Court Rejects Intel Electronic Trespass Charge 240
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... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:good... (Score:2)
Re:good... (Score:4, Funny)
Those vindictive BASTARDS!
Wow. Rational court decisions. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wow. Rational court decisions. (Score:2)
Electronic Trespass (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Electronic Trespass (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Electronic Trespass (Score:4, Informative)
Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Interesting)
"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? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say this was a victory for everyone except IBM.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you have a right to "free" speech doesn't mean you have a right to force me to pay for your soapbox. It's not that kind of "free."
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Yeah, I really forced you to install that mail server.
Yeah, I really forced you to buy a car. So equally if I steal your car, I haven't forced you to buy another, claim on insurance, take a bus in the interim.
Or... "I really forced you to have ears".
If somebody else has their mail server for one purpose, and you exploit it for another contrary to their stated wishes, you are forcing that use on them, period. It's the owner of the thing that gets to say how it's used.
Unfortunately this case was, IMO, v
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
So equally if I steal your car, I haven't forced you to buy another, claim on insurance, take a bus in the interim.
Of course you haven't. Lots of people have had their cars stolen and didn't buy another, claim on insurance, and take a bus in the interim.
Or... "I really forced you to have ears".
That's an even better analogy. My freedom of speech means I can say what I want. Just because you hear me doesn't mean I forced you to listen.
If somebody else has their mail server for one purpose, and you
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
You simply do not have the right to determine how other peoples' stuff can be used, no matter how easy or possible it is to do so.
But you yourself, by posting that message, just determined how Slashdot's hard drive is used.
You don't have that right morally, and you don't have it legally.
Morally? Morality knows no such thing as "ownership."
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:3, Interesting)
But you yourself, by posting that message, just determined how Slashdot's hard drive is used.
With consent. This is not a right - it is a privelege granted by the owner (or more accurately, the possessor). I don't have a right to do so just because it's possible, but Andover consents to this use. Indeed there is implied consent to use the facility within its apparent purpose that arises from making the facility available, but if Andover told me to never post again, this would withdraw consent - both expre
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
We've already given up free speech to fight communism, fight terrorism, protect national security, protect intellectual property, protect the children, etc. Getting rid of spam would be some small consolation.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2, Insightful)
What happened to "My server, my rules"?
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Moral of the story, block the home address of a fired employee if you know it...
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2, Insightful)
That would let people set up mail servers as traps. As soon as you get your victim to send an email to the server, you could sue them for electronic trespass.
Luckily, this court ruling doesn't allow for that.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Is Trespass the Right Charge? (Score:2)
If he was told "go away", yet continued showing up on Intel's (virtual) property, that sounds like trespass to me.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
The court isn't saying that you can't block this guy's email. They're just are saying that the guy in question didn't tresspass.
Actually, they didn't say that he didn't trespass - quite the contrary, they said he did trespass. They then said, in a nutshell, "but we're not going to enforce trespass in California without proof of damage." They even admitted this is a departure from the law inherited from England.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
If you're a meat eater, I assume you don't mind if PETA pickets your front door and lawn (not the street, YOUR property). If they ignored you when you told them to go away, you could taunt them again, and that's it. So, that's ok by you?
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Except that is *NOT* the purpose of an e-mail server. See AOL v. Cyperpromotions. The owner of a mail server can refuse any e-mail for any reason.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:IBM??? (Score:2)
Other than these two similarities, IBM and Intel have absolutely nothing in common with each other. What are you going to do next, confuse Microsoft with MandrakeLinux?
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if this guy had been trying to sell Viagra
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
But I'd rather have a law that will also block "political" spam as well. Lord knows my telephone rings off the hook every other November as it is, and I'd rather not see that continue on into my e-mail box as well.
I'm not happy with some speech being more free than others, either in theory or practice.
"Witness the national do-not-call list."
Witness the way neither state nor nat
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
My personal opinion is that treating commercial speech differently from noncommercial speech is unconstitutional. People should have the right to say whatever they want. That said, if a company lies about what their product can do, that is a breech of contract, which is a totally separate issue, which you should be able to prosecute
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
It's not.
if a company lies about what their product can do, that is a breech[sic] of contract
This is why it's not. It's essentially illegal for a company to make false claims regarding its products for the same reason it's illegal to libel or slander someone. Freedom of speech has all sorts of reasonable limits. The reason commercial speech isn't as "protected" as (say) political speech is
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
IANAL, but there's a chasm between commercial speech and noncommercial speech you could drive several dump trucks through.
Sure, but this ruling wasn't based on that chasm.
Witness the national do-not-call list.
But congress approved the national do-not-call list. Congress never approved a national do-not-email list. Once they do, then these spam problems will be solved. Let's go FTC.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Insightful)
>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? (Score:2)
>I would argue that spam impairs my ability to use my computer
The computer displays Spam without a problem, you're the one that has a problem dealing with it. But the ruling didn't talk about you, it talked about the computer.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
The computer displays Spam without a problem, you're the one that has a problem dealing with it.
Part of the function of the computer and software combination is to efficiently deliver personal and solicited email communications and to sort them in a way that is conducive to efficient use. Spam impairs this efficiency and therefore impairs the function. This is only not impairment if the intention in installing the software is to display spam. This intention is not present.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
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.
Intel prosecuted this case based on trespass to the servers, not trespass to the end user desktops. Hence your point is valid, but was not relevant in the case.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Solicitation? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Solicitation? (Score:2)
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.
You most certainly do have a legal right to kick them out. It would be a strange thing to do, but you could legally do it.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Spammers have no business on my computer systems!
People who like spam can OPT-IN for it!
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
NOSIAL (Nobody on Slashdot is a lawyer) but in my reading this only applies to charges of tresspassing. I doubt anti-spam laws fall under tresspassing.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. In the ruling the statement was made that the e-mails were, "an electronic communication that neither damages the recipient computer system nor impairs its functioning." The quantity of e-mail sent by spammers can definitely slow down networks, gum up hard disks, and in general cost companies money. This guy was not spamming in the modern sense of the word, and the California court was very choo
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:3, Insightful)
This guy was not spamming in the modern sense of the word.
You obviously have a bizarre definition of spam. It was unsolicited. It was bulk. It was email. Hence it was spam.
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:3, Informative)
It really only gives non-commercial 'spammers' a defence. Somebody else already pointed out that the courts have a wide distinction between the protections afforded to personal speech and commercial speech (e.g. ads). They classified Hamidi's comments as non-commercial speech and then allowed it on that basis.
This is also a relatively narrow ruling... it only applies to the 'trespass to chattels' issu
Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:2)
reconciling this ruling with anti-spam rules may be tricky since this gives spammers a defence...
Fortunately, this case has almost no impact at all on the spam cases - if anything it makes the spam cases stronger. The decision is very narrowly confined on its facts and really is only likely to apply in a case where there is some pre-existing relationship between the sender and the victim.
That said, the opinion still sucks for the fact that it tells Intel that they have no say in how their equipment is
Umm... blacklist? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Umm... blacklist? (Score:3, Interesting)
Contained in your joke is an interesting, non-funny point. This court ruling bodes bad for anybody who wants to retain the privilege of using email at work for personal purposes. The easiest way for Intel to remove malcontents' ability to communicate with its employees is to cut off all external email communication and restrict general email use to inside the corporation.
Re:Umm... blacklist? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Umm... blacklist? (Score:3, Insightful)
To paraphrase your concept into the real world:
Not really. On the all the doors of the offices of our business, we have these things called locks that we can use to restrict who can or can't go through a certain door, although why should our company have to go through the trouble of using keys and locking doors just because one person insists on going places he shouldn't?
Duh. Think about it.
good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Silly case (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Silly case (Score:2)
Re:Silly case (Score:2)
They expire usually after a year of leaving anyway.
Intel acts like idiots (Score:2, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Intel acts like idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
by doing this, he may not be sued by individual recipient. however, when the company asked him to remove everyone from the list, he didn't do so and hence he kept himself open to being sued by the company for harassment. he obtained the list in an unauthorized manner and sent unsolicited mails to those people on the list. this is surely an abuse.
in my college, i used to maintain list of emails in one of the organization. another p
I don't know... (Score:3, Interesting)
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]
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...
Re:I don't know... (Score:2)
When you go out in public with your kids, you're taking a risk of somebody walking up and saying something you don't want them to hear. As a company connecting to the public Internet, they risk being sent e-mails they don't want to show their employees. If they want to shield from that, they may. But if they don't, that's their pr
Re:I don't know... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't know... (Score:2)
Speaking as an American, freedom of speech is indeed in the constitution, and the term is thrown around with much fervor, yet we're not above trying to silence any speech we find offensive. We even have banned books here, including the famous "Huckleberry Finn" (it's banned in many school districts), and occasionally burn books.
Basically we're
Re:I don't know... (Score:2)
Re:I don't know... (Score:2)
I don't see why he had the right to use Intel's equipment (servers and associated hardware) to distribute his message.
That's absurd. If he had sent a message to "all@intel.com", and by some horrible misconfiguration of their e-mail system, this distribution list was accessible from the outside, you might have a point, but Intel provided a means for the employees to directly receive electronic communications through the e-mail system, and it was this functionality that the sender availed himself of.
It i
SPAM vs. Mass Emailing (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Okay... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Okay... (Score:2)
Granted, the email sent wasn't of a commercial nature, so probably couldn't be considered spam.
On a side note, he was also complaining about employment practices, and suggesting that people get a job elsewhere. I'd call that 'damage'.
And I'd call it "commercial."
What the.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:What the.... (Score:2)
If he had stuck to emailing his friends and actual co-workers, Intel probably would not have cared. However, he emailed EVERYONE at Intel whose email address he could obtain, whether they knew him or not, he emailed them MULTIPLE times, with LENGTHY rants and diatribes about the unfairness of his getting fired.
I had never heard of the jerk until he crapped i
The point here (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The point here (Score:2)
i don't agree on this. if you send 35k unsolicited email, you did affect productivity. this is precisely why we have legislation against spam.
Re:The point here (Score:2)
Yes, but you haven't harmed the computers, hence can't be sued for harming them. You can be sued for other problems your mail causes, just as if you'd sent the same thing via snail-mail, but that's another claim and harder to prove in court.
Who'll hire Hamidi? (Score:2, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
how did he get the mailing list? (Score:2)
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 a
Re:how did he get the mailing list? (Score:2)
Re:how did he get the mailing list? (Score:2)
Will Intel now sue me because I posted their confidential information on slashdot?
clarification (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is one very informative excerpt:
and another:
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 :) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
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. (Score:2)
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.
Maybe, but as with those examples, "coming in and looking around" is still illegal.
Re:Wow. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Wow. (Score:2)
Re:Wow. (Score:3, Interesting)
The mailman arrives, and puts ten letters in the mailbox. I read nine letters which concern my usual business. The tenth
Re:Wow. (Score:2)
Re:Wow. (Score:2)
Well, you're looking at this from a system administrator's perspective (i.e. a techie's perspective). That is, you'd want to find out how it happened, and set up some sort of filter in the firewall or SMTP server so it won't happen again. At that point you will consider the problem effectively solved.
Intel's management and legal dep
Re:HALT!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gonna get sued... (Score:2, Funny)