability to block external e-mail addresses? Geez, I'm buying AMD next time!

good.

the more cases like this the better of we are. I'm tired of big companies pressing charges on people and winning because judge and jury have no idea about anything technical... nor do they understand our future is dependant on their disicions.

Silly case

Are people tresspassing if they phone you without your permission?

Damn silly case, if you have a phone number, email address or postal address then people are going to use it.

Nobody signs a lifelong contract preventing them from criticising their ex-employers.

Intel acts like idiots

"Electronic tresspass," my ass.

It sounds from the case like Hamidi wouldn't stop emailing Intel employees even after the company asked him to stop.

When Intel took measures to block Hamidi from the servers, and Hamidi continued to find a way around them, the appropriate crime to charge him with is "Harrassment."

IANAL, but that would have been a HELL of alot easier to prove than "electronic tresspass" and probably wouldn't have ended up on the front page of Slashdot.

-- Funksaw

Re:Intel acts like idiots

He removed anyone from receiving the emails if they asked to be removed. Generally to be considered harassment you have to ask the offending party to stop their harassing behavior, and they have to ignore your request. The court mentions this in their statement, so it seems to be a well established fact. This "electronic tresspass" business is fairly scary, and I'm glad it was struck down.

I don't know...

I don't see why he had the right to use Intel's equipment (servers and associated hardware) to distribute his message. Granted, it's open to the public but that doesn't mean there is some right for anyone to use the equipment. The EFF said in an amicus brief [eff.org]

...Mr. Hamidi's state constitutional claim should prevail [over Intel's property rights] because Intel has opened its employee e-mail inboxes to the public. By voluntarily connecting its computer system to the Internet, Intel obviously wants to take advantage of the tremendous communicative power of cyberspace.

While I understand EFF's argument and it is persuasive I still tend to fall on Intel's side. Looking at Intel's web site policy it doesn't say "we reserve the right to restrict your access" or something similar. I don't know...it's a tough call. I'll have to think about it...

SPAM vs. Mass Emailing

Somehow they have to define, legally, a difference between mass emails and commercially driven mass emails (that is spam). Maybe it can hinge on the user being able to easily find the sender and remove themselves from the list.

I have thrown around the idea a couple of times with friends the concept of having a domain (a SPM domain perhaps) that you have to register to send spam. All spam would originate from this domain and would be easy to block because of it. People who want it (brain damaged as they are) could get it and the rest of us could avoid it. And of course hiding the origin of the email would be a finable offense.

this is excellent news

at least for free speech, etc. sucks for intel.

Okay...

Granted, the email sent wasn't of a commercial nature, so probably couldn't be considered spam. You have to wonder though; at what point do 'damages' begin. This guy sent email to 30,000 people, on a more than on occasion. That's got to waste some company time.

On a side note, he was also complaining about employment practices, and suggesting that people get a job elsewhere. I'd call that 'damage'. I'd also seeing about filing a libel suit.

What the....

hell was Intel thinking?

Trespass to chattels?

They basically argued that if I fire someone and that person emails his friend/coworker, it is as if that person had keyed my car on the way out.

No Intel, you may not use the courts to silence dissent... do not pass go, do not collect $200.

The point here

The point here, and I agree with the S.C. on this, is that Hamidi did not cause damage to Intel's computer systems. The basis of the suit was electronic trespass which compromised Intel's communications network. Clearly, Hamidi's actions didn't damage any equipment, they simply annoyed a lot of people.

From the article: "The consequential economic damage Intel claims to have suffered, i.e., loss of productivity caused by employees reading and reacting to Hamidi's messages and company efforts to block the messages, is not an injury to the company's interest in its computers -- which worked as intended and were unharmed by the communications -- any more than the personal distress caused by reading an unpleasant letter would be an injury to the recipient's mailbox, or the loss of privacy caused by an intrusive telephone call would be an injury to the recipient's telephone equipment."

Precisely correct.

Intel should have charged him with some form of harrassment. They picked the wrong charge, which was obviously bogus to begin with. For the S.C. to side with Intel on this would have set a terrible and incorrect precedent.

Not that I particularly agree with Hamidi's actions, but this ruling makes sense IMHO.

Who'll hire Hamidi?

Hamidi is now considered damaged goods though. Employers are not excited about hiring someone who bitches about worker's rights. If you ask me, Intel got their money's worth in legal fees.

Of course, Hamidi took his career in his own hands when he pressed the Send button. I wonder if he's currently employed or bitter and still looking. If the latter, he might start sending bullets instead of e-mails.

Ever get an email like this?

I got one once. One of our sales guys was secretly trying to get his own competing startup company going (after the boom was over- mistake #1), but he accidentally submitted his cellphone bill to the company for reimbursement (mistake #2) and they noticed the calls. When it hit the fan, he quit and sent a "swan song" email to the company and badmouthed a whole bunch of people in it (mistake #3). Most of us didn't know a thing about it until we came in one morning, checked our mail, and found the "fond farewell" in our inboxes. It didn't advertise any open positions in his new company (I guess that would make it commercial speech). It was just an emotional rant, with some badmouthing of a few specific individuals. Clearly he wasn't exercising good judgment when he sent it. But it blew over rather quickly. Nobody wasted too much time talking about it, other than to remark "well I guess X isn't working here anymore."

I've never deleted that email. Every so often I open it again just to imagine the balls it must take to send something like that. If a court were to rule that such an email constituted "electronic trespass", I would be very upset. That having been said, I cannot stress enough that SENDING AN EMAIL LIKE THAT IS A MISTAKE. If you're ever tempted to do it, DON'T. Once you send it they'll be talking about what an idiot you are forever. If you're in a small industry, you'll forever be meeting people who have heard about it.

He got work with another company after his startup failed. Ironically, we signed a deal with that company recently, so he'll be selling our products again. When he's not stabbing you in the back, he's a pretty good sales guy.

The pivotal issue

The pivotal issue in this case was not privacy vs. freedom or liberty, it all came down to whether or not the email Mr. Hamidi sent amounted to a trespass to chattel.

In first year of law school, people are generally introduced to a case in torts Compuserve. In this case, Compuserve won it's case against spammers on exactly this tort: trespass to chattel. The court ruled that the extensive use of the servers amounted to significant "dispossesion" of the chattel(property). The court talked about the significant useage of memory and CPU cycles.

So the struggle the lower courts in this case were trying to resolve was whether or not this act of emailing 30,000 amounted to the detrimental use of Intel's chattel(property). It is important to note that you cannot win on this tort without showing damages occurred. And it was upon this very issue of damages that the S.C. decided that this did not meet the requirement of the tort.

While the Compuserve case opened the door to allow lawsuits in the abuse of another's system through email, this case is a milestone in that it limits how wide the door is.

The Supreme Court made the proper judgment.

we have

Another intel employee [freemikehawash.org] rotting away in federal prison as a "material witness" without being charged.

how did he get the mailing list?

if he copied the entire mailing list from intel system while he was still at intel, then he indeed committed theft by stealing company property. if on the other hand, he compiled the list himself from the emails that he had recd over the period of time while still at intel, then it is okay.

given the fact that he sent emails to as many as 35k employees, he mostly copied the list and i think that might put him in trouble. i for sure don't want an email from some ex-employess of my company whom i don't know at all. i would call that as a spam and i would surely support my company taking action against such employee.

if on the other hand, if someone i know sends me an email, either i would ask the person to remove me from the list or i would just ignore the mails but would strongly discourage my company from taking any action against the person. hamidi's biggest crime was that he used company's list and initiated communication to people who had never shown any interest in his activity nor he knew them personally. this is classic spam.

clarification

The court's ruling was not saying that it is ok to email employees with your gripes. The court was ruling on the tactic used by Intel to sue the guy -- namely that these emails caused damage to their computer system -- a very different matter. The legal name for this is "trespasses to chattels". They held that the email in this case is no such thing.

Here is one very informative excerpt:

The consequential economic damage Intel claims to have suffered, i.e., loss of productivity caused by employees reading and reacting to Hamidi's messages and company efforts to block the messages, is not an injury to the company's interest in its computers -- which worked as intended and were unharmed by the communications -- any more than the personal distress cuased by reading an unpleasant letter would be an injury to the recipient's mailbox, or the loss of privacy caused by an intrusive telephone call would be an injury to the recipient's telephone equipment.

and another:

our conclusion does not rest on any special immunity for communications by electronic mail: we do not hold that messages transmitted through the Internet are exempt from ordinary rules of tort liability. To the contrary, email, like other forms of communication, may in some circumstances cause legally cognizable injury to the recipient or to third parties and may be actionable under various common law or statutory theories. Indeed, on facts somewhat simliar to those here, a company or its employees might be able to plead causes of action for interference with prospective economic relations.

So in short, the guy can be sued for those emails, but not on the basis of some "damage" they cause the company mail servers...

How Appealing has links, including Slashdot :)

How Appealing [blogspot.com], the first and IMHO best blog devoted to appellate litigation, has numerous links to articles about this case, including one to this discussion. :) [blogspot.com]

HALT!!!

Your first post is considered tresspass by California state law. You will now be rounded up and sent to infinite detention at Gauntanamo Bay! TERRORIST!

Re:Wow.

This is a pretty big issue. But I don't think it should be regulated by legal means.

Rather, if they don't want people e-mailing them, why not just make the e-mail addresses internal, or block unauthorized e-mail addresses.

Going about it the way they are would be like leaving the door to my house or car wide open and then getting mad when someone comes in and looks around.

Stupid...

Re:Wow.

Going about it the way they are would be like leaving the door to my house or car wide open and then getting mad when someone comes in and looks around.

Uh, that is trespassing. You should get mad if someone does that. (well, I don't know about the car, but it certainly applies to the house). There's a difference between trespassing and breaking-and-entering. Even if there's no fences or locks or doors, it's still trespassing.

A better analogy would be you putting a fence around your yard, with a big sign that says no trespassing, and then getting upset when the mailman opens your gate, walks up to your front door, and puts a letter in the mail slot. That's what Intel was trying to argue, and rightly, they were told to get bent. Now, if it's not the mailman, but Alan Ralsky walking up your path with a 55 gallon drum full of penis enlargment pills, then that will (hopefully) be a different story.

Re:Gonna get sued...

Lugor, your post regarding the TV Brick in the Intel court case article consitutes electronic trespass.

Re:Gonna get sued...

Um,
Are your replying to this current story about "Court Rejects Intel Electronic Trespass Charge", or a previous one [slashdot.org] about the TVBrick?
Beuller? Beuller? Anyone?

-----
wwjd? jwrtfm!

Re:Gonna get sued...

I think you're in the wrong topic...

Re:slashdotted: karmaless reprint

"But the state Supreme Court says the lower courts were raging homosexuals."

That IS funny but hardly warrants to whole repost.