<RANT> Cart00ney-Sigs (was: Re: Freenet clone)

["J.A. Terranson" <measl () mfn org>]

On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, Oliver Leitner wrote:

*The single DUMBEST* "agreement" I have ever seen on an email privacy
warning:

> --
> By reading this mail you agree to the following:
>
> using or giving out the email address and any
> other info of the author of this email is strictly forbidden.
> By acting against this agreement the author of this mail
> will take possible legal actions against the abuse.
> _______________________________________________


I'm not gonna ask the more common question, since I can plainly see the
answer of "No, I didn't have the money to pay a lawyer to write shit for
me"...


To all of you Cart00ney-Sig losers: stop and think for a second.  Not only
are these "agreements" invalid on their face (you can't bind someone to an
agreement by having them READ it), but they make you look like an idiot.
Would you hire any "professional" _anything_ that would make such a
statement?

Forgetting for a moment that you cannot bind someone to an agreement just
by having them READ IT, you may want to consider that you also can't bind
them to a secrecy agreement AFTER giving out the "secret".  To put that
into English for those who are common-sense-impaired: you have to assert a
right of secrecy BEFORE divulging the "protected" information.  If you let
a secret out BEFORE getting an [valid] agreement to maintain such secrecy,
what you have done is to place your supposed secret into the public
knowledgebase, from where anyone can do pretty much as they want (albeit
subject to a few scattered and mostly unenforceable restrictions such as
copyright).  If you really, *really*, *REALLY* want to try and assert an
agreement of secrecy, you MUST place the "agreement" BEFORE the beginning
of your post.  Of course, that means displaying the Cart00ney up front,
where everyone can see that theres no reason to read further ;-)

Now, as for those "Confidentiality notice"s you see on large company email
systems, where the lowly little luser has no control over what his moronic
email admin has automatically tagged to the bottom of the email: You DO
realize that there is absolutely zero case law that holds these "notices"
to be enforceable, right?  As a common courtesy, people *may* CHOOSE to
abide, but they don't HAVE to.  And when you send something to a public
list like this, you have completely wiped away even the common courtesy
argument.  I would suggest that you ask your legal department to advise
your email admins to stop making your companies look stupid in public.

</rant>




-- 
Yours,

J.A. Terranson
sysadmin () mfn org
0xBD4A95BF

"Quadriplegics think before they write stupid pointless
shit...because they have to type everything with their noses."

        http://www.tshirthell.com/

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