Slashdot Mirror
Right to Post Anonymously Protected
JudTaylor writes " ZDNet has an article decribing a decision by a Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge allowing Yahoo to protect the privacy of posters to message boards.
Lee Tien, an white hat attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated "This is a great victory for anonymous speech. I believe Judge Cabrinha's ruling will signal to other companies that judges will not permit corporate executives to abuse the courts in ferreting out their critics." Critics of Pre-Paid Legal Services had posted messages disparaging the company on Yahoo boards. Representatives of the company had no immediate comment." I'm glad to see a decision for freedome can still happen in this country.
Yahoo, as a corporation, is expected to act as an entity, much like you or I. And if you or I took the time and effort to make a bulletin board system and wanted to allow anyone to post to it anonymously (or at least, as anonymously as possible), then it is within our rights.
The court got this one right. No one can force Yahoo to turn over these identities and no one can tell Yahoo not to allow anonymous posting. This entire matter should have been tossed out of court as frivilous in the beginning.
My sigs always suck.
Can I now post goatse.cx links and not get yelled at?
That's funny, because I have no other way of identifying who you are. Therefore, you are posting anonymously. Try standing by your own words.
I'm glad to see a decision for freedome can still happen in this country.
Amen to that, brother! For far too long we noble citizens have been paying way to much for our domes. It's high time we made them free! Dome lovers of the world, Unite(d Center)!
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
which is a Unix clock-time of 1/1/70 12:00:00.
err, close... the time would be 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Hammer of Truth
I support free dome as well, but most girls aren't that eager to dish it out.
Oh, wait, that's a typo?
Damn.
Maskirovka
Is a White Hat Attorney one who works for the EFF or can any non-ambulance chaser qualify?
simonpeter.org | simonpeter.com | techbook.info
Might this have had a negative impact on Slashdot if the decision had been against Yahoo? Perhaps even as far as banning AC posts?
I use fake names for everything, including message boards, product registration, whatever....
The only way to track me would be to get my IP address, but most message boards don't show that information, even if it is in the server logs. (And rightly so.... sysadmins should still be able to keep your IP on record, even if your post is supposed to be "anonymous". It's just like calling the police from a payphone. If you want to be truly anonymous, use a PC at a library in addition to using fake information.)
Dave
The reason we see US courts so sympathetic to anonymous speech is because of the Federalist Papers which written in the late 1780s (or so) to create support for adopting the US Constitution. It turned out the anonymous authors were Hamilton, Madison, and Jay.
However, it is also a sort of case where giving the poster a chance to respond before outing him seems to be critical -- maybe what you think is insider info had already leaked out, or never was much of a secret. E.g., his response might be to cite pg 27 of the Wall Street Journal the day before he posted, or something like "I am not a corporate officer and do not have inside information about sales. My posts were based on the observed, public facts that sales have been falling for two years and the company still hasn't come up with a new product that will keep working throughout a sales demonstration, therefore sales are going to continue dropping."
if I were setting up a posting scheme, I'd hash the IP address using a cryptographic
;^)
;^)
hash and post it so I could tell anonymous posters apart...
Or at least if a poster with a real name was using anonymous posting to try to make a
not-so-clever post that bombed so bad they didn't want it attributed to them...
Oh wait, sorry
Yeah right. Like you have some RIGHT to post anonymously to MY server. The case tested the right to defend anonymous postings from being exposed due to court order, not everybody's right to post everywhere anonymously. RTFA.
m00.
Its [sic] true, thats probably the earliest recorded date of 'First Post!' being posted.
31 years ago?
Hammer of Truth
Good ruling. I'm celebrating by posting anonymously and bad mouthing everyone, everywhere, for all time: You suck! God, I love this country!
What if some of the anonymous posters had been indeed posting trade secrets or posting defamatory statements ("Pre-Paid workers eat alive children for lunch on every sunday, poison their bones and then give those to dogs!!! Really!" or some crap like that)? Where do you draw the line between protected free speech and unprotected abuse of it?
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
m00.
Simple. In all the cases that protected anonymous postings, none of them have given total protection. What they've said is that you wouldn't be able to force the revelation of the poster's identity just because you made an allegation, you have to prove that the posting was, for example, libel first. So you protect yourself by sueing John Doe for libel and proving he did libel you, then ask the court to force the message board to reveal his actual identity now that you've proved he did commit libel. And if you can't prove he committed libel, you've no legal grounds for demanding that he sign his name to it.
As for the ISP, you can get it removed by proving that the material itself is defamatory. You don't need to know who posted it to do that.
I suppose this is good, but it seems to me that as long as I don't say anything libelous, I sould be able to say anything I want about a company, my congressman, president etc, _AND_ attach my name to the comment. Does not the right to free speech protect me still if I use my real name? -Bob
Try working for them and you'll have a different perspective.
Don't mention that perspective in your email or telephone conversations, though, or it'll be in management's hands momentarily.
I agree!
71st pr0st
Astroturf!
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
I'm have Pre-Paid Legal and I've found it to be well worth the $25/month. I call my lawyers practically every week on some issue and have thrice had nice letters with a two-inch letterhead sent to companies who immediately fixed my problems.
I've yet to actually be sued and use my primary coveraged, but as far as I'm concerned it is a good deal. But I'd be interested in knowing what problems other people are having.
I tried searching Yahoo but I end up with a bunch of categories and can't seem to find a place to search posting or wherever these complaints took place.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I'm glad to see a decision for freedome can still happen in this country.
Please focus your venom on the problems, not on the country as a whole.
I don't know, that's about 31 years ago, which would make it 1970. Could be the first First Post, but was there no message board system active back then even in the recesses of a large university?
Might one have theoretically responded to a discussion topic with "First Post!"? Or is that just a theoretical thing that could have happened, but didn't, much like the giant mechanical spider in Wild Wild West?
BAHAHA...and me without modpoints. Damn, that made my day.
I believe that in the US, it's illegal to send spam without meeting certain restrictions (providing a valid removal address to prevent future spamming, for example), though I'm prepared to stand corrected on that one.
Start standing; that bill never passed either house of Congress.
I'm glad to see you still have the freedom to mispell "freedom".
I'm glad to see a decision for freedome can still happen in this country.
I can't blame you for wanting to do your due diligence on PPL. One place I can tell you to go is www.richdad.com. They have a whole forum dedicated to MLM and network marketing opportunities. Read that forum and you should be able to find some online sources for PPL.
The reasons why many MLM and network marketing organizations try to restrict online advertising is to reduce the amount of spam that is circulated, and to preserve the person-to-person contact that has made this business popular and profitable. Depending on the organization, the penalty for not adhering to advertising guidlines could be as severe as having your rights to your distributorship revoked.
Whether or not information should be free is a different question.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
IMHO, anonymous comments should have less protection from censorship/moderation. How else could I persuade an ISP to remove defamatory material from their site, when no-one is willing to defend it?
That would explain why the value is continually increasing.
As a respectable communist child-molesting telemarketer, I take GREAT offense at being called a scientologist! My law firm, Cheatem, Screwem and Lye, will be contacting you shortly.
I bid you good day.
This bug has been reported already, 277168 hours, 16 minutes ago. No need to report it again.
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
We must not stand for this! We must DEMAND that people show themselves! We must OSTRACIZE any who dare post anonymously for the cowards they are!
Call your congressperson immediately and DEMAND that in the future, only judges who will not let cowards hide behind anonymous postings be appointed.
Are we saying that the "Information Wants To Be Free" includes my personal medical information? My personal legal information (the status of divorce proceedings should be public???) My consumer habits/profile information should also be free?
I think this is one of those "free as in beer" distinctions that we have to draw. The "Information" that wants to be free are ideas, methods, processes, software, things that Slashdotters believe should not be patented or owned, but shared by all. My doctor/lawyer/marketing information should NOT be part of this "information"
So getting back to the initial thread, lawyers who decide to defend our individual liberties and rights to privacy do deserve the "White Hat" moniker. Attorney/Client priviledge should have nothing to do with this.
Benbox
>Well, at least he used the apostrophe correctly.
...and they say we live in a time of lowered expectations!
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
You can now write anonymous messages on the web, not just brick walls and bathroom stalls.
Seems like a silly comparison, but think about it. Without anonymity on the web, where else can you express a thought when you have concerns for your safety or future?
Perhaps those that argue no one should have the "right" to speak anonymously due to liable risks should re-think their priorities and think through where this will lead us. It is only natural that people will attribute more veracity to attributable news than it ever will to anonymous postings. Nothing wrong with that. This is a good thing.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Now I can keep recieving anonymous spam!!
Damn double-edged swords.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
All of which fall into "moving targets" at one point or another....
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Although not IRON CLAD the anonymous server I run can stop almost everyone from Finding out who the originator of the message was. Including me! Although a lot of this lies on how the user uses the site. This is do to the fact that the server uses encryption and can use chaining to bounce e-mail or usenet posts through several remailers before the destination is reached. I have been asked by LEO's , AG's, and DA's (Asked being a nice way to put it.) for logs. As I do not have logs for more than about 4 days, there are no logs to turn over. Even the logs I have do not show where the messages came from or where they were going they simply show incoming and outgoing mail. There are no laws that require a site or business to maintain logs of people who look at there site or use the sites services.
Posted, ironicly, by the Anonymous Coward....
m00.
Slashdot sucks! CmdrTaco is dylsexic moron! And the rest of the Slashdot staff are goatfarmers!
:-)
The courts have also ruled dictionaries and spell-checkers are completely legal, Taco. :)
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
In some parts of Europe, an opt-in policy exists, or is very likely to exist shortly. I believe that in the US, it's illegal to send spam without meeting certain restrictions (providing a valid removal address to prevent future spamming, for example), though I'm prepared to stand corrected on that one. Many spamming companies must be breaching UK data protection legislation, since they send me details they have obtained that, it could be argued, could be used to personally identify me. Under these sorts of conditions, almost all of the spam mails I received in the past week would be illegal in some places at the moment. If (please!) our beloved governments ever get around to enacting sensible anti-spam laws, this position will become even more conclusive.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Ah, but the problem here is not an ethical one, but a logistic one. Priests and doctors keep confidences in order to preserve their clients' privacy. Even if a priest is bound by his faith not to disclose a confession of an illegal act, I don't think there is any priest out there who would work to try to get his confessee to turn himself in.
On the other hand, lawyers do this to preserve their client's 'innocence' in front of a court, even if that person actually has done what they're being accused of. In many cases this is essential to a client's privacy and safety, but in many cases, both criminal and civil lawyers are required to ignore facts in order to best represent their client.
I had a conversation recently with a friend from high school who got in pretty serious trouble with the law while I was away at college. He told me that his defense attorney told him not to tell him if he had done what he was accused of or not. While this 'suspension' of ethics is professionally responsible, my opinion is that an ethical attorney would have instead advised his (guilty) client to pleade guilty and then try to get him off with as light a sentance as possible.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
1st Amendment lawyer for the KKK.
It's about time someone stood up for the goatse.cx guy! Poor guy's just trying to beatiful ASCII art, no harm in that... ;^)
We dance to all the wrong songs.
--Refused.
SYNOPSIS
#include
time_t time(time_t *t);
DESCRIPTION
time returns the time since the Epoch (00:00:00 UTC, Jan
uary 1, 1970), measured in seconds.
If t is non-NULL, the return value is also stored in the
memory pointed to by t.
Electronic bulletin boards are an easy way to voice your opinion on any topic. In the dead-tree version, you can leave your name off the submission. Why should electronic bulletin boards be any different?
At first this seems like a victory for anonymous speech, but then you begin to realize that instead of suing the poster, they will just sue the message board provider for creating an anonymous forum for defamation in the first place.
If some people have the right to post anonymously, then I want to have a tag inserted in that post so I can automaticly shit-can such posts. That includes e-mail. My philosophy is that if you have something to say to me, then you should be open to responses. An anonymous post (e-mail) cannot be replied to if there is no return address. Just my $0.02 worth.
"Note: This is not a message board."
So I take it you are against data havens such as Havenco in Sealand. You think freedom is ok withing limits, but "too much" freedom is a problem. Don't worry, your in the majority. Most Americans don't want freedom. They believe that the price of freedom is simply too high to pay. Order is more important. Next you'll want to outlaw payphones (without picture ID scanners) as well as cash. It's old news. Only criminals benefit from anonymity, right?
...it's yet another reason that we can't believe anything posted anywhere. Now anyone with a grudge is free to say "Joe Blow of Joe's Carpentry shop talks to lima beans and eats babies". Anonymous speech is great, but accountability has its virtues too.
Last post!
we're not afraid of your sorcerous ways.
plibth.
Tried to get first post, but instead got:
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 277168 hours , 16 minutes ago. No need to try again.
The freedome is an Open Source version of the Thunderdome from Mad Max.
Nope, not in my dictionary.
The Commander was having an off day.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Its true, thats probably the earliest recorded date of 'First Post!' being posted.
Remember its never a bug its a feature.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Isn't that really what makes the web what it is? Think about it.
yes me must pursue a free and open sourceFREEDOME!
FREE DMITRY! FOR THE DOME! FOR FREEDOME!
Photos.
...I propose that all subsequent replies on this article should be made as "Anonymous Coward".
Maybe they use Linux, then they're 'Red Hat'.
I'm glad to see a decision for freedome can still happen in this country
/. got was the firewall, so now I can't post anything. Seems like a bit of a violation of this liberty you talk about.
Is this a hypocritical statement Taco?
Lets look at your site. If I post an article anonymously, it gets moderated down 5 times, I get a temporary ban. Now if I was "truely" anonymous, you couldn't figure out who to ban, right? You store IP addresses, so aren't you breaking your own anonymous posting rules? Not much freedom there, eh hypocrit?
A reason why I bring this up, is because of a contract I had a few months ago at a large company. Some dufus kept writing anonymous trolls, and got the IP tempbanned. Since the company had a huge firewall system, the only IP
Now I know that this is taco's server, and isn't true freedom, but for an advocate of freedom, you kinda expect some "practicing what you preach", right?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I think this brings up an important ethical question for anyone designing public forums (fora?) on the web -- if you allow anonymous postings, you must make it clear to users if you save any item of information that could lead to disclosure of their identity -- IP address, referer, username, etc.
Until there are enough of these encouraging court cases to set an iron-clad precendent, people must be told if information about their identity is going to get stored with an 'anonymous' post.
Of course, the truly paranoid (hello, slashdot readers!) already know to go through anonymizing services to prevent this kind of backtracing. But average users will appreciate knowing whether or not it is even possible to reconstruct their identity from saved information about an anonymous post.
Maybe it would even be possible to sue a site that claimed full anonymity for deceptive practices if they saved an IP address, etc.
A customer service representative will be with me shortly.
Please desist in you unauthorized use of the trademark Freedom(tm). Freedom is a duly registered tradmark of the Stay-Free Maxipad conglomerate and should be treated as such. You have no right to Freedom in korporate Amerika, because it already is 0wned by big business.[*]
/bot kneejerk moderators will mod me up or down for this, whichever, they're gonna be all over this like Mackga on goatse man!
[*] ok, I'm taking bets whether
Just as we've seen in DMCA cases, all the companies have to do is shop for a judge in a friendlier district that doesn't give a crap about online privacy (and there are plenty of them out there). This issue won't be resolved until it is addressed by Congress (almost certainly with undesirable consequences) or the US supreme court (ditto).
We tend to get somewhat edgy when it comes to mingling the internet and personal freedoms, but in this case I am not sure there was any real threat. Revealing an anonymous posting is akin to wiretapping, and since the individual did nothing illegal, the company itself has no recourse. Had there been something illegal going on, the court may have well authorized a 'search warrant' against that machine to determine the perpetrator of the crime. It's great to see that the judge held up the constitutional right to privacy, but it seems to be fairly black and white.
...but who cares.
i've been checking google, but have come up empty so far.
does anyone know what exactly "exercising their First Amendment right to criticize the company" means? what were these people saying to incite defamation lawsuits?
if their right to anonymous free speech is so protected, where have all the records of it gone?
a friend of mine is involved with this company, and it really sounds sketchy to me...as most MLM-type things do. i'd love to be able to cite some links though.
to all you karma whores out there, here's a chance to modded up.
But, I really feel to have true freedom of speech, you need the freedom to be anonoymous.
PS: Taco, I'm all for Freedome, but we need much more freedom before we can fight the freedome war
where does one get one of these free domes anyways?
The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
From the post: white hat attorney
So we're dividing shyst^H^H^H^H^Hlawyers into 'White-hat' and 'Black-hat' categories now, like cowboys or crackrs? I knew a description would come along that would suddenly make legal proceedings make sense.
Wait a second... if ethics are what we use to divide any group into 'Black' and 'White' categories, how can any group that holds holy the concept of client-attourney privalege be anything but 'Black Hat'?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
- Sometimes, an expediant avenue of information transfer is through a human being.
- Sometimes, that human being acknowledges the fact that transfering the information may have consequences to their own person.
- If, however, that person has no other reason to prevent the information flow, and they can evade the consequences, they may transfer the information.
- Anonymity is an excellent evasion for most specified consequences of information transfer.
- Therefore, if somebody knows something, and they can propigate those data, but will only do so if they can escape retribution (for example) for the propigation, and they reasonably can conceal their identity, then anonymity serves the flow of information.
In the long view, the datum of a person's identity is usually much smaller that the data they with to convey. People are screwy, and they mandate this sort of information for information sacrifice.Furthermore, anonymity lifted once discourages future human data avenues from transmitting in the future, since they have a reason to expect that the anonymity is a farce.
In a similar way, priviledge of information encourages it's freedom, since the priviledged party can adjudicate the transmittal of collatoral information that might never have flowed overwise.
Lastly, strict adherence to the "All Information wants to be perfectly free" credo doesn't typify white hat anything. A white hat cracker doesn't distribute your credit card data, out of respect for personal property.
"Information wants to be free" is more properly an axiom than a motto, IMO, anyway. It describes how data behaves; sometimes it's behavior is desirable (for instance, new product releases, security hole updates) and sometimes it is not desirable (any data-based security mechanism), and when it is desired, you get it free, otherwise, be prepared for vigilance.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
Hard enough for me to say "Screw this!" and stalk off to see if my karma got lower on /. If I really want to say something anonymously, I *will* create a freemailer account, but it's an annoyance and takes extra time, especially since I can only get 28.8 here.
What does it say about a company that sells legal services if they can't even win a case in court?
They got what they deserved...
:)
Pre-Paid Legal Services originally set out to silence their critics, but instead managed to get the criticism posted on every geek news forum on the 'net. All they managed to do was to make the world more aware of what the critics are saying
haha
loser
What the hell is so funny about this? I totally agree with that post. Mod him up Insightful.
"Upgrade your grey matter, 'cause one day it may matter." --Deltron Zero
Next door to Thunderdome?
An interesting thing happened at a former job. I used to work for a company that provided capital markets trading services. Someone found a post on a very popular web forum which included information that was *clearly* insider trading information. This is information that could only have come from *inside* the company, and released like this put the entire company in jeopardy with the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) and the SEC (Security & Exchange Commission).
We were under SEC & OCC requirements to track down who posted this thing, or potentially shut down all of our operations. But that wasn't the only pressure. We had an ethical obligation to track this down. A crime was being committed. The ability of this person to continue to post to this forum, enabled them to perpetrate a fraud and steal money from our investors. At the time there was not a single reason that I could think not to try and get this person's identity, and I can't think of a reason now, either. Failure to do so meant that someone (potentially lots of people) lost money (potentially *LOTS* of money).
So, we checked our firewall logs, and found a couple of *possible* leads, but nothing conclusive. After checking as many internal logs as we could find, we came to the conclusion that we had to get the web forums to give us the email address of the person who registered the account. We called the web site, explained that a crime was being committed and politely asked them to provide the identity of the person who posted the comment. They declined, citing their privacy policy.
This is the point where I no longer have first hand experience with what happened. But as I understand it, our attorneys drafted a letter to the web site stating that this information was absolutely required. Eventually, the web site backed down, provided the information. The person who allegedly posted the information was arrested.
I post this here because there seems to be a huge number of folks who seem to think that under every circumstance internet anononymity should be retained... and most of the time I agree. But sometimes it can enable crimes and I think we have to be careful about how far we take the demands for internet privacy.
$.02.
Please, commence with the karma draining moderation.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Dude, how hard is it to open another account with an freemailer address? Ask the editor of Linux Today if you need help ...
b.
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
Anonymous! It had to be said.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Ok, assume you are the in charge of your company's webboard. Maybe this web board is for people to post questions, get answers, provide feedback on products, etc. What if someone annonymously starts posting rumors and lies about the company on the web board? What do you do?
Duh! You give the truth and clear up the rumors yourself. Unless, of course, what is said is the truth. *tongue in cheek* Then you should obviously prosecute those anonymous posters *tongue out of cheek*
Check out Althea for a stable IMAP email client for X. Now with SSL!
Someone spending some time to summerize could make the lawsuit backfire, not only do they go unrevealed, their opinions are spread everywhere...
Does this mean that boards that force you to register must let you post anonymously if you want that option? It could mean deep trouble and changes in the works for them. It could also be a catalyst for renewed flamewars via AC's all over the net.
Why in hell is everyone and every company against Microsoft?! Who cares if only MSN appears on the desktop? It's Microsoft's OS, so why should they have to include stuff from other companies? If AOL and friends want their junk on people's desktop, why don't they write their own OS?! Microsoft worked for a damn long time on their's, no shit little half-assed newcomers can't beat them!
Y'know, when I first glanced at the headline I had to scratch my head and wonder who our mystery protector was...
Only until it gets to the Supreme Court. Enjoy it while it lasts.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
"a decision by a Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge allowing Yahoo to protect the privacy of posters to message boards."
I live to post another day!
-AC
Yup.. the message board web site owners.
He does it on purpose you know.. *Nobody* can spell *that* bad.
Hee jist deos it too git a reeacshus out of yoo al.
air and light and time and space
http://www.cnn.com/2001/fyi/teachers.ednews/08/14/ studentrights.ap/index.html
Quoth the court: "Just don't abuse it too much."
So I guess this kinda cancels out that "victory for freedom" you mentioned.
Freedom of speech is protected, with exceptions.
If an anonymous post threatens terrorism (potential harm to a large body of people) then it's not protected. You can betcherass that the law will be on their tail.
If an anonymous poster threatens to hurt/kill you or someone you love, then it's not protected.
If an anonymous post incites people to riot, there is no first amendment protection.
The law still applied when the printing press became widespread in the 1800s. When the telegraph appeared. Telephone. Grammophone and other portable media. Radio. Television. It still applies to the internet.
However it is up to the citizen to separate fact from fiction.
That's pretty much it for exceptions to freedom of speech. Other than that, you can say anything you want. Pre-Paid Legal wanted to unmask its critics but the postings in question were protected by the first amendment. Fortunately the judge recognized the potential for retribution against the unmasked posters and the detrimental effect on speech. Trade secrets have no constitutional protection, that's why the patent office and trademark office exists. Slander/Libel doesn't apply because the postings didn't originate from a single person.
The founding fathers were well aware of the citizens' right to speak out without fear of retribution and the judge recognized that.
Score one for citizen Joe and the Constitution.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Let's say that someone, anonymously posts criticizing a company. THat company then sues for defamation, trying to get the court to order the ISP to reveal who the anonymous poster was. THey find out, they drop the charges, then fire the employee who posted the comments.
It's an abuse of the legal system; they have no intention of actually suing anyone; they are just trying to find a way to force the ISP to give up the users anonymity.
fine but I still think it's a slimey way to go about things, knocking something anonymously. Have the guts to stand by your words.
I see a serious conflict here, which I don't see how to resolve. Anonymity is necessary. Anonymity is destructive to the basic culture of the net.
I'm not going to disagree with you, but this brings up some questions for me:
What would happen if the insider posted it via a truly anonymous distribution mechanism? Example:a web board that doesn't keep track of the email address, or an anonymous newspaper ad.
In the above cases, would it be right to shut down the message board or the newspaper? Or would the govt. step in and require filtering? And why would anyone believe anonymous information like this? If I post that company X is laying off 500 workers tomorrow, am I in trouble? Is Slashdot?
The key thing here, as far as I can see, is whether the company could go after people who might have defamed the company, violated trade secrets, or whatnot. PPL wanted to get the names before proving any damage was done; and the court rightly stopped them.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Basically, this all comes down to crime. Anonymity lets criminals -- quite literally -- get away with murder. (Yes, really -- remember the site listing doctors in the US prepared to carry out abortions, who were systematically being bumped off?)
This is a flaw in logic. Although it can be used for crime it can also be used for great good. The person (Anonymously) reporting discrimination at the work place. The person (Anonymously) reporting his boss, spouse, brother, cousin, etc for illegal acts. The list goes on. The above statement is like saying that GUNS allow criminals to murder, steal, and escape. With out admitting that it is the person that commits the act not the tool. Anonymity is just a tool. Criminals can and will be anonymous with or with out a law making it illegal!
But not on the forehand as is happening right now with agencies snooping around in John Doe email because he maybe breaking the law. In the old days your privacy where more or less protected by the requirement of a search warrant before they could enter your house.
since Slashcode is GPL software, all it would take is an examination of the source code
Slashcode as distributed on slashcode.com is free software and is distributed with source code. OTOH, Slashcode as used on slashdot.org is free software, but it is not distributed in any form[1]. Not distributing binaries == not required to distribute source code.
[1] I'm not counting distributed computing. "Distribution" according to the GPL refers to transfer of software to another entity, not running the code on multiple load-balanced servers, as Slashdot does.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You don't need to know who the person is to determine if something is a trade secret. This might be similar to the standard for a anti-SLAPP
If you file a libel claim against me, you have to show that the statements made are libelous, before you pull off my mask.
Fight Spammers!
A trial court's ruling has negligible precedential value (at least in the state court system-federal is different). It does not get published. It doesn't bind anyone. Trial court judges in the state courts here in a busy county like Santa Clara frequently have a dozen or more rulings such as this one to make a week. In addition, they might have 30 or more other less significant motions to rule on. So they don't have time to pay as much attention to the legal issues as an appellate court judge does. As a result, reversal on appeal is a definite possibility. Furthermore, this ruling is going to be very fact specific, as it most likely relies on what was posted and the company's motivation for going after the poster. That is, if someone posts something like "Company X sucks. Their products are horrible," Company X has a hard time arguing that its lawsuit is anything other than a screen to subpoena the identity of the poster. But if the post is "Company X CEO John Doe has been convicted of bestiality," the court is much more likely to let John Doe subpoena the identity of the poster.
The judicial system has "seen the light" of this argument and basically agrees, unless you get unlucky and get a bad judge.
Did anybody else notice that this decision came from Santa Clara County, the Home Of Corporate Personhood?? This is the court system that handed every civil right we have, part and parcel, over to corporations, making it possible for them to lobby Congress, hold stock in other corporations, merge without limits and use their "right to free speech" to slaughter our world with ads and market to children.
I'm glad anonymous posting is (momentarily) safe, but somehow it feels like getting flowers from Slobodan Milosevic.
1. Pretty much all of those spam mails you receive every day are illegal, but you all know better than to reply to the "remove" address. (UK residents may now snipe at our Euro-MP who voted for an "opt-out" policy.)
I'm thinking back to the ones I received today, and with the exception of the single cable descrambler one, I can't think of another one that's illegal. Could you please give some examples?
The company would sue and force the web forum to disclose the identity of the offending posters. As soon as they obtained the information, the lawsuit would be dropped and the employee fired. Apparently, this has happened several times, hence major privacy and free-speach concerns.
So, this is a pretty important victory, and it's always nice for the EFF to score a win. Remember to donate to the EFF.
OK, so as a starting principle, let's suppose that anonymity is a Good Thing. It lets people post what they like, without fear of reprisal. Clearly this has benefits, particularly for people living or working under oppressive regimes.
But now, stop and think objectively for a minute, please. How many of the big problems with the internet are a direct result of anonymity? Let me offer some suggestions.
Basically, this all comes down to crime. Anonymity lets criminals -- quite literally -- get away with murder. (Yes, really -- remember the site listing doctors in the US prepared to carry out abortions, who were systematically being bumped off?)
So, while I support the notion of anonymity from the general public, I think it's equally important that lawful authorities can always identify someone using the internet to effect, encourage or facilitate illegal activities. Of course, that runs the risk of encountering downright unreasonable or abusive authorities, but you get that all the time in real life, too. It's a small price to pay for the many benefits that come from letting the police and courts identify someone on-line in cases where it's necessary to achieve the right result.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Fight Spammers!
Don't forget the http://! Or maybe you have the freedome to "Post Anonymously"
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
The Freedome: Two high-powered corporations enter, one high-powered corporation leaves.
goats.com: better than
It violates the "Information Wants To Be Free" concept. As does the decision of the court. After all, if you support "Information wants to be free!" then you have to oppose anonymity. If the poster is anonymous, then the information about his identity is being withheld, and is not free.
Best Slashdot Co
I'm not meaning this or inferring this in any way and I'm actually pretty darn hesitant to type it, but I decide I'll run with it anyway seeing as the article itself says I'm safe :)..
What if someone typed that they wanted to "assassinate the p........" ? NO GOV'T PERSON takes that comment lightly.
After all, what would we be without our freedome? Freecube, perhaps?
You know, I've often wanted that option on our message board myself. (Hey, dethro! How hard would it be to add this option in for the redesign?) A lot of our boards require that you be logged in to post, but anybody can read them. I can understand wanting to keep out the random troll, but once in a while I wish I could reply to someone without having to explain myself or start a war...not that I don't want to accept responsibility for what I say, but sometimes it helps to be anonymous. People are often more likely to listen to the opinion of an 'unbiased stranger' rather than the same advice from someone they know. Strange but true.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
As I recall, under US law publisher's have a wide range of freedom and legal protection from the government, even more so then the average citizen. The law also considers ISP to be publishers (thus exempt from being sued for libel, etc.) I think that if push came to shove, that the message board operators would be granted the same protection.
I just wonder if maybe it'd achieve anything if a few people started suing everyone on the list above them for failing to provide the services that have been paid for :)
Did they also protect the right to post anomymously and
not be called a coward ?
stein
... but the right for anonymous comments to be moderated fairly on slashdot forbidden.
Just look at how many AC's postings have been moderated above level +2 in any slashdot story.
...and look at how this post will never raise above +1.
Freeeeeeeeeedome! Thus was formed the nation of Xanadu.