ANON: pseudospoofing confusion

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>Does the ECPA (the law regulating communications privacy) or the
>copyright laws apply to material that was written under a
>*pseudonymous* identity? I would consider this a grey area. A court

Well, there may be some legal precedent to look up: some of the
greatest works of literature were published under "pseudonymous"
identities.  Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Mark Twain, George Eliot:
none of these people ever existed.  In fact, Mary Ann Evans published
under "George Eliot" in order to pretend to be male; I guess you could
call her master pseudospoofer, since she specifically created a fake
identity in order to fool others.

I suppose "Publius" doesn't qualify as a pseudospoofer since the three
gentlemen who were responsible for the _Federalist Papers_ were
probably just trying to hide their identity (at first) and not go
about creating new ones.

I'm sort of fuzzy on the distinction between pseudonymous and
pseudoanonymous; is it that a pseudonym is obviously so?  For example,
an id on anon.penet.fi is obviously a pseudonym, so if I were to use
it, I would be pseudonymous.  In a sense, every mail address you see
here is a pseudonym.

Now, pseudoanonymous is when a fake identity is created, without it
being obviously so.  (Right?)  So if I were to obtain another account
with a different user name, etc. and use that account, I would be
pseudospoofing. (?)

But the difference between these two seems so slight, a semantic one
rather than practical.

For example, suppose several people were in communication with someone
they had never met.  One person (of the several) is curious as to the
identity of the mystery person, and tries to find out information
about this person.  Very little is turned up.  So little, it could be
that the mystery person is "pseudoanonymous", a fake identity.  Are
the several people being pseudospoofed?  How can they tell one way or
the other without actually meeting the mystery person?  If they can't
tell, then what difference does it make?

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> I'm sort of fuzzy on the distinction between pseudonymous and
> pseudoanonymous; is it that a pseudonym is obviously so?  For example,
[...]
> Now, pseudoanonymous is when a fake identity is created, without it
> being obviously so.  (Right?)  So if I were to obtain another account
> with a different user name, etc. and use that account, I would be
> pseudospoofing. (?)

I have pointed this out numerous times to L.D. in private mail, but he
doesn't seem to get the fact that "obvious" is completely subjective. 
The most recent example I gave was that "James Bond" would appear to be
an obvious pseudo.  Unless your name really IS James Bond (which is
actually not that rare of a name), or you happen to be someone that's
never seen a J.B. movie, or read an Ian Fleming book, such as, say, a guy
from Norway or Japan, in which case it would be quite reasonable to
presume that the person you just got mail from really is named James Bond.

Detweiler's entire proposition hinges on this distinction between
pseudonymy and "pseudoanonymity"/"pseudospoofing".  The distinction does
not actually clearly exist, and his premise (or I should say "its"
premise, since Detweiler has lately claimed to be female) collapses.

I have attempted to get this to sink in to it's head, but to no avail; it
just keeps posting and mailing away.  What can ya do?  I for one may just
add someone to my kill file for the first time ever, as I'm sick to death
of the same 200 line rant, rearranged and given a new title, popping up in
my list mail, private mail, and news several times a day.

Detweiler is not really in a position to complain about letterbombing.

Aside from that, I recommend just ignoring it until unless it posts
something of relevance and interest.

-- 
Stanton  McCandlish  mech@eff.org  1:109/1103   EFF  Online  Activist & SysOp
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