Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous Coward Sued for Slander
An anonymous reader sent us a link to a story where
you can read about Anonymous Posters being Sued
for slanderous comments made on forums at Yahoo. This ain't good people: I've been trying to
keep ACs here for a long time to make it possible for people
to speek openly, but the abuses put the whole system at
risk. Slashdot couldn't afford to be sued- and we've been
threatened several times. I'll be watching this one carefully,
I'll personally blow up that Financial Firm!
Guerilla AC
The slander law is stupid in the first place. It basically comes down to differentiating the first amendment into a money-friendly part and the part where you actually have the right to free speach that isn't restricted by the first. In the US, guess which is more important: protecting the almighty buck, or protecting the cowardly citizen? The way that money is thought of in the US, this question is a no-brainer.
now you are slandering anonymous cowards, for which i have a patent pending....
you'll be hearing from my lawyers..
Gnulix!
See the "Fine Print" part?
I guess that will do it.
USA -- Lawyers' playground
I'm guessing that your idea to censor is worse by an order of magnitude than any slander than might be generated. Honestly, do you think that its better to stop someone from talking just in case they say something offensive?
Read the article. The only threat to Yahoo is that it may be supoenaed to give them the email addresses of the 'anonymous' posters. So:
a) the posters are not anonymous
b) if yahoo didn't make people subscribe before posting, then they'd have nothing to worry about.
As we pointed out before you imposed this dumb login process, by adding it you made your legal position *worse* than it was before. If you're concerned about legal action then remove the login and make all posts anonymous. There are clear and well-developed legal defences against action based on truly anonymous posting; it's only when you start restricting posts that you begin to take responsibility for other users' actions.
I mean why do you think that forcing people to set up a throwaway hotmail address to register before they post slanderous comments will make any difference to your legal position?
Of course I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, blah, blah, blah.
I'm curious.
I think all posters on /. are wonderful, kind, thoughtful human beings with no criminal histories. I believe that they give generously to charities, that they are comfortable with their sexuality, and that they could pass the MENSA entrance exam with ease.
Hmmm, kind of boring, huh?
52,767 more posts like this should counteract any claims of slander or defamation.
First, most people smart enough to post to /. are going to be smart enough to get around cookies.
/. Windows-based browser users are by far the largest percentage of people reading. Even if it worked, you'd be cutting out a huge percentage of the readership from positing. And it wouldn't work, because I'm willing to bet that if Rob put up a rule like this on a Friday, by Tuesday morning someone would be posting an application to Freshmeat that would let you comment independently of your browser.
Second, according to stories here on
No, the only real solution is for anonymous cowards to behave like rational, civilized human beings. Unfortunately, this won't happen.
Internet by birth, anonymous by the grace of Rob
2. Do a browser sniff and ban Windows-based browsers from posting comments.
I agree that this might keep some of the trolls out of here, but it is really far too easy to mask your browser's identity.
Come sue me.
And why is #2 so extreme? After all, Windows is ...
proof that if you make something idiot-proof,
only idiots will use it
I must agree with Ellis-D. I love linux, but cannot find an ISP that will give me the same kind of access that I can get under Windows. This would not not be a problem if I could afford a dedicated connection, but alas I cannot.
Just for the hell of it I signed up for posting on the yahoo message boards, using fake everything. There is no confirmation email, you can be conpletely anonymous. Being at a university it is easy to spoof IP, or use Dynamic IP, so as not to know where I'm coming from exactly. I could post like a bastard on the yahoo forms, they could go ahad and try and sue me but it would be impossible to do.. Hopefulle those anonymous posters gave yahoo a bunch of BS information... And it can be a real bitch to track someone down through there IP number, esp. a dynamic IP...
Seriously though, this reminds me of the "McLibel" suit, when McDonald's sued those british hippies for distributing leaflets saying "McDonald's is evil and hurts the environment and society, here's why." The lawsuit lasted for years, and the hippies ended up getting a fine (which they could never pay.) The hippies then won the appeal. Basically McDonald's just gave a lot of press to their leaflet. It was a royally stupid move on their part, just as this is a royally stupid move on Wade Cook's part. But what do you expect from a KKK grand wizard? ;)
Exactly, I would suspect Rob has more to fear in the way of slander problems coming from those who _have_ accounts and passwords.
It's so sad that (speaking as an American) that we take our freedom of speech for granted, that we can't even handle it. we are so immature that we actually have to have laws to make sure we use that right responsibilty. Since I have only lived in the US, i can't speak for other countries, but from what i have heard about China and Middle Eastern countries, we are pretty lucky..yet we some people choose to use for such harmful purposes....
sometimes i am really embarrassed to be human...
i like being AC. it's my abesto flame proof suit...
The slander law is to protect people from rumor and false accusations. Yes, like all laws it can be abused; but that is what we have the First Amendment for: to tell people that a law needs to be changed.
Just remember, the First Amendment gives US citizens the right to say nearly anything they want, on US soil (definately), but you cannot force anyone to listen; which is precisely what censorship does.
If I am not physically damagine anybody or anything, it shouldn't matter. Time to overthrough some of these stupid restrictions on our free speach
AC's are no more anonymous than regular users because YOU AREN'T VERIFYING USER INFO.
For instance, the user called "Anonymous Superhero". Who is that? If he (she?) made a slanderous comment against, say, MS--who would MS sue? Since the email is fake, they would sue YOU, Rob, so they could find an IP or something.
You have this problem ANYWAY, so banning ACs helps not at all (in fact, forcing logins helps not at all as well).
If you would wake up and listen to us all your fears would vanish. Here's how:
1) Allow anyone to put any name they want. This makes it impossible to prove that the same person did the same thing twice (10 incidences of slander from one person is different than one incident from 10 people).
2) Stop all IP logging. I realize this could hurt your ability to track hackers (and maybe demographics), but it also makes you immune from search warrants. You may not have to do this step if you do #3.
3) Create Distributed Slashdot. Put Slashdot servers around the world and allow comments from anywhere to everywhere. Now there is no one to sue.
I realize this post will get moderated out of existence, but maybe some rational people will read it before that happens.
Even moderatly free speech (such as a site where a moderator can remove your comments) could be devastating to a business that chooses to ignore it's customers feedback. In one case I know of a company has had so many complaints that it refuses to take better business bureau complaints. On a quick inspection of the better business bureau's site I found no way to read or browse complaints online. If you take away the forum's for a possible airing of complaint, you have to realize that there is no where else for them to go. Also a customer is smart enough to interpret the complaints he read's online. I hate to say it folks, but give the public a bit of credit for intelligence.
I presume the only information logged from this will be my IP/DNS entry, and any other information Netscape sends. So basically the only traceability to me is my IP. Was my IP actually transmitted, or was it some kind of masquerading gateway. How many people were logged into the machine the message originated from? Who sent it? Do any of these machines still exist? Is it really feasible to trace these people?
The US slander and libel laws were created for exactly the opposite reason -- to provide the average citizen protection from being damaged by false or malicious speech. Take a moment to think about it and you'll realize that slanderous and libelous speech is NOT protected under the first amendment.
Also note that in order to be slander or libel a statement has to be false and malicious. Truth is an absolute defense against libel. It isn't slander to say that Wade Cook Enterprises has been investigated by several branches of the government and media concerns, because it has, but it could be misleading and it would be libelous to try to injure WCE by using that to claim that they engage in some sort of illegal practice when in fact no such practice has been proven.
This whole thing strikes me as a waste of time anyway. If I were going to try to clobber WCE or any other company by spreading malicious gossip over the Internet, the first thing I'd do would be to do the net equivalent of putting a handkerchief over my mouth and calling from a pay telephone. I'd make sure they'd never get my real name -- in fact I'd probably work pretty hard to frame someone else so I could get two doses of malice for the price of one.
If you prefaced each message posted with:
"The following comment is my opinion."
you couldn't be held liable for anything. It is legal to say anything about anyone in front of anybody so long as you preface it with, "In my opinion."
After all, these comments are opinions that belong to the poster, whoever that may be. Your disclaimer doesn't provide the same amount of protection.
Sorry, unless you're willing to give Rob your credit card number, it wont work.
Requiring a fake name on an account doesn't keep people from being anonymous. Collecting a subscription charge, however, would help considerably. Besides, large companies will help push through such legislation in all major countries. It will help thier income to cut out "pirate" services like Slashdot.
Just wait, the USA will probably require stronger authentication like they did with the old BBS's (bulletin board systems) before the web was popular. So much for the web as we know it.
Then again, PS# might have helped here. Oh well.
Exsqueeze me? I'm not an idiot just because I use NT. I use NT, because Winblows and Mac are the only platforms that run my programs that are necessary for my business.
If software manufacturers ported there software to Linux, I'd be using linux, but that day hasn't come. And even then, there are some companies who'd NEVER port their software to linux.
...yahoo's got money up the yin yang, The company would get fucked over a hundred times in countersuits, if they sued a big company like yahoo, they are going after the small players cause its easier to win against someone who is not strong enough to defend himself.
The following is my OWN OPINION. It may or may not be true.
I would expect this action from Wade Cook financials. They are yet another "Get Rich Quick"
outfit. It appears they are trying to sue some "John Does" who shouted the "Emperor has now clothes!" -- now why would they be sensitive to that cry?
All right everyone. We need to keep working on anonimity on the net obviously....
We need to work on a completely anon. way to surf, post, e-mail, etc... This is ridiculous and we must fight! Take up your encryption! Take up your spoof! Take up your cheezy hot mail accounts! AnOn. remailers forever!!!
Damn I hope they don't find....
Was that a knock on the door?
I disagree that the slander law is stupid in the first place, but just horribly misplaced. Under the current law, a "public figure" has no protection, while everyone else does. A newspaper could print "Mr. Black, while not sodomizing goats, enjoys his time spent in the cess pool under his house." and if you're a public figure, you have no recourse. However, there is no clear description of what a "public figure" is, and it basically amounts to if a newspaper wants to write about you, they can, and they can lie or err with impunity.
What the hell is wrong with you all? "I'll talk bad about big business for months on end until one of them turns their head and before the fight has begun, I'll be turning my tail and running."
Anon C.
Hello all--
.you know, that discovery thang.
Just wondering, if you were on a jury where they called Wade Cook dishonest, would you call that slander????
I guess I would be pretty circumspect if I were Wade Cook. I really wouldn't want to be party to a lawsuit. .
Just curious, does anyone know how many states have filed lawsuits against his firm (CA is one I know about).
My $.02.
--Brad
browser sniff??
Just look at the "about" page. Most pages are served to Windows clients.
Come to think of it, instead of just announcing "Anonymous Coward" by anonymous posts, put their browser and operating system there too. In fact, why not post their entire cookie file and their PIII id number, if they have one. Maybe their IP address, too.
Dummies.
I've been using linux since 1.2.8, but I'm forced to use NT at work, which is where I /. Banning posts based soley on the OS used isn't going to help anything. Most programming jobs are windows based. Just because I need to pay bills doesn't make my posts pointless drivel. Trolls are everywhere. For every 'linux sux M$ rox!' post there is a corrisponding 'MEEPT uses gnulix'.
This and the previous comment about slander needing to be false and malicious aren't completely accurate. If you are a private citizen it is sufficient for the information to be false to allow suit for slander (you must zlso show that the misinformation was damaging.) If you are a public figure, then you must show that the spreader of lies was malicious in addition. If you were to post something like "So and so the public figure boinks bimbos in the cesspool every night before smoking crack" I don't think the lawyers would have a very hard time convincing a jury of your malice.
You start treating IP addresses like the Intel PIII fiaco-ID and you will KILL free speech on the internet. No one will log on for fear Big Brother will come after them for any honest, but less than flattering, comment. This would snowball into a dramatic decline in internet use and the failure of many of these "net startups". Then you have a negative economic effect. Is that what you really want?
Wade Cook displays himself has a stock-market version of a snake oil salesman - a common huckster. He should just suck up and deal with it or get a better PR person to prevent people from thinking he is such a twit!
How can you even effectively prosecute rumor mongering? Lets see... a reporter writes, "an anonymous source indicated that President [...] was improperly using a cigar with [...]". The reporter can say that because of our right to free speech. I'll be damned - he ended up being right!!!
By the way, slander is intentionally making knowingly false statements about another person. So do we all get to sue Clinton's friends, lawyers, and associates for trashing anyone involved with the Lewinsky deal?
TCP/IP addressing should not be used as a tool to help big, wealthy, powerful elitists to attack and destroy average people!
Chuck!
{{ whenever a politician starts preaching about my rights, I start taking inventory of what I have LEFT }}
You're wrong. Free speech is one thing, but it doesn't say that you can say lies without being responsible for what you say. A simple example follows:
You are in a movie theatre, packed with other people. Someone decides for fun to scream "Fire". In the resulting panic some people get hurt. Who is responsible for the panic?
Free speech doesn't protect you from this, and doesn't protect you from the consequences when you make false accusations.
The dictionary definition of slander is:
malicious gossip
hurt (someone/something) with slander.
Accountability is not the issue. Saying anything that offends a psychotic reader or a company with bored lawyers opens one to attacks that nobody should have to endure.
If you have free speech, you have people telling lies as well as people telling the truth. The way it is now in the offline world, it seems that only the rich have the right to lie. Should we encourage this on the Web as well?
Okay, so according to your posting, you are allowed the first ammendment as long as what you are saying is true. And who determines what is true or not, the Government? And don't tell me tha t the justice system is blind. That is total BS. We are living in a capitolistic society, you are kidding yourself if you don't believe that money makes this world go round.
I am not anonymous, most of my posts have my email and name attached, but I do not like leaving an unambigous digital trail behind wherever I go. Thus I disable cookies, use L:cypherpunks/P:cypherpunks, and perform other operations to insure that I remain 'legally' anonymous.
Sure, I don't mind leaving my name behind on most of my posts, but the moment you require me to create an account online that could be legally (or unambigously) linked to me for any reason is the day I stop posting and perhaps also leave slashdot.org.
Also, I use AC because it would be too inconvienent to do otherwise, I use multiple computers, log in from anywhere, and do not like cookies.
AC exists for those who are lazy, who are usually lurkers, those who use a large number of computers, or those who do not want to leave huge electronic trails online that may be harvested. I am all 4 of those. Or, it is used by people who wish to remain anonymous. If you want to cut down on the noise, find a technique that will cut down on the noise (moderating or something else), don't restrict posting privledges.
Besides, the moment you do that, some will create a cypherpunks/cypherpunks login to slashdot. As people from here do to other sites which try to pull this type of a stunt.
Scott Crosby
crosby@qwes.math.cmu.edu
Basically what you are saying is that you think it is wrong from a more-or-less moral or value-oriented position. But that view is irrelevant. A mass murderer has the same rights as anyone else. He could say whatever he wanted about how he killed people.... and you could say how much you are against it. But doing anything else, like censoring him would definately be against the first amendment.
The Constitution, if you have forgotten, is a precursor to ALL laws that might be passed afterwards. You CANNOT have inconsistencies. If slander is not outlined in the Constitution it cannot affect the laws of the Constitution. Just because someone is evil, or malicious, or lieing, or personally harmful is irrelevant. Thats all morality. What you are trying to suggest is censorship.
Censorship is a bigger wrong than anything that slander could ever do. The Constitution was explicitly designed so that censorship would not take place. Right now, slander is relative between the offended and the offender. If you added censorship to the picture it would be between you to the committee and from them to the offender with a different version. If you want to say 'FSCK YOU!' to someone should you have to go through an arbiter who changes it to 'Mr. X appears disgrunted'?
I think you mis-spelt 'sucks'. It looks ugly, has a dull script and rips off many movies by much more talented directors (e.g. blatant ripoffs of 'Goodfellas' and 'Trainspotting' in the first two minutes). Of course if you think that Tarantino is a refreshing, creative, talented director you'll love it.
It's dandy that we can all sit here and express our legal opinions and end with a disclaimer, but if Rob is seriously concerned why not pay for a short consultation? I'll contribute some money towards it, I'm sure many other will as well.
My personal feeling (hey, I put my disclaimer above), is that you shouldn't have added login stuff at all.
>If you would wake up and listen to us all your fears would vanish. Here's how:
Better advice:
Listen to a lawyer, instead of those of us who play a lawyer on the net.
Wade Cook ... Dishonest ... ha ha ha ha ... you're killing me. That's about the tamest thing you could say about the guy. A friend of mine really got taken by his stuff.
check out these links for more info. Personally, I think that the lawsuit is just a publicity stunt. I mean he mentions Yahoo and all of a sudden he gets tons of press coverage. They guy is a clasic flim flam artist.
http://invest-faq.com/articles/warn-c ook.html
http://invest-faq.com/articles/adv-p aying.html
http://www.fool.com/Featur es/1997/sp971006WadeCook97.htm
- Anonymous Coward
By posting that information, it only seems to encourage bigoted responses by elitest users. How many times have you seen "Oh, your comment means nothing because your a Windows/AOL/IE user"-type responses? It's kind of nice to have that garbage filtered out.
-Lord Crass
I've been saying the same thing all along.
The important thing here is that Yahoo! (read: Slashdot) is not being sued, they are only being asked to turn over all the information they have about the users. Simple enough. And Free.
so give me your real name and email address, i will start posting lies about you (kiddie pornographer, arsonist, affairs) all over the place....try to find a job or a date or whatever....especially if you work for a living, we could email everyone where you work....or post it in a local newspaper, or if your in school, the school paper.....yeah, slander is just fine...
Look out your front window.
I have my own opion about freedom of speack and the courts, but for people to get so upset with a company, what did the company do? If what was said is untrue, way are the people so upset? I dod notice that the stock has been going down. Is the company trying to blow smoke to explain why they are not doing good?
For example, when you enter a business or private residence, the owner can legally prohibit you from:
(1) Speaking about anything he doesn't like
(2) Distributing leaflets
(3) Carrying firearms
(4) Worshipping Gods he doesn't believe in
(5) Wearing harley Davidson T-shirts
(6) Entering the property if you're in the case of a private residence. Businesses are quasi-public so different laws apply there on this issue.
(7) etc.
The point is that the constitution only spells out what the government can and cannot do to you. You may not like it but it's true. When neither party is the gov't your "rights" can be fantastically restricted. Of course you're free to leave such environments, as you were free to enter.
I'm under the impression after talking with AOL technical support that AOL does not keep logs associating the IP address use with the "screen name" of the person logged in. After forwarding several pieces of UCE over a period of months. Each was clearly from the same person since the body of the message contained similar content, but reworded (probably to avoid filters). When I asked AOL technical support why appeared that nothing had been done, they explained it was because I hadn't included the "screen name" of the TOS offender. In responce, I explained that the entire header of the email had been forwarded which included the "Recieved" line showing the IP address used and the exact time of day it was used. Again, the AOL phone support stated that nothing could be done until *I* provided the "screen name." Of course, like any "good" SPAM, the email did not contain any legitamate ids, just a fraudulate "From" field to make it look like to a novice that another company was involved in issuing the UCE.
Btw, if anyone else has had similar expierence with AOL ignoring Term Of Service abuse regarding SPAM because the "screen name" wasn't provided, please let Scott Mueller know (sendmail describes his http://spam.abuse.net/ as the grand daddy of anti-spam sites). After an exchange of emails, not only does he continue to claim that AOL will "promptly nuke offending accounts," and "AOL manages to keep the level of outbound spam undercontrol," but his site continues to promote abuse@aol.com as the email address to report SPAM to. AOL technical support has flat out told me that email to that address will be ignored and SPAM reports must be sent to tosemail1@aol.com
But based on what AOL technical support has told me, I could see it as being very difficult for Yahoo to track down the real name of an AC when the Yahoo chat account has only been accessed by AOL.
Look up "libel"
Does anyone know where I can find out about how to do IP spoofing?
If platform matters, I want to know for Linux, Windoze and Mac.
Anon, 3rd Earl of Coward (brother of Noel).
As an alternative to stopping all IP logging, you
can log IPs for a short time, convert the logs
into abstract summaries (not including any info
that is traceable,) and then discard the actual
logs.
Purging of logs after a short time is analogous to
what a lot of companies are now doing with their
email. No record remains for litigation.
Do you log the IP addresses of all accesses/any accesses?
Is it possible to find out which connection was responsible for the posting of a certain message?
(Enquiring minds wanna know!)
It's really funny to see how far the imagination of big american companies can go. But the most pathetic thing about it, is that your legal system let somebody to sue an anonymous text.
What's next? Graphitis? Fortune Cookies?
The Saddest thing is in this globalized enviroment, the bad things spread as fast as anything...so I'll watch the day that the same sh*t happens in my own country...
Rotten
Uh, if the service provider can be supoened to provide your true identity, then you're not really anonymous, are you? The libelous postings were psudonymous, perhaps, but not anonymous.
>Okay, so according to your posting, you are allowed the first ammendment as long as what you are saying is true. And who determines what is true or not, the Government?
The cynic in me says the highest paid lawyer. However, it doesn't matter how highly your lawyer is paid if you can produce a smoking gun. Go read a book by John Henry Faulk called "Fear On Trial" and then we'll discuss this some more.
>And don't tell me tha t the justice system is blind. That is total BS. We are living in a capitolistic society, you are kidding yourself if you don't believe that money makes this world go round
I would be the last to say this. I would also be the last to say that the little guy can't win.
The IP issue has already been discussed above so I will not bother to deal with them. However, on the Ethernet issue, that ID goes as far as your local router, at which point it is stripped off and replaced by that of one of the router's interfaces, etc. Also, there is nothing which allows any of my ethernet addresses to be tracked (because I tend to only buy cards with changeable MAC addresses).
...but I'll beat the living tar out of you if you say it again!
Seriously, does anyone have an email address (or www page) for this company so I cant tell them what I honestly think.
I won't be slanderous, just honest. I promise!
-AC
As net users we shoudn't have to put up with this, If we dont make our selves heard things will just get worse and worse. Join the EFF (http://www.eff.org) and help stand up for our rights as Netizens (strength in numbers en all).
I am saying that there is certain speech that is not protected by the first amendment. Perhaps you don't remember Oliver Wendell Holmes' comment about yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater? That's a classic example. Or, "Your right to swing your fist ends before it connects with the other guy's nose"?
Argue with me all you like, but if you talk to a lawyer he will tell you there are certain things you can say that are not protected by the first amendment. This is not censorship. Censorship is laying down a law that says you will go to prison/be fined/whatever simply for the act of saying X, whether or not it is true or harmful. Slander laws say that if you do say X, and it is false and harmful, you may be sued for that and cannot hide behind the first amendment.
If you still don't believe me, get up on a soapbox and detail your plans to kill the President. Then when the Secret Service shows up, tell them you were exercising your right of free speech. Pay careful attention to how impressed with this argument they are.
As net users we shoudn't have to put up with this,
If we dont make our selves heard things will just get
worse and worse. Join the EFF (http://www.eff.org)
and help stand up for our rights as Netizens (strength
in numbers en all).
Gotta love the "free" USA. If you run a business and make a lot of money, you get special rights.
How many people here use NT at work and Linux at home? A lot, I bet. So are that poster's views really dependent on which box he's using? I don't think it's the slightest bit relevant. It might be relevant for people to give an accurate summary of their computing background and knowledge (if anyone would tell the truth), but I don't think the machine they're on at the moment tells you very much.
Perhaps I'd rather filter out the garbage posted by 'doze and AOL drones?
...the gov't can and does enforce laws dealing with discrimination against those with different ideas/beliefs *in the workplace*.
Examples: a business could *not* fire someone for different religious beliefs. The right for religiously pious people to wear their cultural clothes (such as Muslim women wearing veils or head coverings) has been held up in courts as "free speech" when the person's employer tried to fire them.
A Vietnamese business owner in California was threatened with eviction by his landlord after he displayed a portrait of Ho Chi Min and a Viet Cong flag. The court ruled it was free speech, and the landlord (a private businessman) could not evict the guy.
Yes, the 1st Amendment restricts the gov't from restricting speech, but it can also apply when the "restricting party" is other than the gov't.
But this really doesn't have much to do with the pro's/cons of slander law, anyway.
Okay if your an admin and I take my linux laptop and go to the library or anyplace on a university campus where there are some network jacks and plug in. I'd like to see somebody track me down.. and MAC address arn't a problem, I'll just give myself a new one, or a make up one as I like. The beauty of linux.. See so it is hard to track dynamic IP's. And I was not speaking of dialup's. Those are too easy to track.
The reason liable laws are necessary is because people trust what they read far too much. If the press, TV, websites etc. were free to say what ever lies they want about anyone, people would soon start to be more suspicious, and only trust sources that have a proven integrity.
That'd be much better.
By your argument one shouldnt care if they are searched if they have nothing to hide. Free speach is ONLY possible with the ability to have anonymous free speach. Ideas are more important than who says them.
If someone has a valuable comment to add then allow them the freedom to post it. Look at how many scientists during the middle ages either published their works under pseudonyms or had them published after their deaths, did they have no guts? Did they have something to hide? (like maybe truth)
Here's my big beef and pat on the back for the techies of the world. I was a political science major before I went back to study computer science. I was one of them weirdo civil libertarian types. I finally got disgusted with the state of affairs and went back to my old love computers.
I found the fact that back then ~91 free speach was seen as a given on the net. Most posts to the newsgroups were sane and rational. With the raid on anon.penet.fi I saw the beginning of the downfall of intellectual freedom the net once stood for. The thing is that its ONLY the techies who are defending privacy on the net. I dont see my old political buddies fighting for strong crypto. I dont see them fighting the CDA.
The traditional saviors of intellectual freedom and civil liberties just have missed the boat. Thank Gawd, (maybe its cause they are just bright guys) the techies of the world have taken such a strong stand for everyones rights. If it hadnt have been for that im sure wed all have id numbers in our chips long ago, no encryption, cda, and manitory logging of every word we read or write.
So pat yourselves on the back, but beware you arent gonna get much help from the outside
1) Don't log IP addresses. They can't sue you you not turning over information you don't have.
2) Add a header to Anon. Coward comments: "In my opinion:".
3) Ally Slashdot with the ACLU and a few of those privacy groups. They would help with legal expenses if ir came to it.
4) Start a Slashdot legal defense fund (but ONLY AFTER you have been sued - a standing fund will _attract_ lawsuits).
5) Calm down, everything will be ok.
Bet everyone who uses PGP is a criminal, too? Am I right, Einstein?
Agreed. Slashdot seems to me to be for truth and freedom in the face of billionaire powermongers who would try and crush that. Don't bow down to the same Bill Gates types that we abhore, stand up for the intellectual honesty that we adore.
How about this:
Force everyone to register an account, but allow anonymous posting from registered users.
Keep the info internally for legal purposes, but don't publicly display info unless the user wants it shown.
Anonymous Coward isn't thorough enough in your case: It should be Moronic Anonymous Coward. The right to free speech has never included the right to make knowingly false and damaging comments about a person or business. The U.S. is hardly alone in protecting its citizens and companies from being maliciously libeled.
Reporters are free to print what they think to be the truth as long as they have not been reckless in fact-gathering or showed provable malice towards the subject of their reporting.
Citizens have similar guidelines as to what they can say, though a press is more protected than a person because it also falls under the constitutional right to a free press.
Anyone who reads Yahoo!'s stock message boards knows that people are using them to post false statements about companies they have sold short. It's a day-trading scheme that's going to result in people getting tossed in jail for SEC violations or sued for libel.
I'm hoping both things happen in this case if they knew the Wade Cook claim was false when they made it.
afniv is about as informative to me as AC is to you. So what's the difference if I post as AC or if I make up some creative handle and give false information to the account setup program. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying you gave Slashdot false information for your account, however, I am saying that there is no way to guarantee that someone doesn't, so what is the point. I could setup 10 different accounts all with false information and use each account for different reasons, one if I want to sound stupid, one if I want to sound intelligent, one if I want to be female one if I want to pretend I'm a surfing chicken, etcetera. With the "stupid" handle you will ignore my post, but then with the handle that I use to make intelligent comments, you may think I'm a genius, and both come from the same person.
:-)
The only way to avoid Anonymous Cowards is to charge for the service, and if I have to pay for my ISP and then pay for every site I surf to simply because somebody's feelings has been hurt a couple of times, then I just won't surf the net anymore. And I can guarantee most if not all of the other people who surf the net will do the same.
This Crap "slander" case reminds me of the Larry Flint trial where he made up some obscene story about some religious leader, whose name I forget, and placed it on the inside cover of his magazine. In the end, Larry Flint was found innocent of all wrongdoing. The gist of the verdict was, if you didn't do it, and nobody in his or her right mind would believe you did it, then what's the problem. The religious leader confessed that he would never do such a thing and any of his followers would never read that magazine, let alone believe the story if they did read it. So technically speaking, there was no harm done. It's the same thing here, if this is a lie, and the people that know and work with this man everyday know it's a lie and would never believe it from a AC anyway, where is the harm. The fact of the matter is, the truth hurts much more than the lies do, and if this guy is so bent out of shape about it, maybe there's more truth in those comments then we know!
If this man wins his case, then it is a very sad day for 90+% of the people who post on Slashdot, AC or not, when Bill Gates decides to nit-pick all of the comments made against him.
Please keep in mind, if I can't post as AC, then I hold you responsible when the AOL freaks come to my house and beat me with a baseball bat because they take everything far too seriously, therefore, you will be included in the lawsuit as well.
There is a simple solution to this in my mind. Keep the anonymous posts truely anonymous, do not even record the IP address of the poster that wishes to remain anonymous. This way you can say sure here are all my logs and you hand them a couple hundered meg file of all the people that surfed onto there site, because you simply do not have any more detail then the web servers logs!
(If that has been said then I apologize, I just do not have enough time to read 149 postings.)
Anyone who believes that a dynamic IP address makes you completely anonymous should make a credible threat against the president or distribute child pornography. You'd be subject to arrest in a matter of days if law enforcement became interested in finding out who you are.
The Secret Service and FBI can quickly connect an IP address and a specific time with a user account on some ISP. While people can try to use libraries and universities for anonymous connections to the Net, those places are also filled with people who can describe that weird guy who brought his laptop in when the crime was committed.
Incorrect. Common carrier status is not something an entity acquires merely by acting like a common carrier. It is only acquired by having the appropriate Federal agency (I forget which one) issue regulations saying so.
I'm embarrassed you're human, too. Leave the pollyanna everybody-be-nice talk to those gay-friendly Teletubbies. Here in the real world you have to accept the fact that most people are self-interested fuckheads who will screw you over if they aren't legally prohibited from doing so.
If a company wants to sue Slashdot because anonymous posters libeled them, and Slashdot refused to either ban ACs or log their IPs, the company could accuse Slashdot of perpetrating the libel by doing nothing to prevent anonymous abuse on the site.
None of your ideas change this fact. The Yahoo! case and others like it will eventually cause responsible sites to take steps to curb anonymous postings. Either Slashdot is responsible or the person hiding behind anonymity is responsible. You can't devise a system in which both get off scot-free without any legal consequences for what is posted here.
That may be true, but in those circumstance, the burden of proof is on the slandered party. How easy is it to prove "malice"? Not at all. the same is true with "damaging". How can you prove a "damaged reputation"? If the slanderer claims ignorance ("It was a mistake. Honest!") how can you prove that they knew it to be a lie.
Essentially, what this boils down to is that while in theory you have the ability to fight your slanderer, it's an uphill battle.
possibly one of the best ideas i've seen lately. listening rob? :)
How about having some balls and using your REAL name, jackass?
Distributed Slashdot?
Isn't that called "Usenet"?
The fact that we have to have our free speach limited by laws is stupid, however, the fact that you could post such lies about someone and the world would believe your lies without even trying to find out the facts first is even more stupid!
In America, we are supposed to be innocent until PROVEN guilty, it is too bad that usually isn't the case.
Wade Cook's stock prices have plummeted, and they seem to be loosing money, and handling financial services rather incompetently. This may just be a last-ditch attempt to make some money by sueing people to recover the company. I don't even know if they'll survive long enough to go through the entire lawsuit; if they blunder as much as they have for the past year or so, they may be out of business by then.
That's incorrect. It's a common myth, based on bogus counting. In the United States, if you get your JD and then pass a bar exam, you are counted as a lawyer.
In most other countries, the term lawyer (or whatever is the equivalent in their language) only refers to the people who argue cases in court (and perhaps even only to those who argue criminal cases). The profession of, say, giving legal advice to corporations on contact issues is considered to be a different profession, and is not counted in the "# of lawyer" stats.
Count people doing the same jobs that U.S. lawyers do, and the U.S. is no longer unusual in the number of lawyers it has per capita.
Just to second the only other comment, this is the best proposal so far.
I.
Except that /. has a "front page".
And Usenet is often quicker to use.
I think the whole slander law is pretty dumb to begin with, people shouldnt listen to shit they read on the internet to begin with unless its a non-post portion of a quality site like...say...slashdot:)
Hmm, you know, it just may work. I like the idea too.
Accountability is FAR more important than Anonymity.
Where are our systems to ensure Accountability? Where are the great hacker philosphers when we need accountability systems to be designed?
I suggest everyone read Esther Dyson's book "Release 2.0". Ms. Dyson speaks clearly and thoughtfully on these topics.
I work on the radio and the law on Slander breaks down like this:
You can say bad things about public figures but not untrue things (ie. Clinton Sucks)
You cannot make things up and present them to be facts this is liable (ie. I have proof Clinton is an Iranian terrorist)
Private figures are protected from slander and everyone is protected from liable.
Just look at that first word...
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/topof1gighd
I note how you are using the very thing you deride, no doubt in terror of being flamed.
Classic. Where's the accountability now?
Kinda scary out there without that fig leaf, isn't it?
IPs can be spoofed. It's pointless to log them. All you do is make people bitter and mistrustful if they are on the low end of the technical scale. And, if they admit nothing, it's tough->impossible to prove anything. IP addresses != clear identity.
Slander is a bad thing, agreed. Posting rumors is a different thing. If someone anonymously posting stuff that hurts somone, I'm sorry but it's worth it for all the anonymous posts that save people's butts, and smoke out the bad stuff.
The rumours are only slanderous if they aren't true, after all. How does one initiate an investigation against a powerful entity ( company or person ) if they are non-powerful themselves?
Only anonmynity allows this to take place safely. I could publish a bunch of leaflets with stuff that just ain't so, as long as it's opinion it's OK. Just ask the John Birch Society.
On the other hand, if I'm the NYT then I have to make sure to put that disclaimer in. This is well established case law, it's been covered many times, but apparently it's not clear to you.
Malice is the only thing that crosses the gap, and even then, how do you define that? Anonymous = rumor. It's not like someone with clear credentials has said something, so how can it be damaging?
Unless the rumour is true, or seems like it might be true. Even if "seems like" is the case, it's no different from someone saying on the street that "I think Rob is building an A-bomb in his basement." You can't hold someone accountable for that, it's opinion, even if that rumour turns out to be false later and to have damaged Rob in someone ( the FBI storming his house ).
Only if someone maliciously devises a rumour and proposes it as fact can you hold them accountable. Frankly, if people are anonymous then their posts are just opinion, so that ends that, it will never hold up in court, the judge will lol and tell them to get out of the room.
I have to shake my head sadly over all the
AC bashing. In some countries being an AC
is the only way to not get hauled off in the
middle of the night and shot in the head.
Enjoy your freedoms people because
they..are...fading.........away.
No-one forces you to have a job with which you are only able to use NT.
The OS in use at work may not be a defining factor of why a job is chosen,
but that in itself is a choice.
The logic still holds, racism taken to its lowest terms is ill will against
someone for something over which they have no control.
The OS someone uses is something they chose,
be it through there ignorance of other options
or there choice in jobs.
A mentally deficiant person would be exempt from
this, as would a child who could not chose for his/herself.
This is not bad at all. No one can hide from the responsibility of their words. Whether they are online or in person.
And yes, the law in the US does include the concept of being responsible for your words if they damage others. Free speech is not ticket to inflict personal damage to another human being or business.
Dave Bennett
No matter what. It's quiet funny to read about, but only as long as those ridiculous
ideas stay where they come from.
Sometimes i don't think that Americans know how much fun, people from other
countries have on their account.
And im not just speaking about the 'sue and live happy ever after' system
It seems that the problem is that there's no way have free and open expression if the messages can be traced back to the poster. In the heydey of BBSs there were times when the sysop was held liable for non-licensed software or other posts.
But education can help reduce the problem. People have to learn that they can't believe everything they read on these forums. There are a lot of pre-teen, teen, and barely adult users out there posting whatever they want.
++ +++ ++++
When are you stupid Americans going to realize that the Internet is *more* than just the AmeriNet? Go ahead Wade, serve me a summons in Norway.
You Katz-reading, NT-using, cigarette-smoking, superbowl-watching, functionally-illiterate AmeriKKKans make me laugh. (If Matrix were here, he'd laugh too)
Thats a good idea. Blend and merdge the crowd. /. effect, could they sue for the lost sales, due to the increased sales? Bizarre. Like a candle flame that allready burning twice as bright having a drop of liquid oxygen drop onto the wick. /. effect can be vectored toward those who tresspass against totally anonymous free speech.
I wonder if a company's machines were overloaded via the
The idea of NOT keeping good records seems to keep comming up. Sounds flawless. Let the spooks do the record keeping, that way blame can be focused in the unfortunate, and ill-advised event of disclosure.
Afterall, we dont want millions to blame Rob-n-co for ratting on us folks. Like the non-obidient anon-pnet sysadmin who only caved after tones of pressure in a forign country.
But then we blame those who do the pressuring more, dont we?
/. should take steps to be siezure/soupena(-sp) proof, and make it known that the
Log the IP's only for voting on the poll question,
if possible/necessary. I say make the poll questions 1day only, it gets boring after 3 days of results.
Acting like Sgt. Shultz wont work very long after the stun grenade knocks the peppermint tin from your hand....
Keep up the great work Rob-n-co.
so let me get this straight... we do not have the right to become anonymous, unconfirmable, and unreliable source, and say whatever we want...
but we do have the right to be downright stupid enought to believe such sources. Yes; i know the laws, and i know why they're there. I don't agree with all of them.
-lAmeduCk
(not to insult everyone who knows this)
it is easy to post totally anonymously without ever being traced.
Post thru a magusnet.com chained proxy (or any public proxy that doesnt logto any Message Board.
or maybe a web mailer to a mailnews gateway to post anonymously to a newsgroup.
there is virtually impossible to trace thru a public proxy that doesn't log.
(of course the cowards being sued most likely did not use a proxy)
Hey,
./ reader would. That would be a nifty legal defense fund.
If you guys get sued, I'll donate $20, and I'm sure every other
reuters f**kheads,
die.
die.
die.
You sound awful jealous that while other nations fell by the wayside, the USA keeps growing.
It's a shame that your attitude is not typical of other Norwegians. Most Norwegians I know aren't so bitter about America and just get a chuckle out of it all. Mellow out!
klems
Likewise.
(infinite loop)
Wow! That's absolutely brilliant! What rock did you crawl out from under to reach that decision making process?
While it isn't racist to make broad statements based on what OS a person uses, it certainly shows a prejudice for against a group of users, often for illogical reasons. There are many talented, intelligent people out there who use Windows or MacOS based machines because it's what's used at work, they have better things to do with their life than learn how their computer works, etc.. Ignorance of OS choice alone is not often a reason to make the decision of which OS to use. Is it realistic to expect all the other vendors and the project sponsor to switch over to Linux just because you don't want to deal with Windows? No. Would you be willing to sacrifice that income stream (which may be significant to your budget) because of this? Not if you wanted to stay in business.
Cut the "One True OS" bullshit, there's far more to life than which OS someone's computer runs.
Yet another fine example of a company losing value in stock and then deciding to take it out on whomever it can find. In this case, they targeted anonymous posters - which is quite a dumb move in my eyes because there really no one to take the blame - which have no identity. Smart move on their part.
You think those proxies don't log, eh?
Boy, have you got a lot to learn.
What are you smoking? Have you actually READ any of these posts yet?
Most of the posters to this very article have no idea what the definition of "slander" really is, and they actually think censorship is a way to solve problems, all evidence from history to the contrary.
The comments to this post are no exception to the way things normally run around here, either. Just wait until the next release of KDE or GNOME comes along and watch the idiots roll out in force.
I get the gist of the laws, but what this is really pointing up is the need for us all to consider the source, and/or the evidence presented.
Granted, slander could still be effective but it would take a lot more effort.
Let's say I take everything from an AC with an extra grain of salt. When an AC says something about someone, why should I believe it.
The sky is falling...
Time machine invented, Clinton plans to re-institute the draft and attempt to win the Vietnam war.
I just inherited billions and I would like to make you RICH. Just send a $99.99 processing fee to lost boys, general delivery, fox hill post office, nassau bahamas. YES!!! You can be RICH for the small investment of $99.99. Don't DELAY, send in your INVESTMENT today.
~;-)
I am new to linux and figured out how to hook/
up to my ISP. They were no help but, here is a
page I used to get hooked up.
http://www.calderasystems.com/support/techguide
ppp.html
Who hide behind their over paid coward lawers. I think that the solution to frivalous lawsuits such as this one, clogging up our justice system, is to enact legislation where a lawer who looses a frivalous lawsuit is disbared upon loosing the case.
:-/ wait for hearing and trail dates. Many out on bail and still doing the things that got them in touble in the first place.
This would make the money grubing lawyer think twice before taking a frivilous lawsuit.
If an Anonymous Coward posts male bovine excrement about me on a public online forum, then I would have serious self esteem problems if I felt wronged or damaged by that male bovine excrement. This lawsuit say's more about the penile inadequate person bringing the suit than it does about the AC's who posted the male bovine excrement about him.
This is the kid who would go crying to teacher every time anonther kid on the play ground siad that he ahd cooties. Most of us became adults and got over this behavior. But others, such as this guy still go crying to mommie whenever someone call him a doo doo head. I pity him that he can find no more self worth in himself, that he goes crying to his attornies because someone said something bad about him that was unture and hurt his feelings. Boo hoo hoo, go cry to mommie little baby! Meanwhile, murders, robbers, rapists and anothe petty criminals
I hope I didn't hurt your wittle feelings. I wouldn't want to make you cry. There now, go suck your thumb and tell mommy all about it. Baby!
I'm continually amazed at the things Rob manages to screw up. "Speek?" How about giving up and spelling fonetiklee from now on?
:)
Now Rob can sue me.
It's not just library and/or university environment - don't forget cybercafe and even corporate environments. I know of several large (unnamed) coporates which have unrestricted DHCP on their internal networks. So, although you can track the (ab)use to the netblock, tracking it down to the individual user "beyond reasonable doubt" is pretty much impossible.
As pointed out, MAC addresses are trivial to fake, so provide no real help in tracing activity.
Physical security and/or good dialup authentication/logging are the only ways to ensure that packets can be traced to individual people. Good (expensive) hubs can be configured to only allow particular MAC addresses to be used (on particular ports or groups of ports), but the administrative overhead will prevent all but the most paranoid of network administrators from doing so.
Komrad,
You have been identified. Expect to be visited by the CIA^H^H^HKGB
(babylon@netroplex.com)
By the way, I'm Canadian, you stupid fuck. Not Norwegian. I just said that in case Slashdot gets subpoena'd. Heheheh.
Anyways, stop being such typical, ignorant, US-centric AmeriKKKans, 'kay?
and I should ignore them. But, I just had to comment that it's interesting that, despite the fact that you are a troll, all of the responses to your post _are_ brimming over with arrogance.
Doncha think Wade Cook would be better off spending his lawyer's time on fighting his Securities fraud issues in Arizona?? .. maybe his tips don't work, and hence he runs the classes. . ..
/. login is kidego, but i dunt have a password yet. /. has no legal responsibility for the information above. I do. But then again "free speech" means i don't. . . )
Maybe his snake oil finally ran out. . I mean, if his tips were soooooooo good, why doesn't he just follow his own tips on the market to make money, instead of preying on people's dreams, and running male bovine manure classes. hmmm.
nooooo that's way too logical. . .
(FYI - my
Under what system would it be reasonable for someone to sue Slashdot for not keeping records of who posted anonymously? After all, they let corporations have record destruction policies. If they're going to require Rob to keep records, then they should require everyone to.
Thanks; interesting point. And...*of course* my comments are an obvious troll. How many times do I have to use "You Katz-reading, NT-using, etc. etc. people make me laugh" before you people finally catch on? ;-)
:-)
I'm surprised nobody got the "Matrix" reference. What's *WRONG* with you fucking people?
I cant believe some of the things Ive been reading here. Freedom of speech is part of the bill of rights. The bill of rights was added to the constitution to protect the citizens from the government. "Congress shall pass no law..." is how it starts.
Slander is just what Dunbar said. If you were there in the late 1700s and called Alexander Hamilton a Kickback taking asshole without sufficient proof, he would not accept your statement as "freedom of speech", he would have challenged you to a duel.
Use a little common sense people.
How many years do we have to wait for you to grow up...?
uselinux@email.com
MEEPT ate my lunch.
Wesley Crusher ate my dinner and installed Solaris on my FreeBSD box.
Alan Cox is a lesbian.
Convincing?
Anonymous Coward account exists so people give much less credibility to it than to "normal" users.
Clap your hands
:)
And cry baby , cry baby, run to your lawyer you little wimP!! if you cant take it, get outa here
Seriously, hwo can they track an anonymous user thatposted on a board, that logged in from a random library or net terminal in a shoping centre, or some computer lab in a university???
huh?? stupid lawyers
If someone scrawls a message on a wall you don't sue the guy who owns the wall.
If the offending message is taken down, then finw.
Obviously the US legal system does not adhere to the basic ideals of common sense.
proof that most of the trolls and lamers who post as AC actualy have acounts! or something like that anyways. like all the rest of the sheep around here i didn actually read the article because if it had then i would know that the yahoo case is about someone who registered to post. so if this case has any relevance to slashdot posters it would apply to all posters here not just AC's, but what do i know i'm just a stupid AC.
maybe you should try to actually read the article and then think long and hard about that veiled threat you posted. if you had read the article you would have noticed that it is about somebody that registered before they posted. knowing that you would of then realized that this case would apply to all slashdot posters not just the unfairly berated AC's.
Where do you think it's used the most?
Do they even have a webpage?
These views do not represent me, slashdot, Rob,
those with the same IP address as me or anyone else.
If it is a day-trading scheme, then the SEC should
prosecute. Everyone else should assume that
everyone else on the internet is a moron and that
they don't know diddly about dink. If you are
too dumb to know that something is false, you are
exempt from getting sued this way. Only those
with minimum intelligence can get sued for this.
Who wants to guess what they find when they round
up the the ten perpetrants? I'll guess 7 are
under age. Anyone ever collect a big libel award
from a 10-year-old?
In several countries here in Eu ISPs and Online Services are not responsible for what information they provide.
The legal risk is generally smaller in (continental) Europe anyway, as there is no insane law system like in the US, with fines of millions of $$$.
Don't be too worried about the new copyright ruling of the EU parliament: It is still up to the states to implement it or not.
First of all, install linux. This is not a bias,
but all the related haxx0rring code is built
(primarily) on linux. IP spoofing is just as
possible under Winblows, but...
Now. Get a good book on TCP/IP networking
and, well, networking in general. Try
Communication Network : A first course.
by Jean Walrand
ISBN 0-256-08864-0
While you're at it, you might want to try
Operating Systems, Design and Implementation
by good 'ole Andy Tanenbaum.
Next, visit some haxx0ring sites. Try (yawn)
http://rootshell.com and look at some of the docs.
Now, with you new-found knowledge, browse your
linux kernel sources (you do know C, right?)..
Have fun!
and post your (*new*) findings to bugtraq.
----Anonymous by choice.
They got into a subpoena war with MS. MS was able to get their "Bad Attitude" emails from years earlier because Netscape didn't have a good email policy.
All Rob has to do is make everyone anonymous, keep no records of the ip addresses/source identity, prominently post this policy, and remove offensive or defamatory remarks on complaint and via general policy. If someone complains, act and apologize. Newspapers routinely do this.
Remember, Yahoo is NOT being sued, they are only being asked to supply information they have regarding a lawsuit.
Netscape's policy is something like "We delete all unofficial mail after 90 days" -- and they adhere to their policy. It's unlikely that a subpoena could happen in a ninety day period, and they could make the deletion schedule tighter if they wanted to.
Remember, *no one is under obligation to store evidence for anyone else!!!!* it has been shown over and over (at least in the US) that information conduits are not resonsible for the information passed.
Besides, you already delete offensive stuff, and as long as you respond in a timely fashion to complaints, I doubt you'd ever see a charge filed.
If someone puts kiddie porn on your front door while you're at work, you aren't responsible, they are. Once you see it, it's gotta come down though.
When a newscast went out a few years back, with falsified evidence from a reporter regarding vehicle safety, were the local newstations responsible? The network? The reporter? Actually, I think the network was responsible, since they employed the reporter. Are you employing AC's?
You don't publish the posts, AC's do, using your autonomous system. You merely provide a service for the public good, like the telco. If someone calls 2000 people in my neighborhood saying a neighbor is a drug dealer, is the phone company at fault? The law says *no*. And if someone wants to track them down, they have to make a complaint to the police/FBI, and coordinate with the phone company, possibly with a court order, and the telco would try to help.
I'd hate to see you as a test case, though. Was any case law ever made over BBS systems? Or compuserve's chat channels? I'm sure there was, it would be interesting to review.
Your goal should be to protect yourself from storing too much information, cooperating with people when they complain, and keeping a general eye on things. AFAIK, you already do two of these, but you might be keeping too much information around for your own good.
Suppose the theater really is on fire?
Is it illegal to yell 'Self-sustaining exothermic reaction'?
> The Internet is not a forum for whistle blowing.
Yes it is.
For me, at least. Now, I'm not a p0rn freak, but
my email address is widely published. My signal
to noise ratio is about 1:6. I'll have to change
addresses(?) again. I hate that, but that's not
the point. In the past two years I have had three
emails (unsolicited, thank you very much) pointing
to kiddie porn. I forward these (anonymously) to
the agency in charge of hunting down these
perverts.
-Anonymous, and loving it.
Nobody ever got slammed for slander for something
said in a 3 a.m. bull session. On the internet,
it is always 3 a.m. somewhere, and this ain't the
New York Times, it's unedited spontaneous
bulemia. There's a place for everything, and this
is it.
That way those people who don't want to read anonymous coward posts could easily ignore them!
RTFM Rob-n-co.
Yahoo should tell Wade Cook to pound sand. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. AND, this suit makes me wounder if these posts to yahoo are true... I wonder...
WJ
They used to be good until they commercialized and blew up into "CNN-Wannabe/Stupid-chat service"
Probably IP tracking would be a better sort of idea... but the log files would be huge.
I still use Windoze for some things, people. (Like getting my work done while I'm still learning Linux.)
How about we alter proposal #2 there to banning Microsoft (not windows) browsers instead. At least that way, if someone really wants to post, they've got to at least be smart enough to be able to install another browser (or have a friend do it).
So you've got a problem with my choice of browser? Sorry bub, but it's my choice. Down that road leads persecution.
How about we round up all those commie-Linux users and have ourselves a barb-eeeee-cue?
Because that's the exact analogue of your suggestion.
Bigotted idiots like you don't deserve technology. Climb back under a rock where you belong.
If Cook knew that his stock was selling too cheap
based on misinformation, why didn't he just buy
some shares or have the company buy back some of
its stock? Misinformation is opportunity,
not damage, when you're the one who knows the
facts. That's what you do to a malicious
short-seller -- just keep buying and putting out
good information -- and the short-sellers will get
calls from their brokers that make a barium enema
feel good in comparison.
OTOH, if the company is actually a worthless pile
of crap for some other reason, then it's at least
a slightly more complex moral issue about whether
getting people to do the right thing by stretching
the truth is right or wrong. But never take any
anonymous posting seriously. I'm serious: Never
take any anonymous posting seriously -- unless it
is true or it ought to be.
Blaming malicious short-sellers for a low stock
price is typically the last refuge of the meteoric
incompetent, because smart short-sellers just love
to find the companies they run^Hin. I once worked
for a shaky outfit in which this defense was used
without success -- until the state and federal
authorities sent most of management to mandatory
detention facilities.
The truth is that I can't tell you all the truth
about Cook. I can't afford to get sued.
Well, there _is_ MS-CHAP. *vomit*
Never actually heard of an ISP that uses it exclusively though...
Cheers
AndyM
f someone has a valuable comment to add then allow them the freedom to post it. Look at how many
scientists during the middle ages either published their works under pseudonyms or had them
published after their deaths, did they have no guts? Did they have something to hide? (like maybe
truth)
Here's my big beef and pat on the back for the techies of the world. I was a political science major
before I went back to study computer science. I was one of them weirdo civil libertarian types. I finally
got disgusted with the state of affairs and went back to my old love computers.
I found the fact that back then ~91 free speach was seen as a given on the net. Most posts to the
newsgroups were sane and rational. With the raid on anon.penet.fi I saw the beginning of the downfall
of intellectual freedom the net once stood for. The thing is that its ONLY the techies who are defending
privacy on the net. I dont see my old political buddies fighting for strong crypto. I dont see them fighting
the CDA.
The traditional saviors of intellectual freedom and civil liberties just have missed the boat. Thank
Gawd, (maybe its cause they are just bright guys) the techies of the world have taken such a strong
stand for everyones rights. If it hadnt have been for that im sure wed all have id numbers in our chips
long ago, no encryption, cda, and manitory logging of every word we read or write.
So pat yourselves on the back, but beware you arent gonna get much help from the outside
I wonder if they scan all messages for your
favorite spook.el keywords..
I have a soft spot (afterwards) for doing in on top a washing machine mounted in a hammock strung between two beams protruding from a third floor balcony in a thunderstorm at night... with the lid up....
but, hey, that's just me...
2 Live Crew had quite a controversial album on
the streets, "Banned in the USA". What happened
to the 4th ammendment and freedom of speech?
Isn't what one should strive towards the ultimate
freedom ie. being able to say what you want
without having to reveal your identity??
AC goes 'freedom of speech - that's the *BEEEP*'
No, you can't expect the phone company to be able to identify which of their coustomers is causing a problem. The ANI can be easily fooled using a simple anonymous pre-paid calling card and/or a pay phone.
Go to their site (wadecook.com) and click on contact the webmaster. It brings you to a reply screen. Use Anonymous Coward as your name, then tell them what you think. BTW, his picture makes him look guilty...
1. Do not allow Anonymous Cowards to post more than 3 comments. After 3 comments, you must create a user account. If your browser has trouble with cookies then too bad!
No problem. I'd just delete my cookies after three postings and start afresh.
2. Do a browser sniff and ban Windows-based browsers from posting comments.
Then I'd just write a wrapper for my browser to strip the windows reply and place it with another.
:-)
Whoops. That was meant to be under another message.
Heh, wouldn't mind personlly killing every last one of those... things. Then of course, maybe I'd be just as bad as them... OTOH, maybe not since I'd be doing the world a favor..
> why don't you attack those posters for giving AC's a bad name instead?
Does it look like I care?
Guerilla AC
just recently, we had the liability suit against the gunmakers, and now this. this is equally absurd. this is an example of privacy joined with free speech. each citizen has the right to make anonymous statements. i would think the fact that they refused to give their name would hurt the credibility on its own. but now we have bastard attorneys wanting to sue, and set a new precedent which will make it impossible to remain anonymous anymore. this is bullshit. every day i hear yet another depressing story like this. we live in a facist government, and now they want to make it so we cannot speak out against the government anymore, or speak up for whatever it is we believe because now we must paint a target on our foreheads and wait for any enemy to come get us in the dark of night.
- blaufukt { oh blow me... }
Apparently you didn't read the article that closely either... or you would have noted the fact that the company is still deliberating whether to name Yahoo as a codefendent depending on how things unfold.
One possible interpretation of that is that if Yahoo obediently turns over the identity, the company will let them off and go after the individuals. On the other hand if Yahoo does not (or can not), then the company will so Yahoo instead.
If this is what the company has in mind, then this certainly does apply to
BTW, Isn't it amazing how incredibly self centered so many geeks are? Rob gives us this incredibly cool news site and forum which we pay nothing for (even the banner ads are cool; this is the only site where I pay attention to 'em), yet we get whiners like the previous poster who has to rip on it. Why? What other site puts up with such abuse? Would you rather see Rob get fed up with it and have
That would be good.... except.... look how overloaded the server is already. Running perl scripts use a HELL of a lot more resources than just serving up static.... err.... pages.... (looks at URL in browser)..... oh. Never mind.
Er, make that "Far to quick to post and far too slow to think." Guess that applies to me too, eh? : )
No kidding! Who gives a rat's ass what kind of reputation ACs have? I think just about everyone implicitly understands that AC postings are a mixed bag. The remaining people are idiots.
Hrm, what the hell does working on the radio have to do with anything??
I dont care where you work, and i doubt anyone else does either. Does working on the radio make you smarter than others? I doubt it.
Granted, cod soaked in draino is not exactly one of the better foodstuffs to come out of norge but lefse is awesome. Sprinkle some confectionary sugar on it, stuff it with blueberries and strawberries and maybe some kiwi, a shot of whipped cream, and gobble it down. good stuff!
I dont know, but I cant seem to find out what happened to the 2nd ammendment either?
if you had cared to read my post thoroughly you would have realized that i said nothing about this not applying to slashdot. what i did way was that is was unfair to single out just AC's because the lawsuit is about somebody who registered a nick to post on a board. so for malda to single out just the AC's in his little comment was wrong because the lawsuit would apply to all those who post on slashdot whether they are an AC or a nick user.
i guess you really were right when you said that You're far too quick to post and far too slow to think. applied to you.
it has nothing to do with being self centered, an injustice is an injustice no matter who did it. i dont think rob should be excluded from responsability when he makes false statements just because he runs the site.
Obviously this should tie in with a firewall. Only registered IP's assigned by the DHCP server would be allowed to pass traffic through the firewall.
This outfit apparently has some sort of "get rich
quick by trading stock options" gig. Some of the
comments at www.coveredcall.com/wadecook/wwwboard
are pretty amazing: "I lost $10,000 in one month,
but I've made half back already." So there's the
reason for the nasty anonymous posts.
Naturally, they also do seminars, tapes, etc.
Usual financial "services" (servicing?) stuff.
And why is #2 so extreme? After all, Windows is proof that if you make something idiot-proof, only idiots will use it ...
This kind of thinking is why some Linux evangelism (like some Christian evangelism) hurts the cause it promotes.
There are at the moment three reasons why I use Win95:
1. I have to use it at work. We're a Microsoft shop (much as I hate to say it), and all of the in-house apps that we have depend on the user having Win95.
2. Linux doesn't have the games support (yet) that Win95 does.
3. Much as I hate to say it, I'm not confident in my ability to run Linux well. Ideally, I'd want to be a fairly competent C/C++ programmer before installing and running Linux, so that I could tweak things here and there without destroying something. I'm not a programmer; my technical expertise is mostly in the PC hardware field.
I'm building my own box now. When I have it running (it'll never be finished--I'll always be tweaking it), I plan to have it set up as a dual-boot machine for Linux and Win95. If every app that I had and use regularly on Win95 had a comparable Linux equivalent (and most of them do), then I wouldn't bother with Win95 and would run Linux only.
Not everyone who runs Win95 is an idiot. Some of us know what we know and what we don't, and aren't bothered by admitting either.
Since I'm not logging in, the accountability for my statements is either with me (if someone can find me through my IP address), with Slashdot (if they can't), or both.
If I post libelous statements as Anonymous Coward and the entity being libeled files a lawsuit, courts are going to find someone to hold responsible. My point is that there isn't a system you can devise in which both Slashdot and anonymous posters gets off scot-free in regard to libel.
I could publish a bunch of leaflets with stuff that just ain't so, as long as it's opinion it's OK.
Make up your mind about what you're saying. If you are posting something that "just ain't so," it's false rather than being an opinion, which is separate entirely from a matter of fact.
Anonymous = rumor. It's not like someone with clear credentials has said something, so how can it be damaging?
This is amazingly stupid, especially coming from someone who wants to lecture me on case law. Something can be damaging regardless of who said it.
What's said on Slashdot isn't anonymous. It has a publisher -- Slashdot -- and that publisher has either logged the IP address of its author or must be prepared to answer in court why it doesn't log IP addresses.
My stance on not logging the anonymous postings is from the stance of owning a server. If I do not want to be hauled into court and forced to release the logs of not just the one person but of all the other people who posted anonymously and not have the horrible guilt associated with haveing to hurt the many honest anonymous posters I have been told by many lawyers to simply not log in any detail. There is no law according to them that I will break if I do not log the IP's and times of postings or any personal information. So for my peace of mind I will never log the IP's of an anonymous user unless I have to by law and that does not appear to be the case now.
Ok even if you get IP.
That may not be good for three cases:
If they entered false crap in their profile, I'd like to see them track these guys down going on IP address alone.. I don't know about other ISPs, but my shop's login/radius logfiles rotate out within a month or two.
I must agree with Ellis-D. I love linux, but cannot find an ISP that will give me the same kind of access that I can get under Windows. This would not not be a problem if I could afford a dedicated connection, but alas I cannot.
All ISPs can be used with Linux (or any Unix). TCP/IP is the same, PPP is the same, and even Ethernet (where it's used) is the same everywhere.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Rob: I know you're busy, but I have been wondering for a long time why you don't make posting as an AC more difficult than as an authenticated poster? ;)
I mean make sure that if someone wants to post something anonymous (hey, I love free anonymous speech too), make them do some extra work to do it.
That should take care of the "first posts" newbies too
Just ask for an email and send them a login that says "AC" with an anonymous account for like 10 minutes. :)
That would solve lots of peoples grief about ano....blah
Just wanted to say something :)
But I'm tired and drunk so who am I?
Bram at grmbl dot com
--
People using html in email should be shot.
Nobody was sued for slander here. Slander is a defamatory oral statement. As no oral statements were made on yahoo, there was no slander taking place. Libel, perhaps, but not slander.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The reporter can write just 'bout anything they want to about someone in public office unless they know it not to be true.
Someone running a business... well... then a whole lot more limitations on what you can say kick in.
The courts have traditionally (long-long-time) respected marriage, not making married couples testify against each other and the like.
Extending these would make for difficulty in definition... who's to say if you were "close friends"? Does "people living together" apply to a college roommate? Anyhow, extending said protections would weaken the courts' ability to make a case.
IANAL.
Posted by HeyPartner:
/. is subpoened to release a name when a proven lie has done proven harm, you have the same responsibility as a content provider in any other medium (newspaper, TV, radio). Chances are, you will be sued. I doubt that will happen at /. But imagine you being maliciously attacked at say eBay for selling bad goods. When in fact, you never sold anything yet, can prove it, and it turns out some oligopoly is trying to divy up the beenie baby market by shutting everyone else out through slanderous comments in other sellers profiles.
The way it is in everyone other medium, if you are going to allow the voicing of opinions, you are exposing yourself to subpoenas when people abuse your medium with malicious lies that do harm. A big part of slander is proving "harm". If
It is eBays responsibility to cooperate in stopping that. How can it be any other way?
-kevin
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
DMW, you don't have a complete understanding of the laws. You can sue for slander or libel IF a reasonable person might believe that the (false) charges made against you are true.
If I were to say that "I've got pictures of Bill Gates giving oral sex to JFK's corpse while taking it up the rear from a martian."(which I don't), that would not be libelous or slanderous because it's obviously not true. No reasonable person would believe that it could be true.
Public figure or not, you may sue for slander or libel if the creteria are met. In this case Wade Cook would be better off suing for defamation. Because to prove slander or libel charges, you must prove that the statements made against you have hurt you financially.
LK
I've got to agree with this. People should take responsibility for what they write.
A right to free speech is NOT a right to irresponsibility.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If I tell the world you are a pedophile, and it turns out you actually are a pedophile, then I am not guilty of slander. However, if I was lying, then I'm guilty.
Before you morons spout off about how bad of an idea that is, try to think about how much power big money would have if there weren't slander laws. For example, if it were legal for Microsoft to start an ad campaign saying Linux will destroy files randomly and crash every 10 minutes and sacrifice your firstborn to Zirkon the space goddess, you know they'd have no qualms about doing it.
FUD is pretty bad, but it would be even worse were it not for the slander law. With the slander law, they have to be very careful to not say anything which is directly false - their lies are restricted to half-truths and connotative ambiguities that can't be technically proven false.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Simple solutions to increase the signal/noise ./
here on
1. Do not allow Anonymous Cowards to post more
than 3 comments. After 3 comments, you must create
a user account. If your browser has trouble with
cookies then too bad!
2. Do a browser sniff and ban Windows-based
browsers from posting comments.
OK, #2 is extreme, but I think #1 is a reasonable
suggestion.
Exactly.
Free speech without accountability is just noise.
TedC
Right... That'll be an accurate determination of who's intelligent and who's not.
Not to mention that, if slashdot did this, it would tell you that I'm using Netscape Navigator Gold 7.32 in AIX running on an Apple ][.
--Phil (The Internet Junkbuster can be such fun.)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
How about if someone wishes to post anonymously, /. in any way it's ok, but otherwise,
that their post has to be approved by the moderator, more so than a registered user?
Thus, if the AC post is worthy of being
posted *and* posted anonymously, *and* won't
harm
the post hits the bin bucket?
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Do not speak the "C" word here. The last thing Slashdot needs is FCC regulation as a common carrier. Don't declare it as one or even hint that it might be one.
The FCC has fairly broad power to regulate common carriers, the services they provide, and the content of broadcast media surrounding them. Thinking harder about it it might not be so bad a thing as I thought since Rob already provides equal services to everyone for the same price, and it's easy to show that he is using a non-limited transmission medium, but I'd still rather see the FCC keep away from Slashdot.
Okay, "no one" (not no-one) forces me to work with NT, but it's what came up the last time I got screwed on a contract, okay?
And it's "their ignorance" not "there ignorance" and "their choice of jobs" not "there choice in jobs" and "mentally deficient" not "mentally deficiant".
Now, what were you saying about ignorance and being deficient?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I absolutely agree with that.
Anonymousity and right of free speech are not at all a reason for allowing AC posting.
See me? I am accountable, but I am absolutely anonymous.
If you AC advocates now want to reply: "Oh no, we know your email adress, your gender, or your summary", let me tell you this: "You know nothing babes, all you do is BELIEVE to know, and all you can find out about me, is because I want you to find out or I want to tempt YOU to make stupid assumptions because I like to laugh hard about your credulity"
Best Regards
Tobias or Candy or Bill Gates??????
Being forced to take "responsibility" for what you say can, in some cases, be the same as being silenced. Whistle-blowers would have a much harder time under a no-AC situation.
-Chris
and how do you propose to use IP spoofing to post to slashdot???
hint:
http -> tcp -> connection -> two way thing.
IP spoofing, remote end cannot reply to you.... no connection, no http....
ip spoofing works for sending untraceable mutant tcp/ip packets to crash windows machines... but it ain't going to get you very far in communicating with a http server.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Although IANAL, I used to edit a newspaper and one thing I can say about the subject, is that the
/. or they are reading the /. is considered a third party.
"common carrier" idea is completely mis-understood by most people.
The basic idea behind a "common carrier" is to limit the liability of third parties in legal
disputes. For example:
1) can't sue travel agent for booking your family on a plane if the plane crashes because a plane
is a "common carrier"
2) can't sue telephone company because one person made a liable about someone else because a
telephone is a "common carrier"
Notice that in case 1, the owner of the plane CAN BE SUED even though they are a "common carrier"
because they are a second party not a third party. The "common carrier" defense only protects third
parties in lawsuits.
However, things like newspapers and BBS are on shaky ground for this defense since they often
execute "editorial control" over their content. For instance: you censored that article, why
didn't you censor the hate mail that got my friend killed.
It all depends on whether people are thinking that they are reading
comments of the other person as to whether or not
For instance when you read the front page of the NY Times, you are reading the newspaper, not the
author of the article. If you are reading the editorial page, you are reading the author.
ISP have tried to make themselves into CCs by posting a strict policy and deleting all material
(I mean all material, no exceptions) that violate this policy. In this way, they can argue that
they are not exercising editorial control, but are just implementing a written policy which all
users implicitly agreed with before using their service.
WARNING: You should definitely consult a REAL LAWYER before attempting this strategy since
having an incomplete policy is MOST DEFINITELY WORSE than having no policy at all!
This type of strategy is know as an attempt to create a "safe harbor" which in layman's speak
is to say "everyone else does this, and nobody's complained before". In other words, it gives
people the opportunity to act like a 6 year old.
As far as I know, this hasn't helped the ISP cause in Europe, but in the US, I think the feds are
willing to let this go.
do you know what wade cook does? he promotes "investment" techniques that he claims he made millions of dollars off of when in reality, he was a taxi driver that made millions off of selling his secrets. if anyone is a fraud it's him. he's the one abusing free speech by misleading people. all the people he ripped off should file a class action suit!
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
--
And Justice for None
How about a modified threshold system + some fun with perl scripts? If a user tries to post something with a s or f word or other type of obsenity then the post will be denied. The threshold system could allow posters to categorize their posts, with things like: informational, question, my $.02 (opinion),flame, and Anonymous Coward. The AC would be a manditory flag for non logged-in users. Then the user of /. could set up their own prefs. such that you could screen a certain type of post or even specific users. Sure it will give the servers more of a load, but that new dual 450 box needs something to do anyway.
This is a problem that faces many many Internet Service providers and one I faced when I ran ml.org... Big companies with big pockets (or even individuals with deep pockets) can easily harass a company for the identity of their users. And its difficult for little startups and groups of users to defend themselves against this without going broke. It's just a symptom of the litigious nature here in USA... I'm more and more tempted to move servers overseas.. though of course they can still get you personally if you live in the states... Can't win....
"cyber rasict"? That's a new one. As I recall, part of the definition of racism/prejudice is that someone is being judged for something they have no control over. Race, ethnicity, nationality &| culture(of birth), disabilities, and so forth. I find it quite rediculuous to try and lump a person's choice of OS into that category. A person can install whatever OS they want on their box, and if they need certain programs only available on one OS (a prime reason for keeping Win9x in combo w/UNIX as I have been forced to, admittedly) there's always the option to split your HD w/partitions.
Bottom line, It's not prejudicial, thought it may be petty. I don't hold a person's choice OS against them,
but in this forum and context, I see nothing wrong with pointing out where (what OS & information culture) people are coming from. It's perfectly relevant, and very insightful as to the person's background and point-of-view.
I've seen this coming for a long time. technology has rushed faaaar ahaid of the law. there will be more and more of these privacy and copyright cases that are caused only because the law hasn't caught up with the software industry and the internet yet. it's the wild west out here, and in this wild west the law is also just one of the cowboys...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
It is amazing that your ignorance is so pervasive in almost every word you type. It maybe that the Internet is a world wide adventure. This does not mean that you could not be held liable for slander. The fact is most European country have similar laws concerning slander (a result of common law being accepted in many places). So, I suspect even in Norway, you could find yourself in a law suit (it would of course have to be filed in Norway).
For the most part, I suspect you are not smart enough to understand the problems related to unchecked public slander.
Troy Roberts
First, you have looked slander up in the dictionary. This is not the place to find a legal definition. However, I believe the same laws apply to both slander and libel.
Troy Roberts
Slander can cost company millions of dollars. A person or company has legal right to protect themselves from malicious propagand.
Troy Roberts
Rob, I don't think you have too much to worry about. First, the plaintiff in this case is not after "Anonymous Coward", but instead after specific pseudonymous posters, like "CmdrTaco" or "MrSpock". Though IANAL, I'm a law enthusiast, and am relatively sure that so long as you take reasonable measures to keep slandrous comments out of /.-space, and have a mechanism in place to deal with them, then you should be relatively safe (assuming, possibly incorrectly, that you would be able to stand up financially and fight in court).
I like "same rule as anon.penet.fi"--reveal identity only if subpheonad.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
While I think the AC concept does hurt the sense of "community" at /. (everyone is anonymous and no one ever gets to know each other here, unlike the BBS' of the early 90's).
But it does allow people to post things they might be otherwise too embarassed to post. I think that is probably more important.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Really, I mean it, why not?
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
Kitchen table works fine for me and Mrs. Alums...
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Sue sue sue.......That's what the good ol' USofA is all about now......going after weenies on a bulletin board...What next?
Yes they do.
until you get it fixed.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
This is AWESOME. I LOVE IT! You've gotta be fuck'in kidding me! This is one of the funniest things I've heard all week. I think this is great! Some ALL MIGHTY law firm pissed off by a couple of guys fuking around with their dinky little yahoo uids.
Maybe I'm the only one that finds real humor in this, but I think it's priceless.
I came. I saw. I coded.
Even more radical, ban ACs.
If people don't have the guts to put their name to a posting, its automatically of dubious provenance.
While ACs may have some use (whistle-blowing), to hide behind them for illegal activities (slander/libel are illegal, even in the US) should not be seen as acceptable, and should be pursued in law if all else fails.
Of course I don't expect anyone to agree with me, this is afterall
If you're embarrased to post something, perhaps it's because it sounds stupid, or vulgar. Maybe it's because you're talking out of your ass and somebody's going to ask you to back yourself up. I am willing to stand by what I say and either back it up or admit I'm wrong -- why can't we ask that of *all* /.ers?
Glyph Lefkowitz - Project leader, Twisted Matrix Labs
Writer, Programmer - Not a member of the TSU
against claims made by a bunch of yahoos on
Yahoo, you have something to hide.
Grow up.
The mature thing to do is to offer considered,
well substantiated facts in rebuttal to each of
the posters' claims, if they bother you so much.
If they do, see paragraph one.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
1600's.
And Galileo Galilei got "sued" for it.
Point is, if courts of law were to agree faceless
corporations, with financial or political
resources far beyond that of any one person's,
have the right to put individuals on trial, for
what they say or what they write the
truth may get lost.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
logan
Do you mean, submit the information to anybody
who threatens to sue you? Or only if
subpoenaed?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I read through the article, and it seems that they named the Anonymous posters as defendants. Interesting concept, since they don't know *who* the posters are. They talked about getting the data from Yahoo, but if Yahoo's system allows for truly anonymous commenting, that data may not be easy to get, if it's possible at all. I know PalmStation.Com logs *nothing* about anonymous commentors. The only way I'd be able to track anyone down, if I were to be asked, would be to look in my server logs, and find the IP of the person who posted a comment at the exact time that the comment in question was posted. While this may work for something posted recently, I dont have logs for anything other than the current month. I can only imagine that /.'s comment system works similarly for anonymous people.
-Hal
-Hal
it is one thing to have free speech, but there are reasons why we restict it. there are these things called libel laws and laws that say you can't disclose inside company info. My dad had this happen to his company on the Yahoo message boards, posting some VERY secret stuff, and some VERY illegal stuff, and some stuff that was just designed to hurt the company. he killed their stock price. it is a problem in some cases.
I'm all for free speech, but not for speech that is designed to hurt a company in illegal ways.
give an even better name to those AC's out there!
why don't you attack those posters for giving AC's a bad name instead?
and unfortunately, this does happen -- it happened to my dad's company on I think Yahoo stock boards. they posted some stuff that was illegal to post (trade secret stuff or inside stuff I guess) and some stuff that was untrue and harmful. their stock price took a hit. it was not pretty.
it isn't
:-)
oops... I guess I must have typed in the name of my professor instead. oh well...
MUHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
well, what do you do if someone posts inside/secret info about your company that is illegal to post? and then ALSO posts slanderous things that aren't true but MIGHT be. and then it makes your stock price go down?
:-P )
this happened to my dad's company. it was not exactly cool.
(not that I'm for people getting beaten by those AOL users either
maybe message boards about stocks... dunno... hard to fix it! confirmation email at the VERY least!
although some free speech is protected, false and harmful speech is not. lying about a company/posting insider information/doing illegal things by posting is NOT protected, and I don't believe it SHOULD be either. screws everyone involved, except for the person it gives a nice little thrill -- or a big fat check for selling the stock short.
so why is this a solution? I think that in many ways, it simply compounds the problem.
The tort of defamation is false communication that injures a person's reputation by disgracing him and diminishing the respect to which he is held. An example would be the publication of a false statement that a person had committed a crime or had a loathsome disease."
Elements of Defamation The elements of a defamation action are (1)a false and defamatory statement concerning another, (2) an unprivileged publication (communication) to a third party, (3)in some cases, depending on the status of the defendant, some degree of fault on her part in knowing or failing to ascertain the falsity of the statement, and (4) in some cases, proof of special harm caused by the publication. Restatement, Section 558. The burden of proof is on the plantiff to prove the falsity of the defamatory statement.
It goes on to discuss the difference between libel and slander. Libel being communication in a medium other than spoken or oral. Slander, of course, being oral or spoken communication. There are however defenses to defamation. They fall into two classes:truth and privilege. Truth, is self evident. If what you communicated is true, then you have not defamed the plantiff. There are three types of privilege: absolute, conditional, and constitutional. Absolute privilege is for the rare situations where public policy favors complete freedom of speech like (1) statements made by participants regarding a judicial proceeding; (2)statements made by members of Congress on the floor of Congress; (3) statements made by certain executive branch officesrs in the discharge of their governmental duties; (4)statements regarding a third party made between spouses when they are alone. Conditional priviledge depends upon proper use of the privilege. A person has conditional privilege to publish defamatory matter to protect his own legitimate interests, or in some cases the interests of another. Conditional privilege also extends to many cases where the publisher and the recipient have a common interest, such as in letters of reference. A publisher who acts in an excessive manner, without probable cause, or for an improper purpose forfeits conditional privilege. Constitutional priviledge refers to the first amendment and allows individuals or the press to comment regarding public officials or public figures so long as it is done without malice.
Therefore if these individuals have communicated false statements about Wade Cook(possibly)(1) to a third party(the internet community)(2) without bothering to check the validity of their statements(3) and created special harm to Wade Cook(4) then they are guilty of defamation in the form of libel. Their only defense could be truth as I don't believe they qualify for any of the three types of priviledge.
The law is the law is the law. The internet is just another communication medium as far as defamation is concerned. If they had printed up flyers defaming Wade Cook and mailed them to everyone they knew, it would still be defamation.
Now the important question, is not whether a bunch of bozos defamed Wade Cook but rather what will happen to Yahoo!. Any good lawyer is not going to waste time trying to sue these bozos for money. Rather he will try for a criminal conviction against them and then sue Yahoo! for publishing the statements without verification and in effect acting as an accomplice to the defamation. Obviously the lawyer would do this because Yahoo! is likely to have more money than the bozos.
Stuart Eichert
U. of PENN student/FreeBSD hacker
Stuart Eichert
On another note: capitalism is freedom.
Stuart Eichert
U. of PENN student/FreeBSD hacker
Stuart Eichert
Ya, see for instance, the Yahoo Biz page for WADE. Recent Price: $0.45, 52-Week High: $3.375
The disclaimer has been in place for a long time, see the FINE PRINT at both ends of the comments
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
I wouldn't ban them.
It would be interesting to list the browser and OS in the comment header, just to see who is using what.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
You've slandered the GNU/Linux^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Lignux^H^H^H^H^H^H er, Linux name. Tux is not happy with you and is speaking with his lawyer.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
America has more lawyers per-capita than any other country. The lawyers need work, so they come up with new and interesting ways to interpret the law, and take a case to court. They find a "open-minded", "progressive" judge. (who used to be a lawyer him/herself), and the case goes forward. If they win the case (by appealing emotionally to 12 people who weren't smart to get out of Jury duty) the open the doors for more lawyers to try similar cases (and reap the benefits).
Law remains lucrative, and guarantees that in the future there will be even more lawyers than there are today.
Oh, and if you try to change any of this, you will be accused of attempting to take away the rights of all Americans to have fair access to the Judicial system (IE the poor will get screwed).
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
But you can expect the phone company to be able to be able to identify (ie trace) abusive phone calls. They may not tell you the identity of the caller, and it might turn out to be a payphone, but they should be able to identify the source of calls. Likewise for internet. The ISPs should not be responsible for the actions of their customers, but they should be able to identify which of their customers (or whose account) is causing the problem
With most ISPs (the exceptions being the information service providers such as CompuServe and AOL) you should be able to get exactly the same access using Linux as you do with Windows. As long as it will "talk" PPP, the OS you use to connect should be irrelevant.
IANAL, but it seems like they wouldn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to holding /. responsible. I quote: /. likely wouldn't be either.
"The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. Slashdot is not responsible for what they say. "
This case is *not* about anonymous cowards, but about people who have an account. Furthermore, Yahoo is not named as a defendant in the case, so
0 1 - just my two bits
People on Yahoo weren't just calling each other names - they were former employees of a company who were making statements about their former employer which may be considered illegal within SEC rules.
Yes folks, the law does curtail your right to say whatever you want, in certain circumstances.
hmm, that law actually seems quite sensible when you read it, except for one thing: it makes SPOUSES a particular case. what the fuck does being married have to do with what you're allowed to say to each other? make that "close friends" or "people living together" or somesuch, at least.
How can people say this? We defend the KKK's right to hate others and spread this message to their children and others, and yet someone puts down some idiot in a stupid *capitalist* company and they need to be sued! This is just wrong people. I don't give a DAMN what the laws are, it is NOT RIGHT.
#1 - Slashdot could claim immunity from being sued for a slanderous comment by an AC as a 'common carrier'.
#2 - This is OLD news. Slashdot ignored my submission, as usual, about half a week ago.
As for Anonymous Cowards, the comments posted in reponse to the (bullshit) story about the UK satellite being taken over by hackers, confirmed for me that Slashdot's usefulness as a place where interesting and informative discussion takes place, is severely compromised by ACs.
Dodge
PS: You Americans, go see 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' (released in theatres across the States last Friday). It rocks.
Why not find a country where the owner of anon.penet.fi could never have been forced to reveal anyone's true identity, and set up a box there?
;), with Ministers for Bandwidth, Disk Storage, Processing Power, etc.
:)
Oh yeah - money.
Okay. How's about we declare independence as a virtual nation and establish an "embassy" in the form of a broom-cupboard-sized room in a Telehouse somewhere with a few Linux boxes.
I can see it now. Slashdot - the world's first virtual nation. It would have to be a Republic, with a President as Head of State (first one would be CdrTaco, OF COURSE!). An elected Cabinet, led by a Prime Minister (i.e. a Minister who can't be factored!
Argh! Shades of The Diamond Age's CyrptNet.
The Dodger
Minister of Offe^H^H^H^HDefence.
"No, I'm not planning a military coup, honest..."
Obviously US regulations aren't the same as European ones. Elucidate, please.
D.
I was actually thinking about the telephone company example when I was writing that comment, so what you've outlined above is what I was thinking of.
/. is more likely to be a common carrier than an ISP, because CmdrTaco and his henchmen [;)] exercise no editorial control _whatsoever_. Admittedly, they do say that "Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated." but this is followed by "(You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold).", so I'm assuming that this means that no message, no matter what it's content, is ever deleted.
Your point regarding the whole editorial control and ISPs implementing a policy is valid. imho. However, I think that
Perhaps CmdrTaco would like to comment at this point?
D.
> I hope the court will rule yahoo cannot be held responsible.
Uhm...
The court will NOT rule upon whether Yahoo can be held responsible or not.
Why?
Because noone's asking them to rule that Yahoo _is_ responsible.
The only thing that might happen to Yahoo is they might get a subpoena requiring that they provide the court with the email adresses (or whatever) of the people who made the posts.
I'll just say it again, so everyone understands:
NOONE IS FUCKING SAYING THAT YAHOO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE POSTS THAT AC'S MAKE USING YAHOO'S FORUMS!
ok?
Although it ires me slightly when people don't know what they're talking about, it pisses me off infinitely more when people can't even be bothered to read an article before posting their opinions.
Christ, it's not as if the article doesn't say, quite fucking clearly, that "Yahoo! is not a target of the lawsuit."
In fact, I find myself wondering why CmdrTaco is even worried about this.
Dodger,
Stressed out and taking a break from conducting mortal combat with sendmail.
"I'll get it to work if I die trying!!"
The Internet is not a forum for whistle blowing. If you are involved in or witness illegal activities, report it to law enforcement agencies and/or through a "whistle-blowing" phone number that is often advertised for various companies/government agencies.
I agree that if you have something productive to say, you might as well take credit for it. If you don't have anything productive to say go ahead and say it un-anonymously so I know who to ignore later. AC is just a means for spreading stupidity, ignorance, FUD and whatever else (the majority of the time).
Simply slamming people/companies just isn't necessary.
In a perfect world, everyone would ignore AC posts and therefore people/companies would not be damaged from erroneous AC posts and consequently AC posts wouldn't be a problem. Then no one would read them so no one would post them....
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
Interesting... they seem to have been falling steadily for over a year now... I wonder when these supposedly slanderous comments were made? (Having not seen either the actual comments themselves, I refuse to make a potentially slanderous comment myself by stating one way or another wether the comments in question were true, after all, a lawsuit-happy american company with money problems is involved.) Did these comments come before or after the decline of their stock value began? If it's before, then the AC's in question are likely to get toasted, since Wade's lawyers would be able to point to that and say "Look! See the damage these people did!" - And that would be a bad thing for us, since it would mean more clamping down on freedoms that we often take for granted. If, on the other hand, the comments were made much more recently, then the AC's lawyers (or the public Attourney, or whatever) could say that no damage was really done, since there isn't really any significant change in the trend the company's stock was taking. (Steadily down, nice and smooth...) I may not be a financial expert (Ok, I'm not even an amatuer, I have enough trouble with my own bank book, so don't take stock advice from me.) but isn't the value of stock supposed to measure how well a company is doing?
pls get a clue...
You get a spinless whiner with money and a lawyer and they love to threaten lawsuits. All it amounts to is a pissing contest and he who has the biggest wang wins, the problem is that the lawsuit will be impossible to win unless the person suing can explicibally prove that they lost money from that exact comment. Unfortunately the law doesnt state that if you sue someone and dont win you have to pay your and their court costs plus a $20,000.00 pain in the ass fee for bringing up a stupid lawsuit to begin with, payable instantly or 2 months in jail and then payable 30 days after that. That would be a great law, like one that allows clients to cane their lawyers when they mess up. oh well we live in the land of the free where the judges are lawyers and perpetuate the rich are in control plan.
(you're poor? GUILTY! rich? ohhhh your' just a victim.. Lawyer? naughty! you got caught! try to hide your illeagal activities better next time!)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
back in the 80's we had a Free speech BBS here, it was like /. except there was no login at all you connected and you're in. they were sued for some commment, when the judge looked at the evidence he told the person suing that life's a bitch, and awarded the defendant the counter suit of loss of money. ($5000.00) The judge said that it's a BBS just like a Bulliten board or telephone pole. you cant sue the phone company for something posted on a telephone pole.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I agree, but just the browser and OS should be tacked onto each person's post. The ip serves no purpose but to show hackers who to smurf when they disagree with you.
"What makes this 'virtual attack' even
more egregious is the fact that these
falsehoods are posted on Yahoo!
message boards for millions of
people to read and they cannot be
removed from the Internet by the company."
Give me one reason why you SHOULD be able to remove these falsehoods from the internet! Poor millionaire, can't make people stop saying bad things about him...I have absolutely no sympathy.
-lx
Let's ALL go and post on yahoo message boards that Wade Cook was arrested for accepting kickbacks...see what they do then... >;)
-lx
Although you are right that the cook people are misled, please try to remember who gave you the internet - the US.
And frankly, you have no room to talk about personal habits - Lutefisk, Aqvavit(sp), Lefse - need I say more? Pimply teenagers in red jumpsuits?
-lx
Just set your profile to only show people who have a score of one. You get 1 point just for not being anonymous.
-lx
I believe that slashdot would be protected under the standing parts of the CDA. In fact, you may expose yourself to liability, only IF you make an attempt to censor slanderous conduct. Basically it is not reasonable to expect you to monitor the behavior of private individuals. It could, and has been, argued rather easily that expecting web sites to censor would have a chilling effect on free speech. The only argument I could see is if you POSTED, like on the front page, an article that you knew to be false, and somehow made commercial profits by intentionally republishing this inflamatory content. Anyhow, I've gotta run, but I can show you some precedents when I get back.
People can get hysterical sometimes, when it comes to personal safety issues and what not. There have actually been a few perfectly good airplanes that ceased to be produced because the media and what not wrongly pinned the blame in the airframe, when in fact it was the engine.....and other issues. This is a billion dollar type of wound, its not so minor. You tell that the to employees who lose a job as a result, its not just 'the suits' who get hurt in these things.
Private citizens do not enjoy an absolute privilege, unlike members of congress and those in the court room.
I could not for example, announce that I am an employee of Boeing and that management uses defective parts. This would both be untrue and publicized. It _would_ obviously hurt Boeing's shareholders, management, employees, etc. If Boeing could prove that I was never an employee, they are legally entitled to damages. Why should the government protect such speech. It would be very hard to show why a private citizen is entitled to this. The courts have decided that various entities are entitled to varying degrees of free speech. Journalists, for example, are given a great deal more latitude in their publishing standards. If they make a reasonable attempt to verify somethings validity, they are protected even if it later turns out to be untrue. Likewise the courts and various individuals in the government are protected when attending to official business. If the courts started holding Congressmen liable, they would be hestitant to challenge, try, inspect, etc.
I do not feel the need to defend myself from a twit such as yourself. But for your information, far more Europeans smoke than Americans. Secondly, you know as well as I do that the USA is responsible for 99% of the computer technology. While NT might be a product of the USA, so was AT&T Unix, so was Berkley, so is the semiconductor industry. And lets not forget Cisco. And MIT.....I could go on, but lighten up. Oh yeah, I'd be willing to bet that I am a great deal more literate than you are.
Regardless of the ineptitude or ineffectivity of the user, the law is still pretty clear. Should the secret service ignore a would be assasin just because he probably wouldn't be successfull?
And on your last comment, commercial speech is limited as well. Many people get taken by these scams, in fact publishers clearing house just got sued I believe.
Can't we all just GET ALONG!!! :)
--
Paranoid
Paranoid
Bwaahahahahaa.
All Slashdot.org readers are wonderful (in bed and out of it, on coffee tables, etc), never have or have had a Bad Day (tm), stay crunchy (even in milk) and live on planet Earth! They're even DYNAMIC!
We should have a poll asking which household object people most prefer to !@#$ on.
--
Paranoid
Paranoid
Bwaahahahahaa.
Hmmm... you have good taste :P
--
Paranoid
Paranoid
Bwaahahahahaa.
There is no way to trace these people if they seriously want to be annonymous [sic].
;)
that's not entirely correct. if someone really wants to know who you are, they can get at your IP, and trace it down to a physical location. also, if you are using ethernet your card has a uniqe signature sent w/ every transaction. that, too could theoretically be traced.
basically, there is no such thing as privacy for us normal schmegeggies.
ciao.
And rights come first, dang it!!!1
Even DHCP isn't fool proof. I have a cable modem and I can set any IP address I want. The DHCP method is nice because it prevents IP collisions. I could just randomly pick IP addresses until I find one that isn't in use then do what ever evil things I wanted to.
-matt
Other than the Gods thing you got it. Your boss can't fire you because you're a wiccan and he's a born again christian.
-matt
Isn't it a safe bet to just say "In my opinion" before a statement? I think that if you're portraying your statements as fact, it's considered slander, but if you're giving them off as just your "opinion" then you're pretty safe against this stuff...after all, it's opinions that the first amendment was designed to protect, right? I think this is the same thing that MS used in their antitrust defense tho, so it might not be that great of an idea after all...:oP
I still use Windoze for some things, people. (Like getting my work done while I'm still learning Linux.)
How about we alter proposal #2 there to banning Microsoft (not windows) browsers instead. At least that way, if someone really wants to post, they've got to at least be smart enough to be able to install another browser (or have a friend do it).
Digital Wokan, Tribal mage of the electronics age
I think people need to stand up and demand their anonymity. If something is proven to be a lie, the owner can remove it upon receipt of the proof. /. shouldn't log the IP's of visitors. You can't subpeona records that were never made. /. as far as attacking the service itself goes. (Though, I suppose a good raider would leave no traces anyway.)
If possible,
That would, of course, mean that people would be entrusted with behaving around
Digital Wokan, Tribal mage of the electronics age
DO NOT KEEP RECORDS. If you keep records, you can be ordered by a court to turn them over. Nothing REQUIRES you to keep records. Do not keep them.
In any case, Yahoo is not being sued. Their users are being sued, as soon as their identities can be determined. In an analogous situation, Slashdot would not be sued, but you might be ordered to turn over records. Check out what's left of the original CDA. Under that law, you are an interactive service provider, and interactive service providers are specifically EXEMPTED from being held responsible for things that their USERS say. This law has been tested a couple of times in court, once at least with AOL, and the ruling of the court was that the provider (AOL) was not responsible for things that their user said. I know Wired at least covered this.
Do not keep records, and make it well-known that you do not keep records. That is your best defense and one employed by anonymous remailer operators. If you keep records, you are a TARGET, and soon a victim of, well, you know.
-- Blame any errors on your own stupidity. All wrongs reserved.
Even if they do log, then the ones who want the info now have to subpeona the proxy to find you, which could take a while. And the magusnet.com proxy chains through another proxy to boot, so now that's three subpeonas you've got to issue, in sequence, and the logs may no longer be around at that point. And this assumes you aren't making longer proxy chains, which you can do. This whole Yahoo thing has been going on for weeks now. Plus subpeonas generally have to be issued within the jurisdiction that they take effect. So now maybe they have to go to another state or another country, which takes time and money.
Don't put all your faith in proxies, but they do help, even if they do log.
-- Blame any errors on your own stupidity. All wrongs reserved.
If Yahoo reveals the registration info on the user name, wouldn't that leave Yahoo wide open to a class action suite from all users for revealing so-called confidential information?
Maybe David Brin was right, the only security is in no privacy for _anyone_. Scary.
Actually it shouldn't be that hard to track down who owns a dynamic ip address. If you are dialing in then the dialup server knows what ip address it gave which user id. If you are using DHCP then the DHCP server knows what machines had which IP addresses when. Maybe dialup servers and DHCP don't keep track of this information but it doesn't mean they can't very easily. Tracking people down through their IP address isn't that hard. And if companies start bringing lawsuits you can bet more and more people will track IP addresses to help limit their liability.
You're being rather cavalier with Rob's machines and his financial well-being. To say that Rob should allow anyone to say whatever they want when he could be the one to pay for it is irresponsible. Frankly, I think people, if they have a comment, should stand with their words.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
We knew this was coming. I don't want people to lose their rights to free speech, but they should be responsible for what they say. Using the AC system people can just make shit up and never have to validate their claims. If your gonna say something have the balls to put your name on it.
I love linux, but cannot find an ISP that will give me the same kind of access that I can get under Windows.
What kind of access can you get for Windows but not for Linux? Even if they don't explicitly support Linux, most ISPs actually use UN*X of some sort for their services, so Linux has no trouble connecting to them. Even for those few that use proprietary systems like NT, it is almost always possible to connect with Linux, as it supports many of the proprietary protocols. Unless you live in a really backwater area, I find it difficult to believe you can't find an ISP that can give you the connectivity you need with Linux.
Finally. I hoped at least one poster had actually read the article. Yes, the case is not about an Anonymous Coward, it is about a user with a real account. There have been other cases like this, such as people trying to hold ISPs responsible for what their users post on a webpage. The Anonymous Coward option should stay; the whole point of it is to be able to speak freely.
Well I really don't care. Just keep that fine print on this page.
Now if anyone gives you trouble, we'll just slashdot their site!
And their stock quotes, plus a lot of other stuipid things one can do drive them old'uns crazy!
Serioulsy now, I would like to know if we could sue him for EMOTIONAL DISTRESS!
The kernel needs a Gtk/Gnome-based post-install device configuration tools "a la" make xconfig. (Better sig coming soon
It won't work. I submit my three (possibly slanderous) posts and then wipe my cookies file. Voila! Three more posts.
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
and the ones with the words don't know too w
Yahoo itself is not being sued. As far as I can tell, /. has no means of identifying the real identities of ACs. That doesn't leave the poor company much to go after. Right?
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
and the ones with the words don't know too w
I dont think Slashdot editorial content is very accurate. I learn more from the user comments.
Item #1 has been dealt with: cookies in this case don't offer anything really useful at excluding technically competent AC's from doing (content wise) idiotic posts. Secondarily, if a user's browser doesn't support cookies (correct me if I'm wrong here, people!!), logging in won't help because the user info wouldn't move from page to page.
Here's my own RADICAL PROPOSITION: All Slashdot posters (myself included) should use the 3 pound computer between their ears to consider what it takes to make Slashdot a site worth reading BEFORE mindlessly wasting our time by hitting the submit button with stupid posts. Therefore I would submit that:
- First Poster comments are worthless.
- Expletive laden comments aren't worth reading either.
- Bad-mouthing an individual online is bad karma. What goes around comes around.
- Reading other people's posts to avoid lame repetition of other's comments saves all of us time in the long run. Post sparingly.
- Suggesting that
/. alienate the 80,000,000 or so people who happen to be stuck using a M$ box is not only extreme, but bad for the site as a whole.
Even though Linux is good and getting better, and is already a whole lot better than the opposition in some areas, it's not the only game in town. I am paraphrasing C.S. Lewis (the book Mere Christianity) in saying "we may disagree with others in the house, but our job is to look for ways to work together rather than ways to stand divided." Linux/Slashdot/any software project improves in direct proportion to the number of users who are available to find problems with it. In the meantime, don't piss on the Windows User community. Recruit and train them instead....Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Tell you what, AC. You start a company, work for several years to get it going. Then I'll go up on the 'Net and post all sorts of lies and "inside stories." No law against it, so your company starts to lose money.
Hmmm. You say... this ought to be against the law. Coulda shoulda woulda been...
I reiterate one more time: think before you post!!
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
On the internet, everyone is a public figure.
-bonkydog
Quid rides? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. -Horace, Satirae
I fail to see the logic. This is like saying that wearing a face mask to hide your identity during a robbery should be viewed as unacceptable, if not made illegal. If we fine people for wearing masks, perhaps fewer robberies will be committed.
Buh?
If I can rely on my comprehension of the article we are discussing, one of the users named in the suit went by a username, "Delusional5". This is a username just like "knifegirl" and "afniv" are. I have chosen a name for myself here so am not an Anonymous Coward. That does not mean that you know my identity.
I'm a little unclear on how Yahoo can be subpoenaed for the legal names of its users. I don't think they require a user to provide this information before signing up for an account and, if they did, how could the information be verified?
No, I think they are suing Yahoo! BECAUSE they have $$. That way there is something to get out of the deal. You sue the little AC's that posted the stuff and it would like trying to sqeze water out of a rock. The layer fees alone couldn't be paid with a years salary of the possible AC's.
Ahh, life in the USA. Cross a layer with the godfather and he'll make you an offer you can't understand!!!
unmask the John Does?!?
I have a geocities acct that lists my address in LA. I live in WI, and used various sites to get the correct ZIP and area codes for "1234 Main St."
There is no way to trace these people if they seriously want to be annonymous.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
this seems really silly distinction. how about religion. prejudice against a person's religion is just as bad as race. and a person has choice over their religion. your OS is a lot like your religion (at least with /. people).
Seems to me this is possibly a case of "Mommy...Tommy from next door called me a stupid fatso." Don't get me wrong...by all means, this guy has the right to be upset for the slander. But why can't he respond in a reasonable, adult manner? And besides, my understanding (insert obligatory IANAL disclaimer here) is once someone is a public figure, they lose the right to sue for slander. Might the case be made the CEO of the company is a public figure?
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
I would give quite a different answer depending on exactly what !@#$ translated to...
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
While people can try to use libraries and universities for anonymous connections to the Net, those places are also filled with people who can describe that weird guy who brought his laptop in when the crime was committed.
Umm... what?
I dunno about where you live, but I know that around here, I can walk into the public library, sit down at one of the ~50 internet terminals provided, fire up Netscape, and post whatever the hell I want.
In fact, there's usually a ~half-hour to an hour wait to use one of the terminals, depending on what time I go. Believe me, nobody would remember me. It's about as anonymous as you get.
The university is even more anonymous, where I could walk right into the computer lab, post, walk out, and look like any other student. Any of the other 10,000 or so who go to that university. The other major university in town even has internet terminals (text-only, granted) scattered liberally throughout the campus with easy access. Possible that no-one would even notice I was there, let alone recognize me.
Alternatively, I could just log into a freenet to route me.
Combine that with a Hotmail/Yahoo/etc. account...
Trust me -- anonymity is very easy to achieve.
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
*and* won't harm /. in any way it's ok
That's extremely dangerous.
Once you start doing that, you (Rob/the moderator/whoever) becomes responsible for the content of the posts (or at least the AC ones), which they are not currently.
Then, if one that could be considered (by someone) to be slanderous/libelous/defaming/whatever does get through, the original poster (who is an AC, and therefore unknown) can't be sued, but the lawyers will have the recourse of going after Rob and/or the moderator(s), which believe me, they will do.
Ouch!
Sorry... your proposal could only make the situation worse
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
I'll make a couple of very generous assumptions here:
1) There are 200,000 Slashdot readers. (No way! The number of accounts is at something like 20,000; the number total has gotta be less than 200k.)
2) Every one of these would be willing to contribute $20. (Again, highly dubious, when you consider the high-school, etc, students for whom $20 is a lot of money, people overseas and for whom for other reasons, sending such money would be a large hassle, people who are lazy, and people who just don't care.)
Even making these assumptions, my total only comes to $4,000,000. Do you have any idea how much money one of these companies can bring to bear in a lawsuit? Waaaaaaaay more than 4 million!
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
Semantics. The point is the same.
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
Hmm.. this raises yet another interesting question. Is this even really slander? I would say not.
The dictionary defines slander as: a false and defamatory oral statement about a person
Note; I didn't hear any oral comments tbrough my computer -- did you?
Bah. why don't they just go watch more tv?
Not drinking, chasing women, or doing drugs won't make you live longer--it just seems that way.
Nod, libel: defamation of a person by written or representational means.
the law suit was for slander, right? This is clearly a libel case... which would make it moot. There was no slander here, which was my original point.
boo.
Not drinking, chasing women, or doing drugs won't make you live longer--it just seems that way.
Yeah, that would work.
Hi! My name is Ben Simmons, and I live in Moultrie, GA.
Sure, you can trace my IP address and at least start to suspect (if, that is, you know where foo.anl.gov is located physically) that I'm full of crap, but how to prove it?
Banning AC's won't stop people from posting anonymously. Or rather, it won't necessarily make them post honestly.
----
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
#2 is extreme because there are an unfortunately large number of /. readers that are forced to use Wind'oh!s based crap at work.
Or, as someone else mentioned, some people can't get connected to an ISP via Linux.
Currently I fall into the former category, but I'm thinking of switching my desktop machine over some evening "after hours" and seeing how long it takes my bosses to notice. heh heh
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
You have GNU sense of humor, do you? I'd say something about rms, but I just realized I'm not logged on anonymously.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
How about instead, your browser/OS/IP address gets tacked onto every message? That should prevent a few people from flapping their jaws.
/. gets flooded with the tilde??.microsoft.com users who come here to do nothing but misinform :-).
It would also be pretty useful, for when
Go to a public library
Get a free anonymous e-mail address
Post to Slashdot, Yahoo, Usenet (though Dejanews), or whatever.....
What are they going to do, fingerprint the keyboards? Subpeona the librarians?
--
Beef
"Raging Moderate" of the
Make a disclaimer about how /. is not responsible for the users actions.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Ooops. I just I forgot about the "fine print"..
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
#2 I think that could be a cyber rasict statement..
There is nothing wrong with what OS a user uses.. Get over it.. We shouldn't be hating each other becuase of the OS we run.. You might run linux, one may run mac os, one may run nt.. That does make a diffrence at all.. The windows user might be more technolically advanced than the Linux user.. (There are some...)
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Wow, someone agreed w/ me!!! Hahah.. Well I run 98, NT and redhat in my house. I use 98 as my main os becuase I can support all my wierd hardware and my software. Also I have been running it for a longtime and I just don't want to switch my main unit over. I would run my linux box all the time, but it's not working with the nic. It's a Sparc IPX box if I remeber correctly with a 210 hd (I would be using a 1gig, but I can't get rid of the Netware format off of it from the redhat install) P.S-> If anyone has anyhints, please send them!!
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Ok.. What's is an IP going to do? Those can be spoofed.. Also remember dynamic accounts.. Ect. ect.. I beleive the net is it's own lil' country (world) and it's a free one and that anything that happens on it should be void and null from laws of countries. Government should not take control of the net due to my beleives.. It should a complete anarchy.. =>
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I believe that people should work together to intergrate the program for all the os communities. You have to think about how each community help each other with the advances in code and hardware.. A simple competition.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
You can't patent names.. You can make it a (R) or (C) but you can not patent..
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Goto my homepage and look under virtual servers, I have a link to a anonymous ISP. .
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Look for IP spoofing HOWTO on a search engine. The only OS that can truely do this is on *nix systems. Windows would be hard becuase you would have to fux0r w/ the IP stack.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
That's why the smart sysops wrote disclaimers..
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Talking about the KKK, they should be liable for slander.. Think about it.. (Just thinking of anyway to rid the world of what seems like the lowest life forms to be)
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Wait a minute.. Umm.. The internet start in the US.. 2nd I'm getting sick of all the forienger (sp?) that message us saying the we suck and that we should go **** a goat or something.. I get random by you poeple alot just going off on me.. What did I ever do to you? Nothing.. Why do I deserve this, becuase I am american.. Will racism stop, no! Becuase you have people that seem so f$$$ing stupid out there and they think they are better than sliced bread.. Arrggg.. The net is suppossed to a cool place to be, with out racism. Take your crap and jump off a cliff..
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
During the Redhat install??? When I go out to the fdisk util it just goes back to the install when I try most of the commands.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
What would the logic behind that.. We would have to fine every one in aspen durring winter.. Hehee.. That would be funny thou.. =P
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Not if US Law is asking for the information.. Unless there is a disclaimer saying that 'Under no cercumstances will any user (resistered and/or anonymous) information will be displayed to a 3rd party group, including government agencies.'
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Yes... I say these key words "seems like".."My Opionion" "Feels like".. I think there are a couple more..
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Hmmmm..I would like my site to ./'d... Wonder if my admin would care.. Ah.. It would test out his dual Celerons... =P
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
/.'d.. instead of ./'d..heeh
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
They can't.. =>
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I should think that the anonymous coward poses the most trouble for Rob in case of a lawsuit. If a names poster posts libelous comments, and a lawsuit ensues, resulting in a subpoena for the users information, at least Rob would have an email address to hand over. In the case of the Anonymous Coward, however, he would be unable to serve any information whatsoever, i suspect, and at that point, the lawyers may turn to /. for reconciliation.
"I think the mistake a lot of us make is thinking the state-appointed shrink is our friend." --Jack Handey
Kaisyain suggests keeping track of IP addresses. But that would only work if ISPs cooperate. How else are you going to track down the several million of AOL customers going through a handful of proxies? And ISPs do not want to do this; doing this would mean they agree they are responsible for what their customers do. Unlike for instance phone companies, or the US postal service. You can't sue AT&T because someone phoned someone else and slandered. You can't sue the US postal service because you send an illegal copy of a book by mail.
A few years ago, the Church of Scientology sued half of the ISP's in the Netherlands, because they claimed they were responsible for their customers putting up websites with text the Co$ claimed to have copyright on. The court ruled that the ISPs cannot be held responsible - they are just couriers. An ISP might be held responsible if it can be proven one of their customers commits a crime, and the ISP doesn't react.
The law in the US is of course different. It would certainly be interesting to know how the court will rule in this case. I hope the court will rule yahoo cannot be held responsible.
-- Abigail
Kurt Gray writes:
> Do not allow Anonymous Cowards post more than 3 comments.
And how are you going to count?
-- Abigail
> I love linux, but cannot find an ISP that will give me the same kind of access that I can get under Windows.
Huh? What else than PPP (or SLIP), and some standard TCP/IP and UPD/IP servers do you need? Or can you find only ISPs whose DNS server refuses to talk to non-Windows machines? That would be a silly hack....
-- Abigail
Let's talk about something a little more interesting. Why are we putting up with this current system? Instead of talking about the broken slander laws let's talk about the fact that corporations have the rights of citizens. (Non Humans have the right to free speech.) Microsoft has the right to create FUD. (There's no FUD law yet!)
If anything is holding back the evolution of the human species it's FUD!
Stop FUD Now!
If you're not familiar with Noam Chomsky. These Ideas tend to relate to what he's written...
More on Chomsky here