Save a Chatlog... Go to Prison? 486
Alien54 writes "You are engaged in a chat session with some friends and colleagues, when one of them makes a witty remark or imparts a pithy bit of information. You hit CTRL-A and select the conversation, then copy it to a document that you save. Under a little-noticed decision in a New Hampshire Superior Court in late February, these actions may just land you in jail. New Hampshire is "two-party consent state" -- one of those jurisdictions that requires all parties to a conversation to consent before the conversation can be intercepted or recorded. The decision is the first of its kind to apply that standard to online chats, and the ruling is clearly supported by the text of the law. But it marks a blow to an investigative technique that has been routinely used by law enforcement, employers, ISPs and others, who often use video tape or othermeans to track criminals in chat rooms. This also has troublesome implications [for employers] monitoring of email and other forms of electronic communications."
Thus the creation of a new chat acronym : (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad News . . . (Score:4, Funny)
CROW: No, you may not!
JOEL: Now Crow, don't forget, the user has rights too.
TOM: Nein! Jauhrtausand hand und garnele! Das userkind - they have no rights in this police state!
JOEL: Tom, that has absolutely no releveance whatsoever.
TOM: But it sure is fun to say it!
Relevance (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Relevance (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you get around the fact that the IM chat is immediately recorded (by definition) when it appears in your IM application?
What about implied consent? Since you know by using the IM application that your conversation is automatically being recorded in the other party(or parties) IM application, doesn't that necessarily mean that you have consented to its recording?
I think so, and I think this decision is just one that will be dismissed or criticised when this issue is briefed before the majority of courts in other jurisdictions. It is a NH state decision - it has no force anywhere else.....
Re:Relevance (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe this is the logic used in reference to voice mail/answering machines, where it was by nature recorded and it had to be supposed that a third party could hear it.
What confuses me is that this is listed under a "wiretap" law; my understanding (common understanding?) is that a wiretap is a "man in the middle" attack where a third party "eavesdrops" on a conversation. In this case, they are applying it to one party recording their conversation with a second party. While they may want to prohibit this (two party consent) it really is separate from wiretapping.
Re:Relevance (Score:3, Informative)
The original wiretap laws were about third-party recordings. Since then, the laws have been expanded to cover
No such thing as two-party consent (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Relevance - freedom! (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, no, I don't want to be put in jail for saving a chat log, but I do believe that this type of thinking promotes freedom. You would have the freedom of saying something to a friend on IRC without worrying that someone is going to use it against you.
In a country where the laws keep on getting more crappy for joe american, we need protection.
Re:Relevance - freedom! (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't trust your friend, why are you telling him your secrets in the first place? Even if it's somehow possible to prevent him from saving the transcript, there's no way you can stop him from "using it against you".
In a country where the laws keep on getting more crappy for joe american, we need protection.
On the other hand, I see great potential for abuse. I'm sure certain individuals in government would love to prevent all permanent records of their statements.
Re:Relevance - freedom! (Score:3, Insightful)
Like Scalia barring reporters from recording his speeches [cnn.com]?
Re:Relevance (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Relevance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Relevance (Score:3, Interesting)
More usefully, does it make it illegal for your ISP to record your IM conversations?
And with the laws requiring ISPs to record everything, does that make it illegal to even be an ISP?
Trillian Pro (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Trillian Pro (Score:4, Informative)
-Jesse
Re:Trillian Pro (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Trillian Pro (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say I'm using ICQ, and I take the extra step to turn off the logging. Does that mean that I don't consent to the conversation being recorded?
This seems pretty important.
Re:Trillian Pro (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Trillian Pro (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trillian Pro (Score:3, Funny)
I definitely have to stop chatting… (Score:2, Funny)
Does... (Score:2, Interesting)
Am I violating it by saving this webpage (once it has gained enough commentary)? How about a mirror of it?
Re:Does... (Score:5, Insightful)
That means that even if it is a conversation, permission has already been given to Slashdot, at least, to copy and record it.
So, for example, I can't sue Slashdot for reproducing my words here, because my post is indication of my consent to have them reproduced.
But if you save a copy, I could potentially accuse you of copyright infringment, because I have only granted Slashdot a right to reproduce.
But fair use would cover that, probably, and I license this post under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License [creativecommons.org]
But do note that copyright is a separate issue from the chat logging issue.
(Dang, I sound like a stinkin' lawyer!) IANAL.
Easy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Easy... (Score:5, Informative)
How about throwing in... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, it's CYA of the worst sort. But it should let the company continue monitoring employees just like they do today. If someone complains, well you can probably blame the employee (read: scapegoat).
Kjella
Re: Respondeat Superior (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL, and I don't have any knowledge about how this works in other countries, but in the US, I don't think that will fly in a court of law. The employee is an agent of the company. If the employee fails to get the permission, an agent of the company failed to get permission. Therefore, it's the company's fault (respondeat superior). I.e. companies are responsible for hiring employees, so they are responsible for the employees' actions.
I know that after knee surgery my father was not able to return to work when he felt ready because they were concerned that he might reinjure his knee on work time (the original injury was not work related). Even if *he* had been at fault, they would have been liable if he was on work time.
CYA of this sort only works inside a corporation. It has no weight in a court case, AFAIK.
A better solution is to simply automatically inform anyone who connects that the conversation is being recorded (in the log file) and direct them to other methods of conversation if this is unacceptable. A buddy list request response might be able to handle this (if you only accept messages from someone on your buddy list; those not on it have to send you a request to be on it).
DO you give implicit permission to record buddy requests that you make? If not, then how could they add you to the buddy list (doesn't that record it)?
Re:Easy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Spoken like someone who has never used AIM, et. al. at work...
Instant messaging can be very useful at work. I'm in a new job right now that doesn't allow it, and I'm really missing it. It is especially useful when your team is scattered across multiple buildings and you have a quick question. It's also handy for asking friends/previous co-workers things like "what was that command to view al
Re:Easy... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easy... (Score:5, Interesting)
When is America going to wake up out of this hypocrisy?
Re:Easy... (Score:3, Funny)
When is America going to wake up out of this hypocrisy?
Hopefully not anytime soon!!
I rather enjoy my life of opressing the lower-classes.
Gotta-jet - it's time fout our annual Hlaiburton/Nader meeting - hopefully Nader will be able to pull off another doozy. He's so cheep too.. it's amazing what he'll do for a box of marshmallow peeps.
Re:Easy... (Score:4, Insightful)
The law is not meaningless as long as you sign an agreement. The law requires that you agree. You are missing the point or did not even read the topic.
Re:Easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is to keep people from being caught by such things as "Can you please read the following document?" where the document seems to be a fictional passage but when replayed in court later, it sounds like you are admitting some crime. Other examples exist as well (e.g. orally agreeing to something and changing one's mind later; with the recording, the oral agreement is a contract; without it, it's just air).
A written record of what happened is different. It does not bear the same weight as the recording in someone's own voice (although modern audio edit facilities may make this overblown, i.e. a recording might be faked almost as easily as a written transcript).
Re:Easy... (Score:4, Insightful)
When I call an organization that records all conversations, I know that not only am *I* being recorded but that they are as well. Thus, I am protected from them misrepresenting my statements or their own.
That's not to say that there are not abuses. I'm sure that there are. However, there would be abuses if the information was missing as well. Consider the case of an unrecorded conversation that would explicitly clear me of something and reveal that the other party did it. Or a revised agreement that could have been recorded but wasn't; offer withdrawn before signing. So on and so forth. There are a lot of babies flying out with that bathwater.
I keep all my email and chat transcripts. Partly for the record and partly so that I have access to that info for future conversations (I have emailed someone an excerpt from a chat to save reformulating the info after they forgot). I do a lot of my work to spec, so I spend a lot of time with printouts of email marking off things that are done, making notes, etc.
Re:Easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember all the ire about clickthrough agreements? Yeah.
If you're in New Hampshire... (Score:4, Funny)
Troublesome how? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is probably the least troublesome aspect of this particular issue. Employers should not be allowed to track peoples personal communications in any way.
Re:Troublesome how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Troublesome how? (Score:4, Informative)
Good luck stopping it. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good luck stopping it. (Score:5, Informative)
C//
Re:Good luck stopping it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in Texas! (Score:4, Informative)
As long as you're not keylogging someone else's conversation, doing what the article mentions is legal.
But one question: Why is this under the Science category and not under Privacy?
Re:Not in Texas! (Score:3, Funny)
But one question: Why is this under the Science category and not under Privacy?
Yeah, I think they were aiming for 'Your Rights Online' and missed by about 15 letters (not including whitespace).
uh oh (Score:4, Funny)
IM too? (Score:3, Insightful)
Inefficient (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Inefficient (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Inefficient (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about flat... files (Score:4, Funny)
There are few horny women in chat rooms.
There are fewer horny non-male women in channel.
The are even fewer horny non-male under 50 years of age women in channel.
Okay.. that leaves 1 left..
MOM! WTF are you doing online!!!
Active vs. Passive (Score:2, Informative)
Bad news (Score:2)
Oh no! Slashdot Paradox! (Score:4, Funny)
Only certain thing is that Bush will be blamed for it either way...
Logs are presumed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Logs are presumed (Score:5, Insightful)
But once we start throwing compatible and cross-network IM clients around, who knows what the rulings would be. Plantiff: "My client does NOT log by default, so there is no implied consent" Defendant: "Your doesn't but my client DOES log by default, therefore, the system implies consent."
frob
Re:Logs are presumed (Score:3, Interesting)
Umm... no.
If *you* are in one of those 12 states, you must have consent of all parties. But someone in a one-party-consent state can record you, even if you are in an all-parties-consent state, without your consent.
The Maryland cops use this a lot. Maryland is an all-parties-consent state. They routinely pop over the border into Virginia (a one-party-consent state), make a phone call to a Maryland
Re:Logs are presumed (Score:3, Insightful)
When chatting, especially with multiple parties, but via computer systems, it's common practice and common knowledge that network activity (and hence the chat itself) may be logged, sometimes without the explicit intention of the user (example: a firewall log may record the date/time, IP address and other sorts of information about the sender and th
A blow to an investigative technique? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A blow to an investigative technique? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A blow to an investigative technique? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:A blow to an investigative technique? (Score:5, Informative)
I have mixed feelings on these laws. On one hand, I do think that privacy is important. On the other hand, I was in a situation where I was receiving interstate harassing phone calls. I taped some of the calls, but the cops wouldn't even listen to them because both the state they were originating from and the state I was in are two party consent states. So even though I had proof that this person was calling me up and threatening me (specifically saying that if I didn't send her money she would tell the authorities that I had done various illegal things that I hadn't done, nor would ever even consider doing), I couldn't have used it in court, even in my defense if she had later carried out her threat. AFAIK, she never did and eventually she got bored and stopped, but it could have been ugly for me, to say the least.
Re:A blow to an investigative technique? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a joke. (Score:2)
Aren't employers required to monitor e-comms? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, in New Hampshire, it sounds like employers must either not comply with Sarbanes-Oxley or must be guilty of illegal wiretapping. Or am I missing something?
This is Science? (Score:4, Insightful)
This sounds an awful lot like a Your Rights Online topic.
Not blow to employers (Score:2)
Online games logging features (Score:3, Insightful)
I know people that have logged to text files and then to data base everything they have said and had said to them for 5+ years in some of these games. Considering that
Also considering that techsupport often asks for logs when reporting bugs/unusual behavior or cheating, would that make them accomplices after the fact?
Standard Internet Usage Policies (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't affect law enforcement... (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, what about programs that log the chats automatically? I would have an easy time (I think) defending that trillian was logging without my knowledge as opposed to me physically copying a conversation without the other party's consent.
Re:It doesn't affect law enforcement... (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't affect police you say? Did you read the article? Why do you think the judge claimed it specifically does affect the police? Should I belive Justice Robert Morill, or you?
Re:It doesn't affect law enforcement... (Score:3, Insightful)
Chat logging as wiretapping? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are missing one crucial point here I think. A chat log is (usually) just a plain text file of the contents of a chat session. A file like this could easily be created by hand by anyone, at any time. Even when it's something more sophisticated than a text file, it can still be faked pretty easily.
So wouldn't a log like this be completely inadmissable in any court anyway? Wiretaps have been used for years on the premise that audio analysis can be used to unerringly establish the identity of the speaker. Chatlogs are simply a whole other kettle of fish.
On the bright side... (Score:3, Funny)
What does "record" mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
The law needs clear definitions to work well... I don't think it's a blow to privacy rights for participants to assume that anyone party to a text conversation can record it.
Spoken conversations are by definition transient--the sound is gone as soon as it happens. The law makes sense for those. But for text conversations, with backscroll and long buffers, it quickly becomes silly.
Re:What does "record" mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree completely. Most of the disagreements that I've had with people about management of "their" information that I have is a result of us having different perceptions of what's going on.
I get strange looks from some people when I mention in-passing to them that I rarely delete email. (From my perspective, disk space is cheap.) For the majority of techie people who I know, this is completely ordinary. But for other people who are used to deleting email soon after they've read it and not keeping
So, what about saving email? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, couldn't this be used to fight off an RIAA lawsuit? Could making a record of a Kazaa user's IP address without that user's consent be illegal in a two-party consent state?
Troublesome consequences? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is downright welcome! Some portion of you are going to consider this flamebait, but shouldn't online chat be held to the same restrictions that other conversations are?
If we had the easy ability to do audio searches, would there be phones that recorded a history of the last n hours of conversation you had? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...
What if you cant help it? (Score:3, Informative)
line printers (Score:3, Funny)
All I can saw is bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in NYS and have my IM client set up to log ALL conversations. I consider it no different than saving an email.
People need to learn that ANYTHING they put on the internet might become public and/or stay there forever.
Of course it sounds like NH is screwed up anyways. Being able to record a conversation without someone else's knowedge is a standard CYA procedure. If it was easy, I would set it up so that all my phone conversations are automatically recorded as well.
It would be really useful, especially when a certain cellphone provider keeps sending you bills for an account AFTER you cancelled their service. How the hell is one supposed to bust jerks like that without recording the conversation?
Laws like this only encourage criminal conduct.
It's not a chat log, it's a screencap (Score:4, Interesting)
The test seems to be whether the recording capability is part of the instant messaging software itself (in which case it may be legal to record) or whether it is an add-on, and therefore an unlawful recording.
So the Slashdot article is somewhat skewed. The chatlog isn't illegal. And I wouldn't be too upset, since the process the officer used involved video screen capture, as well as cutting and pasting, to get into a final document.
As far as chatlogs go, it's generally understood that written correspondence (mail, etc.) is owned by the one who receives it. I'd be surprised to see chatrooms fall outside that rule of thumb.
Possible workaround... (Score:3, Interesting)
"BY ENTERING THIS CHAT, YOU ARE AWARE THAT WHAT YOU SAY CAN BE RECORDED AND SAVED TO DISK. IF YOU DO NOT CONSENT, PLEASE END THIS CHAT."
IANAL, but I think this would be sufficient under the current laws that we have that regulate wiretapping.
Maybe I should code up a patch for GAIM...
What's "recording"? (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer is important, since chat software "saves" conversations in RAM, at least as long as the chat window is open. I can preserve a record of a chat session for as long as I want by simply not closing the window. Given that fact, I would expect that all chat sessions are recorded, and therefore use of chat software implies consent by all parties to record the session.
I suppose that if you're really concerned about this, you could strengthen that case by transmitting a statement immediately after starting a chat session along the lines of "This chat session may be recorded. If you do not consent to the recording of this session, disconnect from this session now."
Employers probably unaffected. (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, in a smaller company where this is undefined, this kind of monitoring may pose a problem under this law... but otherwise I think that police surveillance is what is primarily going to be affected, not employer policies.
apple ichat (Score:3, Insightful)
<ranting>
seriously now, what are govt officials thinking? more recently about the gmail privacy issue (which is only made an issue by folks who dont understand it) and now this sillyness? and why is this post under the science section? yro maybe?
argh!
</ranting>
from the article: " Why should e-mail be any different? Why should VOIP? Why should IM? IRC? SMS? Either communications are private, or they are not. To the Internet, packets is packets. Maybe its time for the law to make up its mind."
IMO these mediums -should- be different bc they have different acuisition(sp?) methods.
lets take email and snailmail for example
to open another person mail is a crime. it involves using your hands or some tool to break the paper/cardboard that the item arrived in and view its contents.
to open another persons email is an invasion of privacy which may involve simply turning the computer on. (auto email checking that puts a cute icon on teh screen, grandma clicks it and voila)
IMO we need laws that accomodate and understand the technology, not make some half arsed RL relation to it.
besides, if you think that your plaintext sent IM messages are ensured to be private to only you and your intended recipient then you really need to learn about el interneto. if ppl want that then use encryption!
Chatting is consent. (Score:4, Insightful)
What we have here.... (Score:3, Insightful)
This really only applies to police making logs of chats and then whether or not those logs hold up in court.
You aren't going to be prosecuted for keeping logs of all your online chat sessions. That is not what is in question here. Only time it matters is if your chat log could somehow be admissible as evidence in a criminal or civil court case.
I also doubt you'd get in trouble for posting bits and pieces of a chat log on the web somewhere either. Anyway, I wouldn't go posting "private" conversations online without all parties' consent. It's rude to do otherwise.
Also note, the article isn't about IRC here, but ICQ and AOL which are one on one chat clients for the most part. The law is talking about "private" conversations.
Re:What we have here.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I also doubt you'd get in trouble for posting bits and pieces of a chat log on the web somewhere either.
Citizen # 4317980A, your faith that your government will play by the rules has been noted. And believe me, we appreciate it.
I think this falls into the legal area concerning (Score:5, Insightful)
In a public forum, there is no expectation of privacy. People may record what you say. Get over it.
Too late. (Score:3, Informative)
It's merely deleted when it reaches the end of the buffer. But if the buffer is a ream of tractor-feed paper, it's only deleted when the paper is destroyed.
Lawyers really need to learn how computers work, and stop mooting themselves by presuming technical unrealities.
Re:Too late. (Score:5, Insightful)
When you're on the telephone you have no presumption that your conversation is being recorded.
Unless maybe you're talking into an answering machine or voicemail box, or have otherwise been informed that you are being recorded.
When you're sending data on the computer, you know, because you've been told again and again that THE INTERNET IS NOT SECURE, that anything you transmit may be intercepted, recorded, retransmitted, stored, parsed, decrypted, or otherwise coopted. Your rights in this regard can be presumed to be limited to those you would have if you know someone has a legal copy of a document. Anything else the law has done to expand those rights is based on a fundamental failure to understand the fact that THE INTERNET IS NOT SECURE.
I.e., it's not the copying and storing that's a problem. It's the uncopyrighted duplication to repeat to others that's a problem. Original copies are, as always, free to be transferred to others (and if they are, by law, not, then the law is, as always, a ass). But here's a hint for all the lawyers out there: the act of transferring a copy from hard disk to floppy disk is copying, and copying more than once, in the various hardware in the machine; destroying the copy on the hard disk doesn't change that; so you might have an out.
New Footer Blurb . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
By viewing contents on [your website here], you consent to monitoring and logging.
Looks like a universal EULA similar to the above is needed just to not find oneself in violation of the law for logging anything.
Stupid law - here's why (Score:4, Insightful)
So how is this different from a physical letter, in which the consent of the sender is presumed?
So what you're doing isn't copying their conversaiont - you're making another copy of a pre-existing copy which they consented to.
medium blurring (Score:3, Insightful)
What do appeals courts generally do to convictions based on laws that weren't written with the circumstances of the alleged crime in mind? They generally throw them out. Lets hope this holds, and also badger our legislators to allow recording of communications by those known by the speaker to be receiving them. Two-party consent lets the powerful screw over the little people and not be held accountable for it. It's arguably a first amendment violation, though apparently nobody has argued that lately, or at least not convincingly.
From the news (Score:4, Funny)
New Hampshire, 2004. Brains are now officially forbidden in New Hampshire, said House spokesman Turner. The recent court decision forbidding recording equipment from capturing chat logs has essentially extended the ban on everything, from pen and paper to modern human brains. "This shouldn't cause too much problem, only a few people still had brains in working order within the state, anyway", said spokesman Turner. "Although you can still possess brains, you are forbidden to use them for recording any kind of information, so complete lobotomy is probably the only option unless you can produce a medical certificate to the effect that your brain is incapable (permanently or temporarily) of recording memories." The main character from Memento was recently seen in the state, and the state governor has announced plans to convert the state into a giant hospital for taking care of alzheimer patients - if he can remember giving the order.
It's a good thing that I don't live there! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is because I have a rather bad memory, and it also comes very handy sometimes. For example, it's useful to find URL that appeared in a conversation, find what exactly somebody said about some subject without having to dig in all my logs (having 4 different places with logs is quite a nuisance), and it's especially useful to find things like birthdays and addresses.
I think the current database has somewhere about 100K rows.
You can't prove I "recorded" a chat session. (Score:3, Interesting)
What if I take a real chat session and change the names? Heck, real chat sessions don't even have real names; Can Munkygurl69 show me some legal ID with that name on it?
What if some hacker put those logs there! Seems like some California judge got off on some sort of child porn charges by claiming it was put there [actually he got off because the search of his computer was illegal - but the claim was hey, if this guy could break into my computer and "search" it, why couldn't he have put the stuff there!]
If you leave an open wireless connection can you then plausibly deny anything coming from your IP address was necessarily "you"? Isn't it like those red-light cameras - if the driver doesn't come out in the picture, they only know that it was your car, but can't prove you went thru the light.
Re:Auto saving? (Score:2)
Regardless, there's an option under Tools > Options > Messages to disable this by de-selecting the checkbox.
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
The case at hand involved software that didn't have a built-in save function, but the cop used a camcorder and another software package to record the session.
Re:Here is a very intresting one (Score:3, Informative)