Re: Confidentiality notices on email messages

Dave CROCKER <dhc2@dcrocker.net> Thu, 14 July 2011 13:24 UTC

Return-Path: <dhc2@dcrocker.net>
X-Original-To: ietf@ietfa.amsl.com
Delivered-To: ietf@ietfa.amsl.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ietfa.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D605621F899D for <ietf@ietfa.amsl.com>; Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:24:54 -0700 (PDT)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at amsl.com
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: -6.599
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-6.599 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[BAYES_00=-2.599, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_MED=-4]
Received: from mail.ietf.org ([64.170.98.30]) by localhost (ietfa.amsl.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id TNwIUBmnXi6s for <ietf@ietfa.amsl.com>; Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:24:50 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from sbh17.songbird.com (sbh17.songbird.com [72.52.113.17]) by ietfa.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC9AD21F899F for <ietf@ietf.org>; Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:24:50 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from [192.168.42.123] (mdb2836d0.tmodns.net [208.54.40.219]) (authenticated bits=0) by sbh17.songbird.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id p6EDOd2e032401 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:24:46 -0700
Message-ID: <4E1EEE0F.7090209@dcrocker.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:24:31 -0700
From: Dave CROCKER <dhc2@dcrocker.net>
Organization: Brandenburg InternetWorking
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.18) Gecko/20110616 Thunderbird/3.1.11
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Jorge Contreras <cntreras@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Confidentiality notices on email messages
References: <CAC4RtVBGgk74VMEty9u5Yq+DFy=oR5tOnbZ3R5x83Gyee6mRNw@mail.gmail.com> <CAP0PwYYmLxPSoPvUqYOO_y=Hdn9vBSTRC5ax4wnjzE1SD1+aLg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAP0PwYYmLxPSoPvUqYOO_y=Hdn9vBSTRC5ax4wnjzE1SD1+aLg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format="flowed"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0 (sbh17.songbird.com [72.52.113.17]); Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:24:47 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: IETF discussion list <ietf@ietf.org>
X-BeenThere: ietf@ietf.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.12
Precedence: list
Reply-To: dcrocker@bbiw.net
List-Id: IETF-Discussion <ietf.ietf.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/options/ietf>, <mailto:ietf-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf>
List-Post: <mailto:ietf@ietf.org>
List-Help: <mailto:ietf-request@ietf.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf>, <mailto:ietf-request@ietf.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:24:55 -0000

On 7/12/2011 2:36 PM, Jorge Contreras wrote:
> You may want to refer to Section 5.2 of RFC 5378, which addresses this issue:
>
> "Each Contributor agrees that any statement in a Contribution, whether generated
> automatically or otherwise, that states or implies that the Contribution is
> confidential or subject to any privilege, can be disregarded for all purposes,
> and will be of no force or effect."


Jorge,

It's excellent that the issue was covered in the RFC.

My question is how the contents of that RFC can be binding on random IETF 
participants?

I doubt many folk even know about the item, even if they know about the RFC and 
I don't see how they have agreed to those terms.

Has the force of this been tested?  That is, when there is a conflict between 
the conditions imposed by one of these email attachments and the terms in RFC 
5378, is there equivalent legal precedent for the RFC to win?

Thanks.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net