Conference thebay::joyoflex

    This is what users of the CLT cluster at ZK see when logging in:
    
         Unauthorized Access is Prohibited
         
    
Username:    

       How about the idiotic road signs that say '$100 fine for litering'?
    I guess if I had $100 bills to liter with, it certainly would be
    fine with a lot of people.
    
       I also saw a sign near a drawbridge once that warned 'Do not
    cross when open'.  How stupid do they think people are?  Maybe I
    shouldn't ask!
    
    Ray

re: .0
    
>              UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO THIS NETWORK PROHIBITED
    
This is particularly interesting because it can be taken as either redundant, 
as .0 notes, or incomplete, as in "Unauthorized access prohibited what?"

Clay

RE. .2:

But metrification is always expensive. :-)

Larry

    Sorry, I wouldn't do this in any notes file but this one ...
    
    Jeff.

    Re .last_couple:
    
    How metrifying!
    
    Stece Kallis, Jr.

    	The problem with the "welcome" messages was the result of some
    U.S. law case where a hacker was acquitted on the grounds that he
    was not intruding, because he had been "welcomed" to the system.
    
    	Now system managers are trying to strike a balance between 
    "Go away you nasty little brute", which may be slightly offensive
    to authorised users, and anything which sounds the least bit
    encouraging to unauthorised users.
    
    	Perhaps we should start another topic for a competition for
    the best wording to meet this dilemma.

Elsewhere in this file, I already commented on the sign

	NO TRESPASSING

It's *sort of* redundant.  "Trespassing" means violation of bounds already,
so presumably the "no" isn't needed.

On the otherhand, if someone were friendly, and welcomed your unannounced
wandering, they wouldn't put up a sign saying

	TRESPASSING O.K.

or

	WE WELCOME TRESPASSERS

Such messages wouldn't work, since by definition, if you have permission
to be there, you're not trespassing.  Hence you're not doing what the
sign says you may !  (Perhaps you're doing something they don't like instead)

Anyone else appreciate what's troubling me in this matter ?

/Eric

    Re: .-1
    
    I've seen notices that get round this problem by saying
    
    	TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
    
    But whoever wrote the notice didn't consider some legal nicety
    (English Law) about prosecution and civil law. I'm not sure,
    but think the way it works is this: "prosecution" only takes
    place in criminal proceedings (where cases are called "Regina
    versus <alleged_miscreant>" rather than "<irate_citizen> versus
    <alleged_trampler_over_civil_rights>".  The Crown prosecutes
    people, individuals just sue each other.  And as trespassing
    (on its own) isn't a criminal offence, no trespasser can ever 
    be prosecuted unless the Crown alleges some other offence. 
    
    Maybe there's some arcane crime like "Trespass in a Naval Dockyard"
    (where almost anything is a capital offence); if so, I've never
    heard of it.
    
    bob

    

    Even where trespass has been made a crime by legislation, the phrase
    has problems in any "innocent until proven guilty" jurisdiction.
    
    	No person could be a trespasser unless they had been convicted
    	  of the crime of trespass (based on "innocent until proven
    	  guilty")
   
    	No person could be convicted of the crime of trespass until
    	  they had been prosecuted for trespass.
    
    So maybe 
    
    	TRESPASSERS HAVE BEEN PROSECUTED
    
    would be more precise.  Not meaningful, but more precise.
    
    Clay
    
    

    Re .10:
    
    When I was in Huntsville, some friends of mine had a game room with
    the following sign:
    
                      Welcome to the Playboy Room
    
                     TRESSPASSERS WILL BE VIOLATED
    
    Well, I never saw any tresspassers enter _that_ room.  :-)
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    In 1973 my wife and I were working for the summer as a mother's
    helpers on Chappaquidick (sp?).  The house was where one would end
    up if you missed the proper turn (non-turn, actually) for Teddy's
    bridge.  We had many unexpected visitors.  Finally, we put up a
    sign, the most prominent part of which read: 
    
    		TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIOLATED
    
    It was my wife's idea, but I dont know if she claims to have
    invented, or only to have remembered it at the right time. 

    Re .10:
    
    Not having been convicted of trespassing does not make one not a
    tresspasser.
    
    
    				-- edp 

    Re: .10
    
    One can be a trespasser without being a _convicted_ trespasser,
    just as one can be a murderer without being a convicted murderer.
    Why confuse the act with its official recognition?
    
    Bernie

Re 414.13 (et al):

Precisely - I don't see what the big deal is here. The sign
saying "Trespassers will be prosecuted" merely states that
if you trespass you *will* be prosecuted - which is not implied
by any definition of "trespass". "Trespass" just means some boundary
has been violated, and does not imply that any punishment *will* be
meted.

...Rob

    Re: .15
    
    The big deal is that the statement made in .10, viz:
    
       No person could be a trespasser unless they had been convicted
       of the crime of trespass (based on "innocent until proven
       guilty")
    
    is nonsense.
    
    
    [By the way, when I entered my reply to .10, I did not realize that edp
    had already addressed the point.]
    
    Bernie
          
    

That reminds me of a serious question I've had for awhile.  Consider:

	POLICE TAKE NOTICE

Is this a sign instructing police to take notice ?

Or is it a sign warning me that police will notice what I do ?

/Eric

    
    re trespassing:
    
    	A long time ago, a church near where I leved posted a
    	sign on the lawn:
    
    		Thou shalt not Trespass
    
    	clever, and not to be left unchallenged.
    
    	Late at night, I snuck onto the church lawn and taped
    	an addendum below the sign:
    
    		Forgive us our trespasses
    
    	-Glinch.
    
    	

And then of course, Wol in Winnie the Poo, posted a sign reading:

	TRESPASSERS W

which I've always liked.  Just ambiguous enough to be interesting.

Larry

      Back to the original topic.
      
      No, I don't think that 'unauthorized' automatically means
      prohibited.  An 'authorized' activity or individual is one for
      which someone (with "authority") has explicitly given permission.
      There are some activities which are permitted even without
      explicit permission.   (E.g., walking into the lobby of almost
      any Digital site, during normal business hours is permitted
      to anyone without any prior authorization.)
      
      Of course, there are some situations in which all activities
      are prohibited unless specifically authorized, but there are
      situations, too, where all activities are allowed unless
      specifically prohibited.   (E.g., the US military seems to
      have this attitude.)
      
      So 'unauthorized' doesn't necessarily mean 'prohibited,' and
      the warning
      
             UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS PROHIBITED
      
      means that specific authorization is required for access.

    Well, we seem to have discussed all kinds of legal and semantic
    issues in this note, but so far we are missing any samples of what
    the title calls for, namely "recursive notices".
    
    Here is an example which contains almost literal recursiveness -- and
    in another sense I too may be committing recursion, since I believe I 
    filed it in another note many months ago -- if so please forgive me.
    
    As a teenager in England I traveled to school every day by train, and
    used to observe a sign posted by the London Midland and Scottish
    Railway on their station in Poynton, Cheshire. The intention of the sign 
    was presumably to dissuade people from taking a dangerous short cut
    across the tracks from one platform to another, but the effect was somewhat
    spoiled by the fractured grammar:
    
	    PASSENGERS MUST NOT CROSS THE LINE ONLY BY THE FOOTBRIDGE

  And I saw a different one when I was returning to Heathrow in the Tube:
  
                 Passengers, please do NOT cross the lines --
  
                     It takes us hours to untangle them.
  
  
  							Terza
  
  

    I was rewarded yesterday with the message "Internal consistancy error".
    
    Since an error _inside_ "consistancy" is an "Internal 'consistancy'
    error", the message is pretty much correct.
    
    
    				-- edp 

    There's always the VMS message corresponding to status code 0, which
    more or less, asserts that it isn't a message...
    
    
    
    %NONAME-W-NOMSG, Message number 00000000
    
    
    -dave

    In the U.K., if you don't pay your electricity bill you get a red
    'notice' that begins:
    
    	IGNORE THIS NOTICE IF YOU HAVE RECENTLY PAID YOUR BILL.
    
    -- so I suppose you always have to read on...
    
    Richard.