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Why do you believe that (completely reasonable!) examples from physical laws should be used as guiding analogies towards digital problems? Private property tre

Why do you believe that (completely reasonable!) examples from physical laws should be used as guiding analogies towards digital problems? Private property trespassing is not the same mechanism at all as making requests on behalf of a user. If anything, this whole thing is more like an owner telling a dim clerk to ignore a particular person inquiring at a window, and then the person wearing a fake mustache.

rayiner 10y ago
> Why do you believe that (completely reasonable!) examples from physical laws should be used as guiding analogies towards digital problems? The examples from physical laws articulate the principles underlying those laws. One of those principles is that the mechanism of the trespass is totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Bob gets into my pool by sweet-talking a dim-witted security guard or rents a plane and does a HALO jump. All that matters is the end result: he's using my property even after I told him not to. Why should that principle be modified for the digital world? Now, I think that in the digital world, it can be harder to know what the property owner intends than in the physical world.[1] I think it's reasonable to require a higher standard in the digital world for proving that the alleged trespasser actually had notice he was no longer welcome. And the 9th Circuit did that when it held that a TOS was not sufficient notice. But that's not in play here--Facebook clearly and unambiguously communicated its intent to Power. Why should anything else be required? [1] Maybe it's also harder to know when someone's property was accessed intentionally. But the CFAA has a pretty stringent standard for that--the access must be "knowing." Accidentally sending packets to Facebook's computer and getting a reply would not be enough. And there is no claim here that Power didn't "access" Facebook's servers nor is there any claim it did so "unknowingly."

rayiner 10y ago

> Why do you believe that (completely reasonable!) examples from physical laws should be used as guiding analogies towards digital problems? The examples from physical laws articulate the principles underlying those laws. One of those principles is that the mechanism of the trespass is totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Bob gets into my pool by sweet-talking a dim-witted security guard or rents a plane and does a HALO jump. All that matters is the end result: he's using my property even after I told him not to. Why should that principle be modified for the digital world? Now, I think that in the digital world, it can be harder to know what the property owner intends than in the physical world.[1] I think it's reasonable to require a higher standard in the digital world for proving that the alleged trespasser actually had notice he was no longer welcome. And the 9th Circuit did that when it held that a TOS was not sufficient notice. But that's not in play here--Facebook clearly and unambiguously communicated its intent to Power. Why should anything else be required? [1] Maybe it's also harder to know when someone's property was accessed intentionally. But the CFAA has a pretty stringent standard for that--the access must be "knowing." Accidentally sending packets to Facebook's computer and getting a reply would not be enough. And there is no claim here that Power didn't "access" Facebook's servers nor is there any claim it did so "unknowingly."