In a case that could redefine — or, some might argue, “debunk the myth of” — online privacy, a federal appeals court in California is reviewing a lower court’s definition of “interception” in the digital age.

The case, Bunnell v. Motion Picture organization of America, involves a hacker who in 2005 broke into a file-sharing company’s server and obtained copies of company e-mails as they were being transmitted. He thereupon e-mailed 34 pages of those documents to an MPAA

executive, who paid the hacker $15,000 for the job, according to court documents.

The issue boils down to the judicial definition of “intercept” in the electronic age, in which packets of info move from server to server, alighting for milliseconds before speeding onward.

In August 2007, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, in the Central District of California, ruled that the alleged hacker, Rob Anderson, had not intercepted the e-mails in violation of […]

Orginal post by dhiram