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.
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)
Might this have had a negative impact on Slashdot if the decision had been against Yahoo? Perhaps even as far as banning AC posts?
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.
It knows who you are. If you moderate and then post anonymously(via the checkbox) in the same thread, your moderation is undone.
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.
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.
My interpretation of this: If you've got an account, there's the account data to be subpoenad. (Spelling?) I think the only thing you have to give that's _real_ when setting up the account is the e-mail address. There are ways of making that hard to trace, but the FBI has sometimes been able to force "anonymous" services into giving up their users. Or they could put a tracer into /. so that the next time you open it, it will record the IP address, etc. Cmdr Taco might not be overly cooperative with this, but maybe they've got a decent hacker on their side...
If you're an anonymous coward (and you can log out and become one anytime), then apparently the only thing identifying you is a cookie and a log that's erased every 48 hours or less. So if you want to make sure you remain anonymous, use an anonymizer, erase cookies afterwards, and try to keep it low-key enough that they won't react within 48 hours.
Of course, I'll give a scurrilous attack by someone unwilling to even put his screen name behind it the weight it deserves...
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.
Just don't do it in the UK where they can throw you in jail for forgetting the decode key!
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
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.
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.
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?
"Note: This is not a message board."
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
"If someone's lawyers attacked, would slashdot's database record the actual poster's ID, or does the act of checking the button completely sever the poster's real id? For that matter, is the data truly anonymous (whether the box is checked, or it is posted from a non-logged in person) or does it track your IP address and other data (browser info, whatever.) "
A lawyer friend of mine told me that the BEST way to protect my users, and my site (which is a radio message board, which draws a lot of ire from supporters of Clear Channel Communications) is to NOT keep such information.
I delete IP logs. I do not KEEP such information on record. The best defense is to not keep information around to be subpoened or discovered.
It's unfortunate that more sites don't take the same stance. But, Yahoo!, et all, RELY on tracking their users for marketing purposes, which removes protection from users.
BTW, since Slashcode is GPL software, all it would take is an examination of the source code to find out if any such "secret tracking" of anonymous cowards exists in the code. I'm not a programmer, unfortunately, so I can't do this.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
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.