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Judge Rules Web Commenter Will Be Unmasked To Mom

Posted by kdawson on from the you-have-no-anonymity-get-over-it dept.

LegalReader writes "An Illinois judge has decided that an anonymous commenter on a newspaper website will be unmasked, even though the mother of a teen about whom 'Hipcheck16' allegedly made 'deeply disturbing' comments hasn't yet decided whether to sue over the posting."

2 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Re:When will some people learn... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... that theres really no such thing as anonymity online. If someone wants to find out who you are then eventually they will.

    I could...

    • Steal wifi
    • Pay cash at an internet cafe
    • Use free wifi at McDonalds etc
    • Use an anonymous computer at work
    • Use tor or a proxy
    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  2. Re:The judge seems to be entirely right by bdenton42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is the "end" of a chain of lawsuits. The court has already ordered the newspaper to release the guy's IP address, and they did. The court has already ordered Comcast to release the identity of the guy who was using that IP address and they did.

    So the court knows who the guy is and the guy is represented by a lawyer. She can go ahead and sue 'John Doe' based on the information the court already possesses if she really thinks she has a case. There is really no reason for the mother to know the guys identity other than to personally harrass him (presumably as this was a debate over a local election the guy lives in her district).