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Can your ISP look at your internet traffic??

And if an ISP cannot legally look at your traffic, how can they ever be sure or the merits of even one accusation?

(Credit to pruby for alerting me to this section of the crimes act)

Crimes Act Part 9A Crimes against personal privacy

216B

Prohibition on use of interception devices

(1) Subject to subsections (2) to (5), every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years who intentionally intercepts any private communication by means of an interception device.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply where the person intercepting the private communication—
(a) Is a party to that private communication; or
(b) Does so pursuant to, and in accordance with the terms of, any authority conferred on him or her by or under—
(i) Part 11A of this Act; or
(ii) [Repealed]
(iii) The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act 1969; or
(iiia) the Government Communications Security Bureau Act 2003; or
(iv) The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 1978; or
(v) The International Terrorism (Emergency Powers) Act 1987.

(3) Subsection (1) of this section does not apply to the interception by any member of the Police of a private communication by means of an interception device where—

I'm a big believer in the right of copyright - My favourite opensource licence is the GPL. This wasn't always my favourite.

The core of the GPL is the right to copy it coupled with the duty to share-alike - so if you modify a GPL licenced "thing" then you're morally obligated to share those changes - and if you're selling that "thing" you're more than obligated, you're required to by law.

Most of my code in recent years has been GPL - there's a little "artistic licence" and a small bit of BSD and one WTFPL

I like having the powers to control what folks do with what I create - I like having legal recourse to protect - and so far the fear of the law is always more powerful than the law itself, so folks respect the GPL fairly consistently worldwide.

Never do i think that my creation of some lines of GPL code give me the right to search sniff everyone's internet traffic and analyze the packets, search computers, summarily disconnect computers, take down website only on my say so, or deprive a whole hospital of internet access.

And neither do i think that creating "things" like Police academy, windows vista, or dancing with the stars should give people the powers listed above. Never is anything, even a show as awesome as startrek, worthy enough to justify the loss of privacy, and the bypass of natural justice.

Quoting 3% of a magazine article below: