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Google Gives Up IP of Anonymous Blogger
An anonymous reader alerts us to a story out of Israel in which Google (its Israeli subsidiary) gave up the IP address of a Blogger user without being compelled to do so by a court. A preliminary ruling was issued in which a court indicated that the slander the blogger was accused of probably rose to the level of a criminal violation. Google Israel then made a deal with the plaintiffs, local city councilmen whom the blogger had been attacking for a year. Google disclosed the IP address only to the court, which posted a message (Google says the anonymous blogger got it) inviting him/her to contest the ruling anonymously. When no response was received within 3 days, Google turned over the IP address to the plaintiffs' lawyers.
Directional Antenna and a 500mw bi-directional amplifier.
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things go better with goatse
Google Gives Up IP of Anonymous Blogger
Sounds like that guy could use a good IP attorney.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
"Do no evil"? Good thing I was using a anon proxy server...
The court order should have come first, but Google ultimately did the right thing. Questions of alleged criminal activity were in play. I'd certainly want the chance to dispute such allegations were they made against me.
...in contrast to Google's vow to protect its users' privacy early last year. Although this is a very different situation...criminal libel instead of general aggregate use data. Perhaps Google cares about its users as a whole but not as individuals.
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
reading the comments mindlessly defending how this is not "evil". Google is now beholden only to investors and the all-mighty dollar. Everything is fair game.
You need to stand up for your views..
Sixty years ago, I worked in what was once my grandfather's greenhouses. Gramps had died a year earlier and Grandma, now in her seventies had been forced to sell to the competition. I got a job with the new owners and mostly worked the range by myself. That summer, they hired a man to help me get the benches ready for the fall planting.
Ike always looked like he was three days from a shave and his whiskers were dirty white, shaded by the brim of his battered felt fedora.
He did not chew tobacco but the corners of his mouth turned down in a way that, at any moment, I expected a trickle of thin, brown juice to creep down his chin. His bushy, brown eyebrows shaded pale, gray eyes.
The old-timer extended his hand, lifted his leg like a dog about to mark a bush and let go the loudest fart I ever heard. The old fellow then winked at me, "Ike Thomas is the name and playing pecker's my game."
I thought he said, "Checkers." I was nineteen, green as grass. I said, "I was never much good at that game."
"Now me," said Ike, "I just love jumping men ..."
"I'll bet you do."
"... and grabbing on to their peckers," said Ike.
"I thought we were talking about ..."
"You like jumping old men's peckers?"
I shook my head.
"I reckon we'll have to remedy that." Ike lifted his right leg and let go another tremendous fart. "He said, "We best be getting to work."
That summer of 1941 was a more innocent time. I learned most of the sex I knew from those little eight pager cartoon booklets of comic-page characters going at it. Young men read them in the privacy of an outside john, played with themselves, by themselves and didn't brag about it. Sometimes, we got off with a trusted friend and helped each other out.
Under the greenhouse glass, the temperature some times climbed over the hundred degree mark. I had worked stripped to the waist since April and was as brown as a berry. On only his second day on the job and in the middle of August, Ike wore old fashioned overalls. Those and socks in his high-top work shoes was every stitch he wore. When he bent forward, the bib front billowed out and I could see the white curly hairs on his chest and belly.
"Me? I just love to eat pussy!" Ike licked his lips from corner to corner then sticking his tongue out far enough that the tip could touch the end of his nose. He said, A man's not a man till he knows first hand, the flavor of a lady's pussy."
"People do that?"
He winked. "Of course the taste of a hard cock ain't to be sneezed at neither. Now you answer me, yes or no. Does a man's cock taste salty or not?"
"I never ..."
"Well, old Ike's willing to let you find out."
"No way."
"Just teasing," said Ike. "But don't give me no sass or I'll show you my ass." He winked. "Might show it to you anyway, if you was to ask."
"Why would I do that?"
"Curiosity, maybe. I'm guessing you never had a good piece of man ass."
"I'm no queer."
"Now don't be getting judgmental. Enjoying what's at hand ain't being queer. It's taking pleasure where you find it with anybody willing." Ike slipped a hand into the side slit of his overalls and I could tell he was fondling and straightening out his cock. "Now I admit I got me a hole that satisfied a few guys."
I swallowed, hard.
Ike winked. "Care to be asshole buddies?"
We worked steadily until noon. Ike drew a worn pocket watch from the bib pocket of his loose overalls and croaked, "Bean time. But first its time to reel out our limber hoses and make with the golden arches before lunch."
I followed Ike to the end of the greenhouse where he stopped at the outside wall of the potting shed. He opened his fly, fished inside, and finger-hooked a soft white penis with a pouting foreskin puckered half an inch past the hidden head.
"Yes sir," breathed Ik
Upon reading this article, two thoughts are conflicting in my head.. "Damn, turns out Google is evil..", "but wait! Google can't be evil, I mean, look at their motto!".
Truly, I'm confused, please oh wise Slashdotters, enlighten me, is Google evil or not, and why?
You just got troll'd!
If you just did a little bit of searching within the behemoth you'd find that this has already been much discussed.
You're welcome.
The Jews.
"Do no evil"?
Do no evil + IPO = Public company
IPO = Public company
Google is just as good, bad, or ugly as the next public company. They're trying to balance the interests of their shareholders and their belief in doing no evil. In the end, the interests of shareholders will win every time. If they can keep clear of any illegal insider trading, mistreatment of employees, or other b.s. that affects so many public companies, that'll be a "good" outcome. Believing that somehow Google is different because it thinks it is different is pure fantasy.
It's 2007, folks. The Cult of the Shareholder rules.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Now Google starts to slide into the abyss with Microsoft/Sony/SCO and all the other evil companies.
I guess that doesn't mean much to Google anymore.
FTA:
..." In a free democracy, he should have know better than to slander someone in Israel, guess he should have used the Arab Media.
Quote: "The notice would invite the blogger to disclose his identity, participate in the hearing, or oppose the disclosure of his identity by filing a motion as "anonymous"."
End Quote
Hey after all he was warned. "...the Israeli blogger who used "Google Blogger" for a blog in which he slandered Shaarei Tikva council members running for reelection.
I'm not sure that I fully understand the situation, but if Google had waited until the final ruling to release the IP would that have actually prevented the blogger in question from fighting the ruling? If that is the case then short of simply defying a court order (which is something that should be considered on a case by case basis) this would seem to have been the best thing Google could have done. Had they waited they would have been allowing the plaintiff to "pull an RIAA" on the guy (or girl). If, on the other hand, that is not the case then shame on Google (a bit anyway - I still think Yahoo's games with the guy in China were much worse, but that doesn't excuse this).
They had several servers at gun point when they asked for the IP address.
Slander a politician? Did he accuse them of honesty?
Have any of you considered that the Mossad has plants working AT Google, and that (like other countries with plants working in key or security-critical employers-- civil or private) that plant's duty was to monitor, collect, report on, sanitize, and enable the use of it for government purposes, whether to bring charges against someone or to slander someone?
Most of the comments so far (among the 1st 15) make it seem like Google is slipping into the hells. It very well could be that MOD/Israel contacted Google USA out of cursory moves, but already planned to use the IP collected whether or NOT GUSA assented, and probably had plans to SAY GUSA cooperated.
Of course, the US State Department and other agencies might WELCOME this, as another ruse/means of getting 'merkuns to RELAX their expectations of privacy over security.
Any more informed or better opinions to follow those prior to my own (slanted) assumptions here?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
For anything you do not want to be easily traced back to you, use Tor. Much better than relying on any intermediate parties to withhold your identity -- even if they mean the best.
Thanks for the Goatse, asshole.
This is Isreal, not America. Its laws and enviroment is Different. This also was not a google CEO choice, it was probably some middle manager in Isreal.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Evil.
Do not get me wrong - I do not believe that Google is evil because they started out that way. Additionally, I do not believe that Google is evil because they are an evil corporation(TM). Rather, I believe that Google is evil because they are a publicly held/traded corporation. At this point, all of the Good(TM) mottos in the world will be unable to save them because their primary goal, second to "Don't be evil", is to serve the shareholders. It amazes me that ANY individuals are so willing to give their private data up to any public company.
The moral of the story - its a lot easier for a company to have "morals" if it is privately held.
On a brighter note, maybe we can coin a new term: Googged
Definition: To have been fucked by Google.
Usage (verb) (as a victim who has had their imagined private data used in an undesirable way against them) - Dude, I've been Googged!
...can I immigrate into apartheid South Africa and live with the same rights as a white man? No? That sounds like a horrible, racist policy that the whole world should fight against; we should rejoice that someone should risk 30 years of imprisonment to fight it.
Actually, as well as being non-white, I'm non-Jewish. I just wanted to make sure that I'm not discriminated against for my race when it comes to moving to Israel? Not de facto, but de jure discrimination.
If so, I'd also review my patronage of Google; I wouldn't want to cooperate with a company that does business in apartheid Sout.. err Israel.
Thanks.
(N.B. Totally honest about the message behind this post. Modding it as Troll would be like modding a post down as Troll for speaking out against those who cooperated with the government of apartheid South Africa.)
Such a mighty legal term.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I was just about to post something similar about the flood of comments that claim respecting court orders is somehow evil. I have a feeling this'll be a mighty flame war. Speaking of which, where are the flamebait mods when you need them?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
It's pretty obvious that a court order was forthcoming. Google just smoothed things out and caused a little less paperwork. A dangerous path to go down, but I think in this instance there was no harm done. As a side note, I find it interesting who the plaintiffs were. Last time I checked, in the US public officials are unlikely to sue for libel, since they have to prove malice (either the defendant knew the statements were false, or published them with reckless disregard for the truth). That's a pretty hard barrier to overcome, since you have to prove something about what the defendant knew and thought.
Otherwise it's just sensationalist nonsense. Google is a company with an aim to generate income. However much of it's business deals are driven by the knowledge that google works in "good faith" with it's partners. (Many companies won't partner with Microsoft on new technologies because they don't want to be the next SGI/Fahrenheit sucker.)
Companies, universities and investors would not embrace google if it's practices were unfair on it's users. From reading the article we can see that Google actually made a decent decision and gave the anonymous user options before eventually releasing the details.
Google needs to appear as a reasonable entity to the courts. If google fights the courts to the last frontier in every case it is presented, it would not only be costly to the company, but give google a damaging litigious image. Instead google chooses it's battles wisely for the betterment of it's users allowing it to defend more important legal issues with success..
According to the article, Google released the blogger's identity when he failed to respond within 72 hours. That is MUCH too fast. Even if he dropped what he was doing and acted immediately, it would still take longer than that to figure out what's going on, get a lawyer, and draft a response. That's ignoring the fact that he probably didn't receive the message immediately (subtract 24 hours), probably had other things on his plate (subtract another 24 hours) and may not have even realized that the notice was legit. (An e-mail is not a legitimate court summon. If you receive one which claims to be, it is probably a scam.)
Maybe the blogger will be "in the army and off to the front", and therefore, unable to comment!
Comcast: Would give the IP without a court order, offer to enable electronic wiretaps, and give full logs of everything that IP did.
Apple: Would require a court order to give IP. Negotiate a weak compromise. Hand over the IP on a sleek and stylish apple brand flash drive.
Microsoft:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Does google have to log the IPs? IIRC some libraries are not keeping the logs/keeping a limited log of who borrowed which book.
Following due process is important and Google should have done so. Releasing info without court demand is as bad as searching without a warrant.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I love how all the slashbots defend anybody, in any court case, as long as they aren't a business, big or small, and do something online. Slander DOES exist, and it does happen, and while there is a chance the case is BS, it might very well be legitimate. Just because somebody's a blogger dosen't mean that they're innocent, and the court could have gotten the guy's IP if they really wanted to anyway. Besides, it's not like they're going to behead the guy if he's found guilty, and Israel's court system doesn't seem too dysfunctional. On a side note, however, it is a bit disconcerting that Google will give it away that easily. I can understand if they were asked by the court, but Google seems to be headed downhill.
Google wouldn't be able to do such evil if it only stored the IP addresses of its users for immediate necessary use, and discarded them. Keeping data indefinitely, such that they can be reinterpreted and abused in ways unimaginable at the time , makes such problems as these likely.
However, those practices stop when you object to them in any meaningful way (illegally built settlements, stirring the hornets nests around them) or encounter someone with a bad case of Checkpoint Syndrome. Yes, this means citizens as well.
I wonder what would happen if there was a Pollard affair at Google, would it be prosecuted?
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
I doubt it...likely a local decision made at the local office in Israel. No doubt this Google manager is in for a shitstorm from the Mother Ship.
would that pronounced Goigle then?
You're kinda missing the point. You're saying Google should break Israel law to defend a criminal therefore becoming a criminal themselves.
The first amendment only applys to the US and you have to understand that what is evil to you is different from what is evil to everyone else.
Google refusing to co-orperate with a government that could throw all its employees in Jail because an idiot forgot to use Tor while breaking the laws of his country sounds quite evil to me.
In this circumstance, the anonymous blogger has nothing to complain about. Despite the litany of "Do not evil, yeah right!" posts that are already becoming evident in this discussion, I think google did the least evil thing possible. An anonymous blogger was committing slander, which is a civil tort. Under the rules of any civilized legal system, the plaintiff has the right to go after someone who has unjustly slandered their name - this is especially true for politicians, whose very livelihood relies on their reputation. If this person lied to defame someone, they should certainly have the weight of the law come down upon them. Furthermore, all google did was give out the information on how to contact the blogger. This blogger will not be served with the lawsuit, and will have the opportunity to defend themselves. And all this after giving to blogger a, I would think, unnecessarily generous offer to contest the ruling anonymously. In short, I think that everything Google did throughout this process has been quite in keeping with their motto, and see this as a perfectly reasonable series of steps to take in accordance with their ethics and the law.
This isn't like George Bush and the NSA doing an end-run around the Constitution, or Communist China. This was a legitimate judicial proceeding in a multi-party country that observes due process of law. The anonymity of the Internet is not a free pass to commit slander. Either defend your words or shut up.
I piss off bigots.
I wonder how much stock Israel has in Google(all divisions), and how much their US based interests(AIPAC, ADL, parts of New York) hold as well.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
Google is owned by the Rothschild family. You won't see it directly, but if you look at the list of proxy owners, it is clear. This family owns Israel as well (bought it from the British) and controls the Mossad. It is a condition of Google's success that all Google data -- and I do mean ALL -- is made available to agents of the Rothschild family, i.e. Mossad in Israel. A reasonably sized portion of illegal Rothschild money is laundered through Google via ad sales (which put the marble business to shame). This is similar to how drug money from the British royal family is laundered through Microsoft -- what do you think Billy G. got that knighthood for? It is quite simple for any company that is part of the stock index to launder money and there are even "national security" laws which specifically allow for "off the books" transactions that make the entire process work quite effectively.
As for "evil", one might go back to the words of Paul, "for the love of money is truly the root of all evil".
There is no one that loves money more than bankers and there are no bigger bankers in this world than the Rothschilds whose eldest male son is is politely deemed "The Banker" (there have been a few exceptions to the eldest male son rule, but usually this is the way it works). The net worth of the Rothschild family is estimated at well over $100 trillion, perhaps even as high as $200 trillion. Remember that just the oil in Iraq is worth $30 trillion+. For the money to be created to sell/buy that $30 trillion of oil, it must be borrowed from the "Central Bank". And the Rothschild family is the primary beneficiary of the interest paid to the Central Bank to borrow that money.
Google, as a loyal asset to the Rothschilds, is nothing more than an evil vasssal of an evil overlord. The mission of Google is to become an all encompassing private Total Information Awareness program for Planet Earth. One might think of Google as a global Blackwater of information warfare. There is no real goal to provide genuine benefit to the public, just to provide monitored/managed information services that Google can use to help keep the world enslaved to the interests of the rulers.
The term for Google users is "willing idiots" although some have an affection for the word "sheeple".
Fact: someone who's been wronged has a right to pursue the person responsible. No argument there. The fact that the person responsible is attempting to hide his identity doesn't change that. The problem with the RIAA's tactics is that they want the identity before proving they've been wronged. In this case the councilmen did the right thing: went into court, convinced a judge that the words as written did in fact qualify as something legally actionable, then asked for the identity of the responsible party. It might be technically more correct to wait until a final ruling, but I doubt the final ruling would be significantly different from the preliminary one. Judges don't just fire from the hip when making a preliminary ruling, it's more like "This will be how I rule, unless someone fairly quickly comes up with something that hasn't been even hinted at yet that's major enough to counter everything I've seen so far.".
Sorry, guys, but contrary to popular belief the right to remain anonymous is not a shield against being held responsible for your statements and actions. It just means that the other party should have to prove that your statements or actions were in fact legally actionable before stripping you of your anonymity.
privacy isn't a platform you can use to attack other people.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
it has NO credibility? Why would this guy care if some anonymous jerk said that "he rapes any 5 year old he comes in contact with and kills kittens because he thinks it's cute?"
Unless more than a few minor anonymous sources indicate the same exact thing, it falls under the sticks and stones rule.
Words by people whom you don't know are worthless.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
There's an inverse relationship between how honest a company claims it is, and how honest it actually is.
This is most evident in the worst offenders and propagandizers in the media world: Fox News' "Fair and Balanced," and CNN's "The most trusted name in news."
With this in mind, Google's "Don't be evil" should set off alarm bells for anybody concerned with their privacy.
Is this a news report or a trailer for a motion picture?
Most interesting and factual post I've ever seen on /.
That would paint Google with the same brush. Excessively secretive, beholden to nondemocratic countries, and structured to withstand hostile takeover. It'd be nice to see what happens when their stock is flattened (no multiclass shares - 1 share, 1 vote) thanks to some help from DC.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
I can't believe this. Let's all switch to uh... uh... uh...
"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."
Remember the olden days when Microsoft was upstart and everyone fawned over it. IBM was the evil empire. Well, the tide is officially turning. Who can we cheer for now?
The old "sticks and stones" rhyme is crap and always was, sorry to inform you. Words are much more damaging to most people in the long term than sticks or stones. Most people would rather get a punch in the arm than be called fat, or ugly, or be accused of being a rapist of small children in your example.
/with government/, you'll have a hard time finding that right in law with respect to your dealings with fellow citizens. Also note, slander is slander and libel is libel, 'sticks and stones' is not a valid legal defense, anonymous or not.
I don't know where some people get off believing their right to anonymous speech exists at all, especially in other countries as I'm betting most complainants here are western european or american.
Even though you may have a right to anonymous voting or other anonymous dealings
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Here in the U.S. (well hopefully) we are entitled due process of law.
I didn't see the bloggers quote about the public official or any other evidence supporting "Slander" other than "The System/Public Figure's Accusations". (For all I know he said the guys beard was to short.) So still I am waiting for evidence and even then I need context. I don't really give any government prosecutor the benefit of the doubt since I have been exposed to reality.
Sorry, Still Waiting and I RTA...
IP
UP
We all P
on IP
Eh? Does cluster bombing, bulldozing houses, and shooting children appear on that list? (All strictly condemned by the Geneva Convention). --Not to mention staged 'terrorist' attacks which seem to happen with predictable regularity right when peace talks are about to commence. Who do such actions help? Starving Palestinians or genocidal Zionists who describe Palestinians as dogs. . ? I can't seem to find it anymore online, (surprise, surprise), but I recall an incident from a couple of years back where a Palestinian child was drugged and rigged with bombs and then sent off toward a checkpoint. And the media had been alerted beforehand so that they could have their cameras running when the boy arrived. That's a curious way to conduct a terrorist war against your oppressors. --It would prove that the Palestinians were animals who deserved punishment. Are freedom fighters that consistently stupid? Apparently so, if you believe the propaganda. Unfortunately, the stunt went badly, and the boy was whisked away before he could tell anybody who had drugged him. The Mossad fumbles like this from time to time. --Another favorite was when a number of 'home-made' rockets being fired from 'Palestine' into urban Jewish neighborhoods turned out to have been launched from within an Israeli military base and used parts which had been procured from within the military. Oops! But the world has been so frightened of being labeled 'anti-semitic' that they turn a blind eye.
I have no problem with Jews in the same way I have no problem with Americans. But their psychopathic governments are another story. Genocide is underway right now now with many dozens of Palestinian deaths every week, with over a million jammed into a 25 mile by 5 mile wide concentration camp. And let's not forget. . . This was land stolen from an indigenous population based on thin arguments using biblical texts of all things as their rational foundation! Only religious nuts believe in that nonsense, unless of course, it serves their political ends.
-FL
Just like Yahoo they bent over for the local government. I used to work for a large international corporation and to do business in some countries you need to agree to some rules they have and it is for the international lawyers to hash out the details since some major ideas like womens rights, child labor, etc can be written agreement for that country but it is the details that are hard to get at like who is a child (ie. under 16 years old or 18 years old?). We cannot go to another country to "mock" their laws also like the of that kid call Michael Fay who 1994 "tagged" cars in Singapore which is a punishable crime.... boy I wish we had a law like that here to rid of all that spray paint junk on the walls here. http://www.gadling.com/2007/11/13/remember-michael-fey-does-caning-sound-familiar/. Nevertheless human rights are universal so we should respect human rights first and foremost and then take each countries laws into account next.
And remember, they are not "random anonymous bloggers", they are "journalists".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
tell me why Google should ignore criminal abuse of its networks and services.
Because if it were truly criminal, a judge could say so and issue a subpoena.
tell me why someone shouldn't have the right to ask Google for help in the prosecution of a crime.
They do. It's called a subpoena. If Google Israel truly respected their customer's rights, they would simply wait for a subpoena. Also, slander/libel isn't typically considered a crime--though the summary says it "probably" was in this case, I can't see how this would ever be a good idea. Malicious/harmful lies are torts and are punishable by civil law--not by people with guns knocking you to the ground, tasering you, dragging you off and locking up up with violent criminals.
tell me when "the right to privacy" became a right to injure others anonymously - safe from any consequences.
As someone else has already said, any reasonable person should judge that no harm was done. Anonymous slander/libel by definition is completely frivolous and unbelievable. Look, watch:
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, RAPES BABIES! HE RAPES THEM UNTIL THEY BLEED TO DEATH AND THEN EATS THEIR CORPSES WITH A SIDE ORDER OF FAVA BEANS!
Now, you see, who here believes me? No one, obviously, because I'm just another vulgar, anonymous, raving lunatic on the internet. With very few exceptions, anonymous slander doesn't cause significant damage in today's rumor-jaded world. The Israeli politician in this case should have to prove that someone actually took the anonymous blogger seriously, and that person somehow took harmful action against himself. Even if he could, I still don't think this should possibly be considered a crime.
...don't be evil MOST of the time.
To boldly use to and too two times and get it right too! They're not gonna believe their eyes when they see it there!
I tend to see it the way you do. But we have to keep in mind, that the premise is that people do take steps to verify the sources etc. - Unfortunately, the way things are now, only a small percentage has this sort of mindset. Many people have no problem trusting a source with perceived or established authority (although not necessarily informed or truthful) even up to the point of believing a lie. We have seen this so often in history (quite recently, too). I believe dishonesty needs to be prosecuted - in meatspace, that is. Dishonesty leads to corruption which is never good for society.
Only considering cyberspace though, rules are quite different. People can be anonymous (to the average user) - this has to be taken into account when reading things on a medium where truthiness is naturally harder to evaluate. This is great, because it creates potential for many people to bind together and communicate unrestricted to pursue a common goal, thereby giving them a much needed tool to fight authoritarianism. The fact that this 'common goal' might not correspond with the plans the governments have gives them the hibby jibbies and thusly they will restrict media access and crack down on free flow of information like this.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
The time limit is too short but it sounds like in principle he had a better chance than anyone who's IP is given up to the RIAA. Of course that could just be your basic "yea you can object but we'll ignore your objection".
I'm a little alarmed at how much of this stuff seems to revolve around IP's lately though personally. I wonder how many innocent people are going to have to get burned before these legal types learn what a trojan is. I hope in cases of more serious criminal activity that a little more care is taken in regards to cyber forensics. Somehow I fear I wouldn't be happy with the answer though.
Heil mein Fuhrer
Has anyone considered the fact that this person may have been using a public terminal rather than using a home computer? That how I leave all my slanderous comments about people. =] -Chaney
Even more proof that Google is evil!!
Senator:You maybe the Preisdent of a 200 Billion Dollar Company, but have no sense of ......
Sergey:Hangs his head in shame and appologizes.
Modified weight, maybe.
But an entire class of people who fall prey to groupthink don't care that a gossip seed was originally "anonymous". It's tantalizing, and once they tell the story enough time themselves, they decide it's true by default.
When anonymous is combined with permitted lies, social structure breaks down because it opens the way for people to accuse each other of saying it. Trolling indeed.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
JEWS
If you agree, post JEWS in this thread, one reply after another
There is a little mistake. Google did sent the blogger request to "show himself" and when he did not answer they had a court order on their hands. So, Google is not as evil as described here.
Apparently:
journalists,
lawyers and
the courts -
are so dumbed down now
no one knows what means what.
RE: i believe that slander, libel, defamation, etc are... perhaps outdated concepts.
I would expect no less from a fascist wife beater like yourself.
Would a fascist dare beat his wife liberally?
RR
I don't care how you (treat, beat or) mod me, just as long as you do.
evil fucking corporations.....
do we at least get lube this time around?
"It's the Law of the Universe, and I'm the sheriff." Slash-cott 2/10-2/17
Here's the article in an Israeli newspaper in English.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3476401,00.html
I'm not a lawyer, but is seems they could take this to a higher court.
Lately I've been reading about a new law proposition to make the newspaper liable to any offending talkback , so the way the things are going is not to allow people to hide behind their words.
Never put in an e-mail something that you would not want overheard in a pub.
Sending a summons by e-mail is stupid.
It says here that Google was forced to hand over the IP... "Following the 72 hour period, Google was ordered to hand over the IP address to the court. Google was represented by Adv. Keren Beer and Adv. Hagit Blaiberg of Goldfarb, Levy, Eran, Meiri & Co. and the councilmen were represented by Adv. Ben Zion Adoram and Tomer Altus of Adoram & Co."
I'm glad again that Riverbend is out of Iraq now after anonymously using Blogger for four years. Considering the danger that revealing her IP would have entailed is pretty frightening.
This also means that, evil or not, we should rely on Google at most for easy access to information, not for our privacy. Bloggers in countries with dangerous censorship laws rather need to be informed about and able to access anonymizing services like Tor.
There is nothing wrong with what Google did, they only 'showed' the ipnumber to the court. Serves you well for 'attacking' someone anonymous.. be a (wo)man.. Some people always hide behind anonimity, so this is just a good warning to people who flame..
There were two articles on this subject. http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200711/1196195189.htm http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200711/1196252781.html The people with the inside knowledge of the Israeli judicial system tell us that this low level judge was picked not for his legal abilities, but for the connections with the plaintiffs.
Does anyone see a connection between this story and the previous post about outsourcing college e-mail? If Google can give up an IP address, then what else can it give up?
I guess my point was more to the effect of why throw so much energy to an "anonymous" source?
I agree that the sticks and stones rule is junk, but if someone I don't know, who obviously doesn't know me, or just drew my name out of a hat full of politicians and started spouting off crap, I would assume it is a plant from an opposing party.
Slander happens all the time, and while wrong (I DO think it's wrong) If you put credit into all anonymous slander it's similar to fearing a terrorist attack, it just fuels the fire, then the slanderer wins.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
because, fuck freedom of speech!
Given the speed and ease by which google seems to turn over IP info (not even a court order). I have to ask what individual or company is daft enough to trust their files, videos etc to gDrive (or whatever it gets called).
After all once all your files are in one place its just a "One stop shop" for every RIAA MPAA etc that has a good lawyer.
If you read the actual details, they *were* ordered to by a court when the blogger failed to contest the ruling.
See, e.g., google's response at http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/27/google-voluntarily-provides-details-of-anonymous-blogger-in-israel/
This looks like just a bad translation of israeli news sources, which make it clear this is the first time google has been *ordered* to turn over an ip address of a blogger in israel.
Beware of wolves in sheeps clothing. This is Google http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhu9ORveuo4&feature=related and shit I'm not going to Candy Mountain.
That's just my POV... no more, no less.
"Fact: someone who's been wronged has a right to pursue the person responsible."
/|\ ----- Mohamed
define 'wronged'? If I draw a picture of mohamed, then many people will feel I 'wronged' them and set out to kill me.
Q
_|_
So now they have a right to kill me?
"Judges don't just fire from the hip when making a preliminary ruling,"
Perhap you should ahve more experience with judges from that part of the world, eh?
I have to wonder about Israeli law. See, everyone is looking at this stating "there was no court order." Well, does Israeli law stipulate you need a court order? Given that the Israelis are prone to forcefully remove people from their homes at gunpoint for the sake of zionist colonization, and are also known to organize their citizens in what could be considered a caste system (Israeli colonists at the top, Palastinian Israelis at the middle, Palastinians at the very bottom), I don't think they'd care too much about court orders.
The moderation system does not exist so that you can squelch opinions that you disagree with. The parent article is clearly not a troll or flaimbait, so anonymous moderator cowards who disagree with it have modded it "overrated" so that no one will read it. It should be modded up so that both sides of the discussion are visible. CmdrTaco says that we should notify him when such abuses take place so he can revoke the moderation privileges of people who abuse the power in that way. I suggest we take him up on it.
Flyer:
Man a Rapist, in my opinion
This man, pictured below, is a rapist (in my opinion).
[picture]
He broke into my house, in my opinion, with what I sincerely believe was a machete, and it is my opinion that he then he raped my wife and daughter.
It is also my opinion that he lives at 5212 Willow Aslantabrook Rd.
keep an eye out.
Oblig:
Jesus Quintana: You ready to be fucked, man? I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we're gonna fuck you up.
The Dude: Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
and teach them the word "alleged"
Any intelligent person knows that very little anymore is done anonymously or privately, especially if advanced technology is used. Almost all of a person's browser history, emails, phone calls, postings, text messages and instant messages are preserved somewhere on a hard drive. If another individual has the will and resources, this information is easily traced to the person or persons involved (or at least to the machines and accounts involved). Even an individual's routine movements just driving around in a car can be monitored by cell phone towers, EZ-Pass, and On-Star. Some new makes of cars automatically include (unbeknown to the owners) "black boxes," which monitor speed and direction of a vehicle then save the information. In addition, just driving or walking a mile down a road in any developed area, an individual can easily be photographed by multiple security cameras from various establishments along that road. Think about financial transactions. Every check one ever writes and every credit card purchase one ever makes is a matter of permanent record. I could go on and on. Much of this information is sold on the open market. (Do you read to fine print in all those "agreements" for which you sign or click "agree?") The rest of the information is circulated through other channels. For instance, the big mobile phone companies have admitted giving their call records to the government as a personal favor from their CEO's to their friends in the government. In matters of consequence, privacy and anonymity no longer exist.
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.....Great post, beyondkaoru. I think what is needed is for the public education system to educate us all to be skeptical of advertisers, snake oil salesmen, and anonymous claims to knowledge...
.....As a species, we humans tend to grow and develop always thinking that someone else is better than us ... knows more than us ... or has the right or might to tell us what to do. We are never taught, at least in American public schools, to investigate and question assertions of authority. Creating such a consensus alone would works wonders.
.....It is a fundamental oversight in culture design, it seems to me. Yet how to carry it out the change is the problem. I cannot clearly characterize what exactly needs to be taught, and I think it must be clearly characterized before it be considered worth serious inquiry. I strongly sense it *is* definable. But if it were to be named and taught effectively to the masses of humanity, then generic drugs would be more popular, Gucci would make a lot less money, scores of snake-oil salesmen would never get past their first two sentences, and the Church would . . . wow. I see a pattern here . . .
.....Maybe someone here can help in the attempt at defining this, if you please. I can give an analogy with my view of the missing component:
.....Assertiveness is to aggression as skepticism is to ?????
.....I almost want to say we should teach "skepticism", but like the example analogy shows, "skepticism" is not the correct concept. Skepticism is more of a challenge, a reaction, than it is a healthy, maintainable outlook on life.
Greg Conquest
The part where he uses the term, 'defensive war'.
You see, back before there was an Israel, there was a country called Palestine. Then Palestine was taken away from the native population and given to the Zionist movement to create a new country. Some of the original population went along with this somewhat willingly. Others not. I say the land was stolen, but that's just my response to the historical accounts available (the ones which don't come written on bible paper).
But the problem is that the angry fellow who posted called this occupation of Palestine a, 'defensive war'. --And I don't see how that term could be applied to the above scenario. Now if the native population of Palestine were fighting to stop invaders who were intent on taking away their land and putting them all behind a huge wall, then you could say that the natives were fighting a, 'Defensive War'. Because, you see, they were the ones who were minding their own lives when the Zionist movement descended upon them with the intention of land appropriation. But as it happens, the poster told me that the reverse was true; that the occupying forces were the ones I was supposed to feel sympathy for, that they were the ones fighting a so-called 'defensive war', even though the land was not their's to start with. So I assumed that the poster was either, A) writing about something entirely different and that it was all a big misunderstanding, or that he was B) Insane.
Seriously. I wasn't sure, because the claim was so incredibly at odds with the reality of the situation that I thought nobody could be that mistaken. --So I liberally applied my response to him with qualifiers. However, those qualifiers were obviously not clearly put, because you seem to have responded with the same bizarre interpretation. So tell me. Have I made a huge mistake about the subject we are supposedly writing about, or are you also nuts?
-FL
"Here's a bit more background on this situation. Members of the Israeli Shaarei Tikva Council accused an anonymous blogger of defamation and asked for an injunction against Google requiring us to provide the IP address of the blogger. We opposed the injunction, in part because we wanted to give the blogger a chance to explain in court why his or her IP address shouldn't be disclosed. The court agreed that the blogger should be given notice. The court also directed Google to give the court the IP address and when the blogger did not reply to the notice the court provided the members of the council with the IP address. What we did in this instance was standard. We objected to the injunction, but were ultimately directed by the court to provide it with the IP address."
-Chris
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
"In line with Judge Schwartz's ruling, Google and the councilmen reached a settlement in their dispute. Following the 72 hour period, Google was ordered to hand over the IP address to the court."
^^^
At least read the article you're linking so that you don't post erroneous statements such as...
Google (its Israeli subsidiary) gave up the IP address of a Blogger user without being compelled to do so by a court