Date: Thu, 30 Jan 92 3:32:05 CST
From:
[email protected](Bob Izenberg)
Subject: File 4--TV station and BBS registration
Here's something that you might find interesting... from
misc.legal.computing. I've enclosed (most of) my reply to the
article's author.
Bob
[ start ]
A local television reporter did a report on the 10pm news about
teenagers getting access to adult .gif files on computer bulletin
boards.
He explains how many sites with adult gifs require proof-of-age (e.g.,
copies of driver's license) for registration, but some merely print a
"you must be over 21 to register" message before on-line registration.
No problem, except he then claims you can lie and still become
registered -- which he proceeds to do on camera.
Isn't this a violation of Federal law regarding computer access? The
sysop of the BBS clearly requested identifying information, as is his
right before granting system access, which the reporter deliberately
refused to provide yet accepted system access?
This TV station is getting a bad reputation for overzealous reporters--
a few years ago one star reporter actually paid for pit-bull fights
that she subsequently reported on. She was ultimately fired from the
station and charged with a felony.
I don't expect things to go this far in this situation -- but neither
do I want to sit by as the TV station implies it's okay to lie during
on-line registration for BBSes.
Any comments or suggestions?
BTW, the reporter was Jim Benemann of KCNC in Denver. I can post the
Station Manager's name if other people wish to contact the station.
Bear Giles
[email protected]
[ and my reply: ]
>To:
[email protected]
>Subject: Re: Stupid TV reporter tricks
In article <
[email protected]> you write:
>Any comments or suggestions?
Work with the station on producing an editorial. Ask them what
criteria they use to authenticate news sources, and what their policy
is on providing air time to an individual who is immediately or
eventually proven to have faked their identity. Mention that access
rules for on-line systems, large or small, are often more strict than
those legally required of adult magazines: A signed statement that
you're over a certain age. The system's owner was complying with a
tradition of law that applies to similar adult-oriented media. The
question of whether the reporter's misrepresentation of their
identity, which treads close to the phone company's definition of
fraud, was justified is one that the station's news management is
invited to discuss publicly. After all, they were presented with a
policy for authentication that matches legal proof employed by related
media, and they bypassed it. If the station's position is that people
must be honest for a system of age-oriented access restriction to
work, they're right. If the station insists on providing a clear
example of how to defeat the owner's intent to comply with the law, it
is hardly the system owner that is in the wrong. Take the editorial
to competing stations if you need to. Of course, this is a lot of
swimming upstream for people to do, and there may be a better way that
I haven't thought of... In any case, I'm interested in hearing what,
if anything, comes of this.
Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253
