# Monitoring on MOOs and wizards' roles

"Chris Hand" (cph@dmu.ac.uk)
Tue, 19 Sep 1995 18:18:42 PDT

- Messages sorted by:[ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]

    > >   I'd like to address the issue of wizards using their power to monitor
    > > people through the use of #0:do_command and other such devices.  Is this
    > > morally wrong?  I'd like to hear what people think about the use of
    > > things like this that are in use at places such as CaxyMOO and HT (last
    > > time I checked).
    >
    > Morally wrong? No. People should know that the Internet is a place for
    > anything but privacy. It would be polite, however, to let them know that
    > they are being monitored.
    > [...]
    > If a MOO wants to put up monitoring devices, fine, there is the Federal
    > Communications Privacy Act of 1986 that states that operators can monitor
    > the usage of their system, but it would be polite to be told so.

    In the UK (at least) it's against the law (Computer Misuse Act) to log the
    activities of a user without their permission.  In this situation
    I suppose you'd have to include a warning on the login welcome message
    stating "we're logging, if you don't like it don't log in" or whatever.

    Many FTP sites do this kind of thing.

    Chris

    --
    Chris Hand, Senior Lecturer             | Dept of Computer Science,
    e-mail: cph@dmu.ac.uk                   | De Montfort University, The Gateway
       WWW: http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~cph/  | LEICESTER, UK   LE1 9BH
      talk: cph@helios.dmu.ac.uk         "In Cyberspace nobody knows you're bald"