Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.
kcurtis writes "According to the Boston Globe article, a federal judge is refusing to reveal the identities of 23 chat room users accused by a bankrupt dot-com of posting critical messages to drive its stock price down. About time."
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple.
After that, it's all learned.
It's not intuitive. It's instinctive. ***BIG***
difference.
--
Re:The thing I don't get...
by
Pig+Hogger
·
· Score: 2
..is why most sites track the information in the first place.
For example does Slashdot dispose of all logging for anonymous
users within 24 hours, etc? The strange thing is that while many
organizations throw their arms up and claim that they're poor
victim of a legal system gone awry and they sure wish they could
hide the users better, the fact that they've logged away lots
of idenfitying information instantly betrays that.
Some 5 years ago, I connected the company of a friend of mine
to the Internet. He then re-offered full ISP-like connectivity
to neighbours in the building and later, to some of his clients.
Being the neato geek I am, I wrote neat scripts to carefully
automagically archive the system logs. When my friend saw that,
he went into hysteric fits and demanded that I SCRAP all
system logs every week Of course, I wondered why...
You notice the number of conspirato, err, posters was 23. The judge recognized this, as this was obviously a ploy by the Illuminati to hurt this company for not toeing the line in their part of the NWO.
It was all just a big conspiracy, and the judge let them off to save his own neck.
The judge ruled that 2Mart.com didn't provide enough evidence that the chatters were implicated. How does this provide 'guidance' for anyone? The judge just said, "You don't have enough evidence." He didn't say what enough evidence would be (or did he, and the sound bite article didn't bother to mention that.) The lawyer at the bottom of the article seems a little to optimistic. If this 2Mart had a little more clout than a bankrupt dot-com, we could look forward to an immediate overturn on the appeal. The company probably hasn't decided if they will appeal because they haven't been able to convince their lawyers that there will be a payday even if they do win.
I still have two more questions, though:
1)Where does the First Admendment guarantee the right to be anonymous? I understood that it gives everyone the right to speak, not the right to not suffer any repurcussions from what they have to say.
2)How do you profit from someone's stock tanking unless you're a competitor? If the price goes down, and you hold stock, don't you lose money regardless of how much anyone else loses?
-- Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Re:How will this help?
by
Hilary+Rosen
·
· Score: 2
2)How do you profit from someone's stock tanking unless you're a competitor? If the price goes down, and you hold stock, don't you lose money regardless of how much anyone else loses?
It's called shorting. Basically you borrow stock from someone else and sell it. When they want it back you buy some. Read up on it at The Motley Fool (about two thirds of the way down that page). They don't like it because there's unlimited potential losses. --
-- Yes, the nick is flamebait
Significant result, but get it straight . . .
by
werdna
·
· Score: 2
This opinion did not hold that you can do anything you want to do anonymously, and that the First Amendment provides complete protection for any speech. What distinguishes this case from other cases involving discovery of speakers from an ISP is that the anonymous speaker was not a subject of any claim brought forward in the lawsuit.
Usually, the subject of a subpoena where disvovery is sought is the "John Doe" defendant of a cause of action, be it copyright infringement or defamation. The opinion didn't address that question at all.
Instead, the Court held, intensely properly IMHO, that unless more than mere innuendo is alleged against an anonymous speaker, the privacy of the anonymous speaker must be respected -- even in matters of judicial discovery.
Re:Misreading the First Amendment - again
by
rjh
·
· Score: 2
Unfortunately, Ed, the poster is quite right. The First Amendment does protect anonymous political speech, just as it protects attributed political speech.
What the First Amendment does not protect is speech that is devoid of artistic, political, scientific or social value--such as libel. Such speech falls outside the purview of First Amendment protections a priori, and as such the question ot whether or not the First Amendment protects anonymous speech such as these is just trivial.
The Supreme Court has made it absolutely clear: the First Amendment protects speech, both attributed and unattributed, insofar as the speech possesses some sort of redeeming quality.
If I want to anonymously post a webpage about how Slashdot sucks, and I make my case with such withering accuracy that Slashdot's ad revenue drops off by fifty percent, would Slashdot have any legal recourse to force my ISP to divulge my identity?... Probably not.
Depends on whether or not my ISP can afford a court battle. And that's a far different legal issue.
Re:Anonymous Benchmarks?
by
Stonehand
·
· Score: 2
No. Because some very specific charges -- violates of EULA/breach of contract could be directed at you to justify the revealing of identity.
In this case, the judge labelled the company's case as mere innuendo -- the viewpoint being that there IS a standard which justifies removing anonymity, and they hadn't met it.
Zilly said Thursday he agreed with 2TheMart attorneys that ``rights to speak anonymously are not unlimited.'' But he said the company's reasons for wanting the names were not sufficient, saying the firm made no direct claim against the users, except for ``innuendo'' they had manipulated the stock.
This appears to imply that if they wanted to charge the users with some sort of criminal conduct, they would reveal the names. Being semi-anonymous doesn't give people the right (or the ability) to break the law. I'm not implying they did, but if they were being charged, the authorities will do their best to discover their identities, and, if (as in this case) they are known, they will release them -- no matter how much "right to anonymous speech" people think they have. The reason they weren't released is because the judge wasn't convinced the need for their names was great enough, and they weren't being charged with anything, but simply used as evidence.
-Puk
Misreading the First Amendment - again
by
Speare
·
· Score: 2
"``The First Amendment clearly applies to the Internet,'' Zilly said. ``The law says that a person has a right to speak anonymously.''
One, the First Amendment does NOT say that you have a right to speak anonymously.
Two, the right to privacy (and thus limited anonymity), comes from the FOURTH amendment, a security within their persons, houses, papers and effects; also the FIFTH amendment precludes your being compelled to supply information about yourself or your conduct, metaphorically this can be read as an extension of the fourth amendment into your thoughts: 'your brain cannot be seized and searched, you are secure within your mind.'
You are *always* to be held accountable for your actions; there is no right to being free from accountability. If there was a John Doe suspect, and a specific legal criminal charge, then the court could and would hear the case of whether or not the two were in fact related.
-- [.sig file not found ]
Re:Misreading the First Amendment - again
by
Speare
·
· Score: 2
In an important case for privacy and free speech advocates, the
Supreme Court ruled recently that the First Amendment protects
anonymous political speech. In McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission,
decided April 19, 1995, the Court struck down an Ohio law that required
the disclosure of personal identity on political literature.
The case you link regards whether or not a handbill on a political issue must include a signature. The First Amendment says you can say (and not say) whatever you want. Thus, the handbill author can decide to omit his or her signature from what he says, and the law cannot compell that signature on that handbill.
If the handbills had been libelous, however, the identity of the author could have been legally vulnerable. Libel is not a protected speech, it is an infraction of the laws, and the perpetrator of libel cannot legally remain anonymous.
-- [.sig file not found ]
Re:Misreading the First Amendment - again
by
acceleriter
·
· Score: 2
One, the First Amendment does NOT say that you have a right to speak anonymously.
Turns out the Supreme Court disagrees with you. See this.
And, of course, those rights don't come from any constitutional amendments. We were all born with them; they are only acknowledged in the Constitution.
--
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I'm not so sure that this is what we want
by
BierGuzzl
·
· Score: 2
Before people go spouting off, congratulating the judge on this momentus ruling, I hope we also step back and evaluate what the implications of this decision are. Privacy and anonymity are not the same.
If a company goes out of business simply because 23 people are bad mouthing them, that doesn't sound like a very stable company to me. What a lame attempt to get out of a shareholder lawsuit.
I get on the stock message boards on Yahoo! all the time. People bad mouth stocks or hype the hell out of them constantly. It's been going on for a long time.
It would take a little more evidence than what was presented in this case to have cause to identify the "chatters"
The judge only refused to release the identities of the people because they were not accused of anything criminal by the company, just a suspicion of "innuendo" to drive down stock prices. Posting copyrighted Scientology texts IS illegal under current copyright and trade secret laws.
Ruling: Prove Crime First
by
alexhmit01
·
· Score: 4
This doesn't let you break the law and remain anonymous. It says that you can't get the identity so that you can prove the crime. This is VERY important.
Previously, you could file a BS lawsuit against John Doe, then subpeona the identities to identify John Doe. This allowed harassment.
What this does mean, however, is that if the SEC wanted to investigate, they could get the names.
Realize this case: the shareholders are suing that the stock ran up for a company on the verge of bankrupcy. None of the actions of these individuals caused the company to go bankrupt. The company's inability to have Cash>0 did so.
The shareholders aren't suing that the price dropped. And if the company's business plan required a certain stock price, well, that's their problem. Public companies should be able to function regardless of share price.
The judge didn't rule that you can't reveal names, merely that you can't without a compelling reason. If there was evidence of a crime, they'd be released.
For example, if the company compiled a list of short sellers, they could probably give the list to the chat room operators and demand the identities of anyone matching that list.
The burder is on those wishing to reveal the names, as it should be.
A securities firm lends you stock, which you sell immediatly. Suppose stock XYZ is currently at $40 a share. You borrow 100 shares, sell them at $40 each, and get $40,000. Then, at some point in the future, you have to give that firm back 100 shares of XYZ
If the stock goes up to $50 a share, then when you repurchase that stock to give back to the firm, it will cost you $50,000, resulting in a net loss of $10,000.
However, if the stock goes down to $20 a share, then you will make $20,000. Even better, if the company goes bankrupt, the stock becomes worthless, and you make a full $40,000.
People who short stock are known as "bears." This is why a down market is called a "bear market." "Bulls" are those who buy stock the normal way. The statue of a bull and a bear locked in combat in front of the NYSE building, of course, symbolizes the struggle between these two factions in the investment world. The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
-- "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I'll sell you 100 shares of any company you want that has stock trading at $40/share. Because I like you, I will charge you only $39,000 for this stock.
You may then sell them to whoever is willing to pay $40 large for them, and make a reasonable profit while you're at it.
The appropriate moderation for my post is -1 troll, none of this offtopic/overrated crap please.
> A "bull" market is one which charges ahead full
> strength -- duh, like a bull.
Well, maybe. The origins of "bull" in this
context are far from clear.
> A "bear" market is one which runs out of
> strength and seems to hibernate like a bear. It
> will come back eventually, but for the time
> being it's dead to the world.
Nope. Bear markets are indeed named after the
"bears", the people who sell short, who prosper
in such markets, not the other way around.
The older, more full name is "bearskin jobbers",
referring to an old proverb, "Don't sell the
bearskin before you've caught the bear"--which,
of course, is exactly what a short seller does.
The Judge's name is Thomas Zilly. 2*3=6, the number of letters in his first name, and 2+3=5, the number of letters in his last name. He is obviously an agent of the Illuminati himself.
Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
-- "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
This is why you should never listen to investment advice from anonymous sources. If you hear a rumor that
Sun is about to buy Corel, it could easilly be a Corel holder who wants to dump their stock, but is hoping
buy-out rumors will cause a small surge in the price.
More often, people will spread negative information about a company because they are trying to sell it short.
(Selling a stock short is when you borrow shares from a broker, sell them, wait for the stock to go down, buy the shares back, and return them to the broker. It's legal).
Like you said, NEVER believe what you read on stock boards, and never make investment decisions based on rumors.
wishus ---
Re:Problems with Anonymity...
by
Golias
·
· Score: 2
The way to protect yourself from liability is this:
If you host a chatroom, newgroup, slashcode-driven site, whatever... set up your system so that it is technically impossible for you to determine who posted what. Make sure any and all logs are deleted daily.
If there is no record anywhere which ties an anonymous note to a name, you can cooperate fully with the investigation, saying "here is all the available information. If you don't believe me, then here is a perfect mirror of my server for you to inspect as much as you like," and you will still be revealing nothing.
(The other type of "shorting" is when you agree to sell at a certain price on a certain future date with a buyer, wait for the stock to go down, then go out and buy the shares you promised to sell to them.)
Unless you know enough about the company to be a "market maker" on a stock, or you have inside information, selling short basically ammounts to high-stakes gambling. I would not reccomend the practice to Joe Average. You would probably end up trying something desperate (like illegally spreading negative information in investment chat rooms) to avoid losing your shirt... sooner or later.
If you like that sort of game, go with a fund that does it professionally and leave the driving to them... But I would suggest not even doing that unless you know exactly what you are getting into.
Disclaimer: If you took what I just wrote seriously, you missed my main point, which is that advice from unknown strangers is useless. All of what I said about the risks of shorting stocks is investment advice from somebody you have never meet so you should ignore it and talk to an advisor you trust, face-to-face, about these issues.
Okay, you came right out and said you were trolling, but you are not all that far off the mark.
Publicly trashing companies you want to buy, or talking up companies you are about to sell, is one of the oldest investment scams in the book. The SEC strictly regulates, this sort of behavior. (The guys over at Motley Fool got into quite a fracas ovet this stuff a few years ago... As their old service on AOL became popular, it became a great toold for stock value manipulation: Spread a little FUD about Ford, watch the stock drop, buy low, then go back and fill up the posting boards with glowing praise about how Ford has turned around and is a great value now. Then sell after it bounces back. Rince. Repeat.)
This is why you should never listen to investment advice from anonymous sources. If you hear a rumor that Sun is about to buy Corel, it could easilly be a Corel holder who wants to dump their stock, but is hoping buy-out rumors will cause a small surge in the price.
Were these people scam artists, or just typical opinionated newsgroup posters blowing off steam about a company they disliked?
The line between free speech and illegal market manipulation is not as cut and dried as some people might like to think.
..is why most sites track the information in the first place. For example does Slashdot dispose of all logging for anonymous users within 24 hours, etc? The strange thing is that while many organizations throw their arms up and claim that they're poor victim of a legal system gone awry and they sure wish they could hide the users better, the fact that they've logged away lots of idenfitying information instantly betrays that.
And there is nothing (though note that IANAL) legally requiring these "paper trails" to be logged away by thousands of sites, yet if you do log it then ironically you ARE responsible for it: It's like a self-imposed police state. An example of reaction to this is how a lot of corporations are imposing a "destroy the evidence, before it BECOMES evidence" mandate: Have a policy telling people to delete all emails older than a month/year/whatever, and you have no problems. Leave them hanging around and watch the subpoenas come flying in the door while you provide evidence against yourself about years old skeletons in the closet.
Those Heroical Anonymous Cowards!
by
ackthpt
·
· Score: 2
I'd like to buy them all a drink, now if you'll all just tell me your names...;-)
--
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:Something I learned a long time ago...
by
acceleriter
·
· Score: 2
Actually, you don't have to qualify it with "in my opinion." Jerry Falwell lost a case against Hustler in which he sued for being named "Asshole of the Month." The court opined that it was fairly obvious they didn't mean that Falwell was literally an asshole.
--
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Microsoft has to find another way out...
by
Calle+Ballz
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· Score: 2
In the year 2010 when microsoft goes bankrupt due to a worldwide bluescreen, their case against 20,000,000 anonymous chatroom users trying to drop their stock over the coarse of 20 years will no longer work for them, as proved in the article.
Problems with Anonymity...
by
MadCow42
·
· Score: 2
I agree... "anonymous" posts should remain anonymous, and sysadmins should go to great lengths to make sure they stay that way. However, it brings up the question of whether or not a sysadmin should allow anonymous posting at all, because of the liability questions...
I'm facing a similar dilemma... I'm going to post a "Postcard" feature on my website (Keyword: Fuckoff), but want to ensure that users KNOW that they can be tracked down, so that overly-abusive posts don't get sent unless the poster is willing to take responsibility for them.
Sure, there's always disclaimers and things, but if somebody gets hurt in the process, and the person who originated the damaging message can't be tracked, I'm sure that I'd be the one on the hook...
Anonymity is great, unless you're using it to willfully hurt other people. Then you should stand up and take responsibilty.
MadCow.
-- I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
This is a two-way street...
by
Gruneun
·
· Score: 2
The right to voice your opinion is absolutely guaranteed by the Constitution. The right to voice it in a way that will avoid criticism should be protected, too.
That said, when you represent your opinion, as an inside source of a company, you are no longer voicing an opinion anonymously. An anonymous opinion on a subject doesn't start with "I was in the mailroom and heard..."
Allowing someone to make statements like the ones made in this case, to cause a business harm, is no better than allowing someone to accuse a person of a crime anonymously. The Constitution provides protection against that, too.
Re:Something I learned a long time ago...
by
Zeinfeld
·
· Score: 2
Jerry Falwell lost a case against Hustler in which he sued for being named "Asshole of the Month."
That was not the principal cause of action in the case. Hustler could have won the 'asshole' allegation on factual grounds alone. Falwell is a racist bigott who has made a fortune out of persuading little old ladies to send him their life savings to 'do the work of Christ' - standing up in front of a TV screen persuading little old ladies...
I can't remember the principal allegation that Falwell sued over but seem to recall it involved maternal incest.
--
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Stupidest company that did something of the sort is ZixIt corporation, a dotcom that still has to make any revenues.
The original business plan for ZixIt was to make money out of a CyberCash like payment system called ZixCharge. To build a market for the wallet they planned to distribute a free email security application called ZixMail.
The CEO of the company, David Cook said 'sell your shares if we don't have partners for ZixCharge by the end of the year'. The year being 1999 ended with no partners. Instead the firm brought a suit against Visa corporation claiming that a Visa employee had 'disparaged' the company and its products on the ZixIt Yahoo newsgroup. For a long time the posts were available from the ZixIt web site. They got pulled after folk pointed out that independent observers might consider that Paul Guthrie (the Visa employee) might well have given an honest opinion about a product he considered to be rubbish.
The lawsuit goes on, the company still has no revenues. The latest plan is to charge $24 a month for ZixMail. Problem here is that the products that ZixMail add security to all have S/MIME encryption built in.
--
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Re:No future for these judges
by
Zeinfeld
·
· Score: 2
The only way you can think G.W. Bush is a threat to the internet and Privacy is if you're a knee jerk liberal who doesn't care to find out the facts.
Or you could be a knee jerk liberal who thinks that Bush is an untrustworthy liar who said anything that would get him elected.
Remember that Bush tried to get gwbush.com closed down during the campaign saying 'there ought to be limits to freedom'.
The promise to be a uniter not a divider was broken when they used the Supreme Court to stop the election count in Florida. The promise to put a cap on green house gases was broken when the check from the oil industry trade association made it into the campaign fund.
Let us see which way Bush jumps on the issue of online copyright. If he does not do the bidding of the people with the fattest wallets it will surprise me greatly.
--
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Re:Something I learned a long time ago...
by
Zeinfeld
·
· Score: 3
With that said, if I were to say "Bill Gates is an asshole", he could sue me for defamation of character, however, if I add those three precious words "in my opinion", he cannot touch me no matter how many attorneys he can afford.
Untrue on both counts. In the first place the statement 'Bill Gates is an Asshole" would be defensible in the US since 1) Bill Gates is a public person and 2) the statement is a statement of opinion and not fact.
Simply adding 'in my opinion' does not make it an opinion, nor for that matter does adding the word 'alleged'. Unless a reporter is reporting on an allegation that has already become known stating that an allegation has been made has the same effect as making the allegation.
For example stating 'Bill Gate is a peadophile' would be actionable even if followed by 'in my opinion' or preceeded by 'it is alleged' since it is a statement of fact. Because he is a public persona Gates is considered to have less protection than a private individual would. However the statement would be clearly made 'with actual mallice' so the public interest defence fails.
Of course in the UK there was a time when a man could pay a prostitute $3000 on a London station platform and subsequently be awarded a multimillion dollar award for damages after newspapers alleged that he had sex with the woman. Today said Jeffrey Archer is facing perjury charges at the Old Bailey and if convicted looks like serving a serious stretch of prison.
--
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The difference between speech and crime...
by
CoachS
·
· Score: 2
I think the determinent factor here is that there doesn't seem to have been much evidence that the rumors were false, that they were deliberately misleading or that there was a conspiracy.
If there was clear evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the chat roomers then I would support discovering their identities. Under the circumstances I think the judge made the right call.
Just because somebody says something you don't like doesn't mean they lose their right to anonymity.
-Coach-
-- Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
Slashdot Mirror
And there was much rejoicing
<CHEER> Yay </CHEER>
*waves small flag*
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
It's not intuitive. It's instinctive. ***BIG*** difference.
--
Some 5 years ago, I connected the company of a friend of mine to the Internet. He then re-offered full ISP-like connectivity to neighbours in the building and later, to some of his clients.
Being the neato geek I am, I wrote neat scripts to carefully automagically archive the system logs. When my friend saw that, he went into hysteric fits and demanded that I SCRAP all system logs every week Of course, I wondered why...
IANAL, but my friend's wife is...
--
Hail Hail! Hail Yes!
You say you want a revolution....
You notice the number of conspirato, err, posters was 23. The judge recognized this, as this was obviously a ploy by the Illuminati to hurt this company for not toeing the line in their part of the NWO.
It was all just a big conspiracy, and the judge let them off to save his own neck.
You say you want a revolution....
1 for us, 12987398731893271 for corporate america.
put on your rally caps!
BilldaCat
The judge ruled that 2Mart.com didn't provide enough evidence that the chatters were implicated. How does this provide 'guidance' for anyone? The judge just said, "You don't have enough evidence." He didn't say what enough evidence would be (or did he, and the sound bite article didn't bother to mention that.) The lawyer at the bottom of the article seems a little to optimistic. If this 2Mart had a little more clout than a bankrupt dot-com, we could look forward to an immediate overturn on the appeal. The company probably hasn't decided if they will appeal because they haven't been able to convince their lawyers that there will be a payday even if they do win.
I still have two more questions, though:
1)Where does the First Admendment guarantee the right to be anonymous? I understood that it gives everyone the right to speak, not the right to not suffer any repurcussions from what they have to say.
2)How do you profit from someone's stock tanking unless you're a competitor? If the price goes down, and you hold stock, don't you lose money regardless of how much anyone else loses?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
This opinion did not hold that you can do anything you want to do anonymously, and that the First Amendment provides complete protection for any speech. What distinguishes this case from other cases involving discovery of speakers from an ISP is that the anonymous speaker was not a subject of any claim brought forward in the lawsuit.
Usually, the subject of a subpoena where disvovery is sought is the "John Doe" defendant of a cause of action, be it copyright infringement or defamation. The opinion didn't address that question at all.
Instead, the Court held, intensely properly IMHO, that unless more than mere innuendo is alleged against an anonymous speaker, the privacy of the anonymous speaker must be respected -- even in matters of judicial discovery.
Unfortunately, Ed, the poster is quite right. The First Amendment does protect anonymous political speech, just as it protects attributed political speech.
... Probably not.
What the First Amendment does not protect is speech that is devoid of artistic, political, scientific or social value--such as libel. Such speech falls outside the purview of First Amendment protections a priori, and as such the question ot whether or not the First Amendment protects anonymous speech such as these is just trivial.
The Supreme Court has made it absolutely clear: the First Amendment protects speech, both attributed and unattributed, insofar as the speech possesses some sort of redeeming quality.
If I want to anonymously post a webpage about how Slashdot sucks, and I make my case with such withering accuracy that Slashdot's ad revenue drops off by fifty percent, would Slashdot have any legal recourse to force my ISP to divulge my identity?
Depends on whether or not my ISP can afford a court battle. And that's a far different legal issue.
No. Because some very specific charges -- violates of EULA/breach of contract could be directed at you to justify the revealing of identity.
In this case, the judge labelled the company's case as mere innuendo -- the viewpoint being that there IS a standard which justifies removing anonymity, and they hadn't met it.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Zilly said Thursday he agreed with 2TheMart attorneys that ``rights to speak anonymously are not unlimited.'' But he said the company's reasons for wanting the names were not sufficient, saying the firm made no direct claim against the users, except for ``innuendo'' they had manipulated the stock.
This appears to imply that if they wanted to charge the users with some sort of criminal conduct, they would reveal the names. Being semi-anonymous doesn't give people the right (or the ability) to break the law. I'm not implying they did, but if they were being charged, the authorities will do their best to discover their identities, and, if (as in this case) they are known, they will release them -- no matter how much "right to anonymous speech" people think they have. The reason they weren't released is because the judge wasn't convinced the need for their names was great enough, and they weren't being charged with anything, but simply used as evidence.
-Puk
"``The First Amendment clearly applies to the Internet,'' Zilly said. ``The law says that a person has a right to speak anonymously.''
One, the First Amendment does NOT say that you have a right to speak anonymously.
Two, the right to privacy (and thus limited anonymity), comes from the FOURTH amendment, a security within their persons, houses, papers and effects; also the FIFTH amendment precludes your being compelled to supply information about yourself or your conduct, metaphorically this can be read as an extension of the fourth amendment into your thoughts: 'your brain cannot be seized and searched, you are secure within your mind.'
You are *always* to be held accountable for your actions; there is no right to being free from accountability. If there was a John Doe suspect, and a specific legal criminal charge, then the court could and would hear the case of whether or not the two were in fact related.
[
Before people go spouting off, congratulating the judge on this momentus ruling, I hope we also step back and evaluate what the implications of this decision are. Privacy and anonymity are not the same.
If a company goes out of business simply because 23 people are bad mouthing them, that doesn't sound like a very stable company to me. What a lame attempt to get out of a shareholder lawsuit.
I get on the stock message boards on Yahoo! all the time. People bad mouth stocks or hype the hell out of them constantly. It's been going on for a long time.
It would take a little more evidence than what was presented in this case to have cause to identify the "chatters"
EOM
The judge only refused to release the identities of the people because they were not accused of anything criminal by the company, just a suspicion of "innuendo" to drive down stock prices. Posting copyrighted Scientology texts IS illegal under current copyright and trade secret laws.
This doesn't let you break the law and remain anonymous. It says that you can't get the identity so that you can prove the crime. This is VERY important.
Previously, you could file a BS lawsuit against John Doe, then subpeona the identities to identify John Doe. This allowed harassment.
What this does mean, however, is that if the SEC wanted to investigate, they could get the names.
Realize this case: the shareholders are suing that the stock ran up for a company on the verge of bankrupcy. None of the actions of these individuals caused the company to go bankrupt. The company's inability to have Cash>0 did so.
The shareholders aren't suing that the price dropped. And if the company's business plan required a certain stock price, well, that's their problem. Public companies should be able to function regardless of share price.
The judge didn't rule that you can't reveal names, merely that you can't without a compelling reason. If there was evidence of a crime, they'd be released.
For example, if the company compiled a list of short sellers, they could probably give the list to the chat room operators and demand the identities of anyone matching that list.
The burder is on those wishing to reveal the names, as it should be.
Alex
If the stock goes up to $50 a share, then when you repurchase that stock to give back to the firm, it will cost you $50,000, resulting in a net loss of $10,000.
However, if the stock goes down to $20 a share, then you will make $20,000. Even better, if the company goes bankrupt, the stock becomes worthless, and you make a full $40,000.
People who short stock are known as "bears." This is why a down market is called a "bear market." "Bulls" are those who buy stock the normal way. The statue of a bull and a bear locked in combat in front of the NYSE building, of course, symbolizes the struggle between these two factions in the investment world.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
More often, people will spread negative information about a company because they are trying to sell it short.
(Selling a stock short is when you borrow shares from a broker, sell them, wait for the stock to go down, buy the shares back, and return them to the broker. It's legal).
Like you said, NEVER believe what you read on stock boards, and never make investment decisions based on rumors.
wishus
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If you host a chatroom, newgroup, slashcode-driven site, whatever... set up your system so that it is technically impossible for you to determine who posted what. Make sure any and all logs are deleted daily.
If there is no record anywhere which ties an anonymous note to a name, you can cooperate fully with the investigation, saying "here is all the available information. If you don't believe me, then here is a perfect mirror of my server for you to inspect as much as you like," and you will still be revealing nothing.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
(The other type of "shorting" is when you agree to sell at a certain price on a certain future date with a buyer, wait for the stock to go down, then go out and buy the shares you promised to sell to them.)
Unless you know enough about the company to be a "market maker" on a stock, or you have inside information, selling short basically ammounts to high-stakes gambling. I would not reccomend the practice to Joe Average. You would probably end up trying something desperate (like illegally spreading negative information in investment chat rooms) to avoid losing your shirt... sooner or later.
If you like that sort of game, go with a fund that does it professionally and leave the driving to them... But I would suggest not even doing that unless you know exactly what you are getting into.
Disclaimer: If you took what I just wrote seriously, you missed my main point, which is that advice from unknown strangers is useless. All of what I said about the risks of shorting stocks is investment advice from somebody you have never meet so you should ignore it and talk to an advisor you trust, face-to-face, about these issues.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Publicly trashing companies you want to buy, or talking up companies you are about to sell, is one of the oldest investment scams in the book. The SEC strictly regulates, this sort of behavior. (The guys over at Motley Fool got into quite a fracas ovet this stuff a few years ago... As their old service on AOL became popular, it became a great toold for stock value manipulation: Spread a little FUD about Ford, watch the stock drop, buy low, then go back and fill up the posting boards with glowing praise about how Ford has turned around and is a great value now. Then sell after it bounces back. Rince. Repeat.)
This is why you should never listen to investment advice from anonymous sources. If you hear a rumor that Sun is about to buy Corel, it could easilly be a Corel holder who wants to dump their stock, but is hoping buy-out rumors will cause a small surge in the price.
Were these people scam artists, or just typical opinionated newsgroup posters blowing off steam about a company they disliked?
The line between free speech and illegal market manipulation is not as cut and dried as some people might like to think.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
..is why most sites track the information in the first place. For example does Slashdot dispose of all logging for anonymous users within 24 hours, etc? The strange thing is that while many organizations throw their arms up and claim that they're poor victim of a legal system gone awry and they sure wish they could hide the users better, the fact that they've logged away lots of idenfitying information instantly betrays that.
And there is nothing (though note that IANAL) legally requiring these "paper trails" to be logged away by thousands of sites, yet if you do log it then ironically you ARE responsible for it: It's like a self-imposed police state. An example of reaction to this is how a lot of corporations are imposing a "destroy the evidence, before it BECOMES evidence" mandate: Have a policy telling people to delete all emails older than a month/year/whatever, and you have no problems. Leave them hanging around and watch the subpoenas come flying in the door while you provide evidence against yourself about years old skeletons in the closet.
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Hugs and kisses, Microsoft
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Actually, you don't have to qualify it with "in my opinion." Jerry Falwell lost a case against Hustler in which he sued for being named "Asshole of the Month." The court opined that it was fairly obvious they didn't mean that Falwell was literally an asshole.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
In the year 2010 when microsoft goes bankrupt due to a worldwide bluescreen, their case against 20,000,000 anonymous chatroom users trying to drop their stock over the coarse of 20 years will no longer work for them, as proved in the article.
I'm facing a similar dilemma... I'm going to post a "Postcard" feature on my website (Keyword: Fuckoff), but want to ensure that users KNOW that they can be tracked down, so that overly-abusive posts don't get sent unless the poster is willing to take responsibility for them.
Sure, there's always disclaimers and things, but if somebody gets hurt in the process, and the person who originated the damaging message can't be tracked, I'm sure that I'd be the one on the hook...
Anonymity is great, unless you're using it to willfully hurt other people. Then you should stand up and take responsibilty.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
The right to voice your opinion is absolutely guaranteed by the Constitution. The right to voice it in a way that will avoid criticism should be protected, too.
That said, when you represent your opinion, as an inside source of a company, you are no longer voicing an opinion anonymously. An anonymous opinion on a subject doesn't start with "I was in the mailroom and heard..."
Allowing someone to make statements like the ones made in this case, to cause a business harm, is no better than allowing someone to accuse a person of a crime anonymously. The Constitution provides protection against that, too.
That was not the principal cause of action in the case. Hustler could have won the 'asshole' allegation on factual grounds alone. Falwell is a racist bigott who has made a fortune out of persuading little old ladies to send him their life savings to 'do the work of Christ' - standing up in front of a TV screen persuading little old ladies...
I can't remember the principal allegation that Falwell sued over but seem to recall it involved maternal incest.
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The original business plan for ZixIt was to make money out of a CyberCash like payment system called ZixCharge. To build a market for the wallet they planned to distribute a free email security application called ZixMail.
The CEO of the company, David Cook said 'sell your shares if we don't have partners for ZixCharge by the end of the year'. The year being 1999 ended with no partners. Instead the firm brought a suit against Visa corporation claiming that a Visa employee had 'disparaged' the company and its products on the ZixIt Yahoo newsgroup. For a long time the posts were available from the ZixIt web site. They got pulled after folk pointed out that independent observers might consider that Paul Guthrie (the Visa employee) might well have given an honest opinion about a product he considered to be rubbish.
The lawsuit goes on, the company still has no revenues. The latest plan is to charge $24 a month for ZixMail. Problem here is that the products that ZixMail add security to all have S/MIME encryption built in.
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Or you could be a knee jerk liberal who thinks that Bush is an untrustworthy liar who said anything that would get him elected.
Remember that Bush tried to get gwbush.com closed down during the campaign saying 'there ought to be limits to freedom'.
The promise to be a uniter not a divider was broken when they used the Supreme Court to stop the election count in Florida. The promise to put a cap on green house gases was broken when the check from the oil industry trade association made it into the campaign fund.
Let us see which way Bush jumps on the issue of online copyright. If he does not do the bidding of the people with the fattest wallets it will surprise me greatly.
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Untrue on both counts. In the first place the statement 'Bill Gates is an Asshole" would be defensible in the US since 1) Bill Gates is a public person and 2) the statement is a statement of opinion and not fact.
Simply adding 'in my opinion' does not make it an opinion, nor for that matter does adding the word 'alleged'. Unless a reporter is reporting on an allegation that has already become known stating that an allegation has been made has the same effect as making the allegation.
For example stating 'Bill Gate is a peadophile' would be actionable even if followed by 'in my opinion' or preceeded by 'it is alleged' since it is a statement of fact. Because he is a public persona Gates is considered to have less protection than a private individual would. However the statement would be clearly made 'with actual mallice' so the public interest defence fails.
Of course in the UK there was a time when a man could pay a prostitute $3000 on a London station platform and subsequently be awarded a multimillion dollar award for damages after newspapers alleged that he had sex with the woman. Today said Jeffrey Archer is facing perjury charges at the Old Bailey and if convicted looks like serving a serious stretch of prison.
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If there was clear evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the chat roomers then I would support discovering their identities. Under the circumstances I think the judge made the right call.
Just because somebody says something you don't like doesn't mean they lose their right to anonymity.
-Coach-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
"``The First Amendment clearly applies to the Internet,'' Zilly said. ``The law says that a person has a right to speak anonymously.''"
Great. The First Amendment clearly applies to the Internet.
Does that mean that a person has a right to speak anonymously about DeCSS?
I keep getting such a mixed message from our legal system.