Is it legal...

[Dust3r]

DISCLAIMER: For the sake of anything concerned in this document, I am not an attorney, lawyer, esquire, solicitor, barrister, or any other type professional and certified legal representitive. I offer no official legal advice or interpretation of law, as only a professional and certified legal counselor can do that. For detailed legal information relevant to this document, please seek professional and certified legal representation in your locale.

I have purposefully omitted the locations and sources from which the following information has been derived. This is for a few distinct reasons...

1) If you merely think to yourself it is illegal for your PUBLIC gaming information to be displayed in the PUBLIC domain from which it originates, then you need to do your own research and conclude your own facts.

2) If you feel you have some compelling litigious grounds on which to take legal action against the PUBLIC displaying of information you have VOLUNTARILY and PUBLICLY provided, then you need to seek out competent professional and certified legal advice. It's better for you to spend your money (or your parents money) than take my word for it.

What exactly is an IP address? Short for Internet Protocol address. A 32-bit (4-byte) binary number that uniquely identifies a host computer connected to the Internet to other Internet hosts, for the purposes of communication through the transfer of packets. An IP address is expressed in "dotted quad" format, consisting of the decimal values of its 4 bytes, separated with periods; for example, 60.27.104.185 . The first 1,2, or 3 bytes of the IP address, assigned by InterNIC Registration Services, identify the network the host is connected to; the remaining bits identify the host itself. IP addresses are not owned as property. Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) provide them to Local Internet Registries (LIRs), National Internet Registries (NIRs), and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who in turn provide them to consumers. The Internet community develops technical and operational policies that determine how addresses are provided. When a consumer no longer requires the use of the IP address space, it is returned to the LIR or ISP.

What exactly is a MAC address? In computer networking a Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier attached to most forms of networking equipment. Most layer 2 network protocols use one of three numbering spaces managed by the IEEE: MAC-48, EUI-48, and EUI-64, which are designed to be globally unique. Not all communications protocols use MAC addresses, and not all protocols require globally unique identifiers. The IEEE claims trademarks on the names "EUI-48" and "EUI-64". (The "EUI" stands for Extended Unique Identifier.) The original IEEE 802 MAC address, now officially called "MAC-48", comes from the Ethernet specification. Since the original designers of Ethernet had the foresight to use a 48-bit address space, there are potentially 248 or 281,474,976,710,656 possible MAC addresses. MAC-48 and EUI-48 addresses are usually shown in hexadecimal format, with each octet separated by a dash or colon. An example of a MAC-48 address would be "00-08-74-4C-7F-1D". If you cross-reference the first three octets with IEEE's OUI assignments, you can see that this MAC address came from Dell Computer Corp. The last three octets represents the serial number assigned to the adapter by the manufacturer.

IP addresses are not owned as property. Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) provide them to Local Internet Registries (LIRs), National Internet Registries (NIRs), and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who in turn provide them to consumers.

The IEEE claims trademarks on the names "EUI-48" and "EUI-64". (The "EUI" stands for Extended Unique Identifier.)


Now, with the understanding that you have no personal, private or intellectual rights or ownerships what-so-ever in regards to communication policies, protocols and standards, lets look at what you do have rights and controls over.

You have the right to educate yourself as to how you are connecting a computer to any other computer anywhere. You have the right to decline connecting to any external computer or system not directly connected to yours. You do NOT have the right to connect your computer to any other computer or system. this is a privilege provided you through various service companies, organizations or entities. This privilege is governed by any and all apllicable laws and treatises in your geographic location on the planet, as well as many policies, protocols and standards put in place to facilitate the use of multi-networking and mass communication. And when you choose to connect to another computer through any legal means, you are considered to be making a voluntary and informed decision. Meaning, you should be informed as to how those connections are established and authenticated. You should also understand that you do not own any of those standards or processes. You are simply borrowing them for the PRIVILEGE of making a connection.

And when you CHOOSE to VOLUNTARILY make a connection, you are volunteering the connection information that you are borrowing to do that. That information becomes the permanent record of any and all who retain ownership and / or lesse rights over the system you are choosing to connect to. And if various system owners and / or lesses choose to pool and share their information, you are powerless to do anything about it. It is not your information. Not only did you NEVER retain ownership over the connection information, you also do not own the records of a system owned or leased by somebody else. Further, you agreed to the release of the information you were borrowing when you voluntarily connected to that system.

And please keep in mind, if you think you are somehow entitled to something different because of your geographical locale... Laws concerning computers and the internet are set so that the location of the system you are connecting to will almost always maintain jurisdiction over any criminal or legal action. Meaning, if I "hack" in to your personal computer, laws in my location may mean nothing. But, I may still be succeptible to criminal prosecution in the location that your computer resides in. To boost this further, take online gambling as an example. It is illegal to own, operate, or participate in an online gambling franchise in the state that I live in, as well as many other states in the U.S. However, I can gamble on PartyPoker dot com without any legal issues at all. That is because, when I connect my computer to any part of their system, I now become subject to the laws and treatise of the Government of Gibraltar (Where PartyPoker.com operations are maintained and provided from.)

If a person or system physically enters your personal, private, or electronic domain and begins collecting information, then you enter the realm of privacy and intellectual property rights. And even then, you may be allowing those actions voluntarily. Such as if you choose to let your internet browser accept cookies.

To summarize, your privacy rights become severely limited at the beginning of an RJ-11 or RJ-45 cable connector, whichever you use to connect to anything outside your own system. What information you volunteer to give is just that, a voluntary submission. Where you visit and what information you provide is mostly up to you in the form of making what should be educated decisions.

-ipso facto

[.[MBK].moneybags]

Makes me miss the old dial up BBS days (yeah I'm old enough to have been there done that).

[RedTalon]

BBS's weren't too safe either :>

My local BBS (won't name names ;) ) was shut down 4 times by the FBI. Once withe the FBI going after some members.

P.S. I am JUST old enough to have been there done that. )

[=RRR=ARBushmaster]

LMAO yeah play AAO on that 1200 Baud modem

[BasilHoneycup]

WOW you guys already had a 1200 baud modem ? I started off on a Sinclair ZX80 (I could already read and write back then LOL)

But seriously; I hope Red+Cells post will prevent more jokers to come around and whine about privacy. Privacy is a station passed a long time ago.

[=RRR=ARBushmaster]

So could I but I had to buy my own computer so I had to wait till some improvements were made. I think I had one before that I just don't remember what it was.

[.-(AUST)-. Messiah]

I realise this thread's replies (related to what im saying now) is WAY old, but i just decided to read this in full .
I used to run a 5 line BBS, and i was only 10 (1993).
Lots of games like Lord of the Dragon, Usurper, etc.
Used to use a program called EzyBBS hehehe.

Popular as hell too - one hell of a demand to get on there.