Subject: Re: asynchronous audio conferencing at www.wimba.com

From: "Matt Crawford" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 13:41:17 -0500

As a linguistic exercise, you might reconcile this message, which you
get when you refuse to grant their applets read/write/delete/execute
access to all your files:

  In order to run the Wimba forums application, you will need to
  grant our applet a certain number of privileges. Our applet is
  signed to reassure you of its authenticity and safety. You can
                   trust our applet.

with their terms of use:

   c.ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF
     THE SERVICE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND THAT YOU WILL
     BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS
     OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL.

   d.NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU
     FROM WIMBA OR THROUGH OR FROM THE SERVICE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY
     NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THE AGREEMENT.

 15. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY 

    YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT WIMBA SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR
    ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY
    DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS,
    GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF WIMBA HAS BEEN
    ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM: (i) THE USE OR
    THE INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE; ...

---

From: "James P. Salsman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 12:09:49 -0700 (PDT)

Matt,

Thanks for your message:

>      THE SERVICE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK...

When is the last time a so-called "self-extracting archive" 
(more and more of which are actually unsigned installer applications) 
asked and respected your permission to read your files?  The 
microphone in Java is probably in the same category of file sources 
as the file system.  I wish Sun would have the good sense to make 
microphone input a seperate sandbox security category so that systems 
like Wimba wouldn't have to ask for multiple seemingly unrelated and 
forboding-sounding permissions.

How do you reconcile the use restrictions at www.tutor.com (e.g., 
against Cuba and wherever else the U.S. State Department says) with
articles 26 and 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Cheers,
James