Re: Legal question

[Paul Howell <grue () merit edu>]

It all depends on who's doing the sniffing, why they are sniffing, and what 
data is being sniffed (i.e., headers or payload). 

For example, the ECPA prohibits the interception/disclosure of email, but 
there are exemptions for a provider if it's necessary to protect the org's 
resources.

Wiretap laws apply to the police only, not to citizens.  WRT police, it
depends on if you're state/federal, is it a national security matter or
not, if you're state police -- is there a state law, if you're a fed. --
will simple headers do or do you need payload as well.

For example, federal officials can sniff a network with a simple trap and
trace order so long as they only look at headers and not at the content/payload.

< paul

Crumrine, Gary L" writes:
> After wearing out my fingers during a heated conversation with another
> colleague over legalities of certain actions, a question came up in my mind
> concerning sniffers and their usage.
>
> If a sniffer was placed on the outside of a given network, and was
> configured to sniff packets coming from that network only, does this
> constitute an illegal wire tap?  And do the same rules apply to data as they
> do voice?  In some cases it transits the same copper wire... ouch I am
> getting a headache..