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Date:      Fri, 30 Mar 2001 22:47:47 -0600
From:      Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
To:        Roelof Osinga <roelof@nisser.com>, hamellr@heorot.1nova.com
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: email question
Message-ID:  <15045.24947.102841.710362@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <52274599@toto.iv>

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Roelof Osinga <roelof@nisser.com> types:
> Rick Hamell wrote:
> > 
> > > Is there a way to filter outgoing email through our FreeBSD 4.0 email server
> > > and have it check for certain words or statements, and if found, send a copy
> > > to another email address without letting the sender or recipient know that
> > > this happened?
> >         Probally.. but what are the moral and legal implications of doing
> > so?
> Interesting. Since this is basically what virusscanners do, you're
> suggesting it might be illegal if not immoral and unethical to
> use a virusscanner in MTAs? ;)

It's the *outgoing* mail and *copying* that's the interesting
part. According to at least one frequent poster here, MS *expects*
ISPs to scan incoming mail for viruses. I expect that most ISPs have
spam filters on incoming mail that do some kind of scanning as
well. How many of them save copies of the mail, though?

If the scanned mail belongs to your employees and the employment
contract specifies that any mail moving through company equipment
belongs to you (generally a good idea these days), then it's perfectly
legal and moral to scan outgoing mail. One client of mine found a copy
of the source to their premier product being sent out via email. They
weren't scanning - the destination mailbox filled up, the bounces then
filled the senders mailbox, so they started going to the company
postmaster, who recognized them.

FWIW, The World was recently sued for damages because their spam
scanners dropped some non-spam mail. The court upheld their right to
do this.

	<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

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