
Using Outlook's mail rules can make you a wiretapper - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/using-outlooks-mail-rules-can-make-you-a-wiretapper.ars
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anigbrowl
_More than that: we don’t see any need to search for a device that is
different from, or not integral to, the legitimate communication. [earlier
cases] added this “different device” requirement to the statutory text to
avoid what those judges thought would otherwise be a rule that made ordinary
usage of a telephone or computer criminal. These judges feared that, unless
the “device” must be extraneous to a proper communication, a person answering
his own phone at home, and holding a conversation with a friend, would violate
the Wiretap Act by acquiring the content of his own conversation using his own
phone (a “device”).

This fear just shows why _it is a mistake to read snippets of a statute in
isolation. _For another section of the Wiretap Act declares that “it shall not
be unlawful ... for a person ... to intercept a wire, oral or electronic
communication where such person is a party to the ommunication or where one of
the parties ... has given prior consent.” [] So acquiring the contents of
one’s own conversation, and sharing them over a speakerphone, is not unlawful,
no matter what the word “device” means. It is better to follow the statute
than to make up limitations to avert imaginary problems._

It would save a great deal of time and effort if this point made by Judge
Easterbrook were more widely appreciated.

So many people think the law is like a series of logical assertions, and that
if they can just find one error or inconsistency therein then the whole is
invalidated, somewhat like a mathematical theorem or a piece of procedural
computer code. Of course the law many flaws, but as a decision-making tool
it's an event-driven, object-oriented, and employs a high degree of
parallelism.

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recoiledsnake
Misleading headlines can make you a profitable blogger.

The headline implies that configuring _your_ Outlook can land you in trouble.
But in this case, it's configuring your boss's Outlook.

