Cyberlibel Damages Awarded In Canada

mszeto writes "The Globe And Mail is reporting that an Ontario judge has awarded an archaeologist 125k$ in damages after someone smeared her using email. According to the lawyer: 'People seem to think there is a level of anonymity to e-mail and the Internet. And that it's a lawless area. And clearly it is not, nor should it be.'"

Comments

Uh oh.. this could be a bad precident..

[brxndxn]

I hope the spammers don't all sue me for sending out millions of emails that say all spammers are evil and that spam should be ignored!

Re:Uh oh.. this could be a bad precident..

[Thangodin]

The problem with spam is not that people might buy the product. The damage to me has nothing to do with that. It's the time I waste and the bandwidth I pay for that they steal. It's also the fact that spammers are the money behind most of the viruses, spam relays bots, etc, which are jamming the web and costing us billions of dollars. A lot of the large cyber-criminal organizations got their start by working for large spam operations.

And stuff like the Nigerian scam is a crime. The letter itself is evidence of fraud, if they can catch those that sent it.

Lies!

[Anonymous Coward]

"People seem to think there is a level of anonymity to e-mail and the Internet."

Ha!

Re:Lies!

[Saeger]

Dear "Anonymous" Coward,

We logged your HTTP POST packet enroute to slashdot.org as it hopped across our "PATRIOT2 blackboxes", which are installed at the border of most ISPs, as required by anti-terrorism law.

Your IP is 149.101.1.32 and our reverse records indicate that your name and address is none other than ... oh, sorry, we didn't know it was you Sir. Excuse the intrusion and consider your logs erased for "national security" reasons.

Sincerely,
Stormtrooper #98562
New World Order, SubFloor 145

--

Except that email can be forged

[Gothmolly]

SMTP headers can be forged. Windows machines can be 0wn3d. Any Tom, Dick, or Vladimir can set up a rogue SMTP server, claim to be Yahoo! mail, and start spewing email.
You can't nail someone to the wall until you have a means to prove that they did what you claim.

Re:Except that email can be forged

[iii_rjm]

So can papers and signatures. What is your point?

Re:Except that email can be forged

[Peyna]

That's why they have neat things like trials and juries that determine what the facts are and make decisions based on that.

Re:Except that email can be forged

[kentmartin]

Or what about simply SPF.

Seriously, there has been enough noise made about it lately. I jumped on to set up SPF in all of about 10 minutes, it really was that simple.

Since then I have been using the Thunderbird Extension for Sender Policy Framework as a quick and easy way to see which and how many domains publishing SPF records and have noted a few interesting things.

Namely, depsite the fact that MS wants their own standard to be thrown out into the marketplace (namely Sender ID), they are publishing SPF records on both Microsoft.com and on Hotmail.com. If I was the kind of guy who used the word "kudos" I would say "Kudos to them". I am no more of a fan of MS than anyone else here, but, those two domains alone represent a not insignificant percentage of spam floating around that can be fairly simply removed with a mail server reconfig. AOL is also publishing, so well done there.

Gmail are as well of course, but would you expect any less?

Yahoo are not, which amazes me - I realize they want to push DomainKeys, but, I see no reason for them not to be publishing SPF records as well.

The one that absolutely staggered me though was Citibank.com. I recall reading somewhere (no link sorry, but a quick google illustrates the point) that something like half all the phishing emails floating about are aimed at Citibank. For the sake of a few minutes, they could at least give people who want to, a surefire way of rejecting all phishing emails at MTA time. They must have among the crappest DNS admins on earth, or some very bad policy makers.

I shall end this spiel with a request. If you administer a DNS, and you relay, or can easily relay through known machines every time (which would be about 99% of us), then please publish SPF records. You don't have to use other people's records yourself to reject mail - just publish your own records so that other can reject mail that is purportedly from you, but isn't.

The nice thing about all this from the running a receiving MTA perspective, is you can phase it in. Pretty soon, I will be rejecting all mail that is fails SPF checks, but still accepting for people that don't yet publish records.

So please, do it now, jump over to the SPF link at the top of this mail - there is a webform there which dumbs down creating your SPF record as much as it can be dumbed down, and actually gives you a line to paste into your zone file.

Spam could be all but gone in a week for those who want to reconfigure their mail servers to reject it if those records are publish. Imagine that - effectively wiping out spam almost instantly!

If you won't do it for me, do it for the children, oh won't somebody please think of the children.....

Re:Except that email can be forged

[lachlan76]

It is harder to make convincing forgeries than it is to setup an SMTP server.

Mental Note:

[mekkab]

Use anonymous re-mailer before slandering colleagues. Also, remove personal sig with my name, tele number, and address, too.

Mr. Gates is a big fairy!

-- /s/

Robert M. Shankely
348-8347
234 Niam St.
Provo, Utah.

Yay for the courts

[metalhed77]

I don't see anything at all controversial about this ruling.

Re:Yay for the courts

[belmolis]

I think that a pretty severe penalty is called for, for two reasons. First, the impact on Cheryl Ross was quite serious. Universities generally take such ethical issues very seriously. She could have lost her job and been made unemployable as an archaeologist. Furthermore, native bands are very sensitive about anything to do with human remains. Even an unproven allegation could have interfered with her ability to do research. In other words, this was not simply calling her a bad name; it could have ended her career. Secondly, according to the article Holley didn't just spout off in a moment of anger. He actually went to the trouble of falsifying evidence. In other words, what he did was premeditated and unquestionably dishonest. If somebody deliberately falsified evidence in an attempt to destroy your career, I bet you'd think they should pay a pretty severe penalty.

This is wrong.

[zerguy]

I think that "cyberlibel" punishments are wrong for one very simple reason:
It is exceptionally easy to frame someone. I could easily send you an email with a return address of Bill Clinton. It's as easy to forge as the return address on regular mail. If someone claiming to be me went and slandered a bunch of people, should I be punished? Absolutely not. That is why this sort of thing should not be allowed until we have a reliable method for tracing emails (which we almost certainly never will.)

What are the facts of the case?

[mekkab]

If the "alleged" author actually admits to writing the e-mail, then cyber-libel becomes regular, boring, plain-ol' libel.

This article doesn't give us enough detail.

However if you are being "framed" it should be trivial for even the most junior of lawyers to cast enough resonable doubt on the e-mails authenticity.

A voice from 1982...

[Baldrson]

From a 1982 white paper concerning cyberlibel:

For example, if a libelous communication takes place, corporate lawyers for the plaintiff will bring suit against the carrier rather than the individual responsible for the communication. The rationalizations for this clearly unreasonable and contrived position are quite numerous. Without a common carrier status, the carrier will be treading on virgin ground legally and thus be unprotected by precedent. Indeed, the stakes are high enough that the competitor could easily afford to fabricate an event ideal for the purposes of such a suit. This means the first legal precedent could be in favor of holding the carrier responsible for the communications transmitted over its network, thus forcing (or giving an excuse for) the carrier to inspect, edit and censor all communications except, perhaps, simple person-to-person or "electronic mail". This, in turn, would put editorial control right back in the hands of the feudalists. Potential carriers' own lawyers are already hard at work worrying everyone about such a suit. They would like to win the battle against diversity before it begins. This is unlikely because videotex is still driven by technology and therefore by pioneers.

The question then becomes: How do we best protect against such "legal" tactics? The answer seems to be an early emphasis on secure identification of the source of communications so that there can be no question as to the individual responsible. This would preempt an attempt to hold the carrier liable. Anonymous communications, like Delphi conferencing, could even be supported as long as some individual would be willing to attach his/her name to the communication before distributing it. This would be similar, legally, to a "letters to the editor" column where a writer remains anonymous. Another measure could be to require that only individuals of legal age be allowed to author publishable communications. Yet another measure could be to require anyone who wishes to write and publish information on the network to put in writing, in an agreement separate from the standard customer agreement, that they are liable for any and all communications originating under their name on the network. This would preempt the "stolen password" excuse for holding the carrier liable.

Well, something like this is now happening in Finland.

The ruiling didn't throw out reasonable doubt...

[Senjutsu]

So don't get your shirt in a knot. All the ruiling did was establish that, yes, if you can show beyond a reasonable doubt that John Smith sent the message, "It was just the internet" is not a reasonable defence against Libel charges.

easily circumventable?

[wrinkledshirt]

IANAL, but I had to read up on this stuf in journalism classes. Couldn't the person have created one of those free anonymous web pages hosted in a foreign country with the libelous accusations, and referenced it with a hyperlink?

"Cmdr Taco eats babies" -- libelous

"Cmdr Taco eats babies, says Scandinavian Web Page" -- fair game?

Re:easily circumventable?

[wrinkledshirt]

But he does eat babies...

Heh, actually, there was (still is?) a provision in Canadian libel laws that said it didn't matter if you were reporting facts, but whether or not you were using those facts in an attempt to maliciously defame someone. Hard to prove that you're NOT doing this, and worse yet, the burden of proof that this was not the purpose of the published story relied upon the publisher. Good for curbing tabloid-style trash journalism, not so good for (eg) pointing out illegal practices by big Canadian-based companies in other countries.

Libel chill was (still is?) a big factor in Canadian media. It didn't matter if you were reporting a valid, newsworthy story. If the person being reported upon had deep pockets, and sensed that a story could hurt their image, they could lean on you to make sure that the story didn't come out. Worse yet, some smaller newspapers with intrepid reporters might have to have stories killed at the editorial level because the editor could sense what would or would not end up with a lawsuit landing on their doorstep.

Ooooh Guess what folks...

[Richard_at_work]

The internet is NOT immune to law, this person was libeled, and proved it in court. The judge did as he would do in any other libel case and awarded damaged to the victim, just because this is involved the internet does not make it any different to any of the other thousands of cases that go on each year in courts around the world.

Now, people will say 'oh, but email is notoriously unreliable for purposes of tracking down the origionator', but in most cases that isnt true. You can track email back to the server that sent it, and in this case the victims lawyer managed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this message origionated from the defendant. And the fact that the defendant didnt even bother turning up to defend himself isnt a plus point in my humble opinion.

Caveat Lector

[Doc Ruby]

But maybe it should be different. Libel in a signed, reputable publication is much more damaging than in anonymous email, as long as the readers can tell the difference. Which we still can. Email is likely to remain 99% crap, like everything else, so this victory really belongs to the old media, which now are judged according to the lower bar of email.

Re:A scary prescedent?

[LurkerXXX]

You better be careful, or he will sue you. Then in a few hours, he will forget he'd done it, and he'll sue you again. Dupe lawsuits!

Re:A scary prescedent?

[twoshortplanks]

I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it that's "fair comment" - at least under my (UK) law anyway. By that I don't mean that I agree with you, I mean that saying that is fine (as it's an opinion and could only be said as.)

For example, you could say that CmdrTaco does a crap job at running slashdot (that's fair comment, some people might agree, other's might not) but saying that he's crap because he's never had any computer training would be libel (after all, he majored in computer science.) In short, you're stating a fact that isn't true. Like saying someone robbed graves when they did not.

In short, you can mouth off, but if you say something that isn't true....well, google is always watching.

Re:Remember kids:

[Frogbert]

Microsoft is shit.

Re:Canada has loose libel right though?

[twoshortplanks]

Yes and no.

The burden of proof is on the defendant to prove what they wrote was true, but obviously this only happens after the plaintiff has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did indeed write what they are accused of writing.

This is obvious. If someone libels me by writing that I committed a crime, then I don't have to prove that I didn't commit that crime in order to sue them - before they throw around accusations like that they have to be able to prove what they said (or I'd be considered guilty until proven innocent.)

Yeesh

[g0at]

Do we need to cyberinvent new cyberterms whenever an event occurs that has to do with computers?

-b

What are the odds she never collects?

[Proudrooster]

I am not from Canada and don't know the legal system there and was wondering what are the odds the plantiff will acutally collect the damages? In America you can sue and get a judgement, but collecting the judgement is a whole different matter.

In fact, the Goldman's still can't get O.J. Simpson to pay up the 33 million dollars they won from him in a civil trial after the death of their son. I know that a judge can issue a bench warrant or declare someone in contempt for not showing up or paying, but that never seems to amount to much since the police don't actively try to find and arrest the person.

Re:The ruiling didn't throw out reasonable doubt..

[Peyna]

Beyond a reasonable doubt, in a civil trial? What are they smoking up there in Canada?

Usually the standard of proof in civil cases is "a preponderance of the evidence" or "more likely than not."

Re:A scary prescedent?

[Spad]

Correct, you can claim that CmdrTaco is an asshole without any legal worries. However, if - for example - you claimed that he was an asshole because he was using the Slashdot subscription money to fund his drug habit, then you would open yourself up to a libel lawsuit.

Re:I think the question on all our minds now is...

[MikeXpop]

He already did

Re:Uh oh.. this could be a bad precedent..

[damiangerous]

Considering that defamation in the form of libel/slander is defined as "issuance of a false statement about another person, which causes that person to suffer harm" I don't see how that could be the case. There are perhaps jurisdictions where saying harmful but true things are actionable but those are, by definition, not libel/slander.

Re:Remember kids:

[jd]

No, that's libel, as it's defamatory and untrue. Shit can be used to fertilize the soil, adding much-needed nutrients, recycling the waste productively. Rose gardeners, especially, benefit from shit.