Slashdot Mirror
Lilly Industries Sues Five 'Anonymous' Posters
BenDover writes "Lilly Industries, Inc. has sued five anonymous posters too Yahoo! message boards who have allegedly made defamatory statems about Lilly executives and distribed confidential company info. What makes this all the more interesting is quote:
"Yahoo! has complied with subpoenas without notifying subscribers. . ."" This sort of lawsuit really could end the era of the open, lawless Internet.
We've all seen what anonymous posting does (look no further than Slashdot for the sorts of abuses that happen when there is no accountability) but without the right to write something anonymously, people might be afraid to speak out when the need really arises. Its
gonna get interesting.
I totally agree here. Every time something that goes against 100% free and unaccountable speech or flow of goods/information on the internet, all the tech-heads (for lack of a better word) get up in a bunch about howe their "freedoms are being taken away", and "this could be the beginnings of an internet witch hunt", and "it's corporate america trying to [hold 'us' back]".
Sorry folks. If these 'annonymous' posters were, in fact, guilty of making false statements at the expense of a company, they should be prosecuted. There are two terms for this depending on the situation: Slander and Libel; and both are well-documented in legal history. Both also have very good reasons for being illegal. Things like this make it possible for me to be held accountable for saying money given to slashdot is merely funding a diabolical plot, devised by criminally insane mastermind Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda and gang, to kill all lovers of beanie babies in this world. I have accused our host of a criminal, albeit comic book-ish, plan for which he could be investigated and possibly brought up on charges of misdoings. All because of one little white lie on one little newsgroup from one little asshole... Me. Needless to say, this is pretty far-fetched, so let's tone it down a bit:
I am a VP for Matsushita, parent company of Panasonic and a number of others, and I am betting my career on this new-fangled mp3 player I have gotten approved by the company for production in competition to the ever-popular Rio. Some pinhead decides he is pissed off because he bought a faulty Panasonic phone and did not get his ass kissed by the Sears return desk, so he blames Panasonic when they do nothing about it. Our evil friend decides to post some mean comments about Panasonic and Matsushita in general. Lets say one of these comments is concerns Matsushita having 7-year-olds in sweat shops putting together the plastic casings for their new mp3 players. Is it true? Who really cares. As long as someone gives a hint of agreeing with it, it could blow up and Matsushita could lose enormous amounts of money for something they probably didn't even do.
The simple fact that these Annonymous posters are being prosecuted is not admission of guilt in any way. People, especially those who wrap themselves in the freedoms of the internet, have a tendency to see most corporate-started lawsuits as a bad thing. While I agree on a lot of those ocasions, I do not here. This is simply a company protecting whatever reputation it has, and nothing more. People need to realize that just because we have the most powerful means of sharing information at our fingertips does not mean there is no responsibility for what we say. Words can be as strong as, if not stronger than, actions sometimes.
/Sig/
Here's a theory I will throw out for discussion:
Crypto will soon solve all the problems of anonymnity. It will solve them by removing the possiblity of anonymnity on most of the 'net.
When public key crypto becomes accepted by 'the powers that be' (everybody seems to feel it is inevitable) one of the ways 'the powers that be' will recover some power from the fact that it's out there will be to require digital signatures on all 'net traffic. Send out packets that don't contain your signature, tracable back to a valid identity, and they get dropped at a number of transfer points on the 'net.
The fact that something like this is technologically feasible, and the fact that it's one of the easiest ways for 'authorities' to capture an advantage from crypto means that it's inevitable. When it does happen, say goodbye to anonymnity. Personally, I won't miss it much. Anonymnity causes some real ugly human tendencies to come out, that I've seen in play since the early days of BBSing.
Even if it isn't mandated by law, a lot of us will be empowered to just turn off anything coming from anonymous sources when digital signatures become the norm. "If you wanna say something to me, show your damn face, etc."
For example, you cannot openly incite violence, you cannot defame/slander, and you cannot distribute confidential corporate data.
I agree in principle. If the courts provided a protection against punitive unfounded lawsuits (and the threat of the same), I'd agree in fact as well. Simple scenario:
Anon poster makes several very negative (but true statements). It is tempting to say that a suit will do no good because true statements are not defamation. However, tell that to the defandant after he spends many thousand dollars on lawyers, and looses many hours of work in order to appear in court. He has been effectivly punished for his lawful remarks. Even if he countersues for damages, make him an offer to settle (with gag order) and threaten to drag the case out for years otherwise. The defendant comes out sort of OK, and the corperation has still silenced it's detractor and sent a message to anyone else thinking of speaking out.
The courts freuently allow themselves to be abused this way. Of course, so do the police.
An important question in my mind... Does Slasdot log enough information to do the same?
Would you do it for some scoobie crack?
So kids, the moral of today's story is:
Never post anything that you don't want traced back to you from your own machine. Use a disliked coworker's machine instead.
For the humor impaired: That was a joke. Thank you for playing.
There is already ample case law to defeat this initiative:
Cubby vs. Compuserve and Prodigy vs. Stratton, Oakmont.
If these cases serve as any guide it will hinge on whether Yahoo "moderates" (i.e. exerts editorial control) over the postings. If they do then they may be held liable for the content created by their own users!
There are several technical solutions available to stop yahoo (or any other site), in their tracks. these guys run an anonymizing proxy, as do these people. Of course, you also have several CGI proxies out there too, but I don't have the URL's offhand. lucent also ran a proxy, but it has since been discontinued. Freedom now has the functionality - currently free, but will eventually be fee based.
In short, the moral of the story is - if you want anonymity... you need to make a meager attempt at getting it. But not much more - there's plenty of us out there willing to thumb people like yahoo and their court odors (or should that be orders?)
.
--
Freedom to speak, after all, is not necessarily freedom from the consequences of that speech. In this case, the posters may have done something illegal. Is it really that bad that even in cyberspace we can take action against malicious and illegal acts?
It seems to me that putting anonymous posters above the law might not be the best solution. Maybe someone can think up a way to preserve free speech and stop abuse without making more lawyers rich. In the meantime, I see no alternative to situations like the above.
It's a bit too late for that, they traced you down and hired a mafia hitman a month ago. The video will be on America's Funkiest in a week...
You have to wonder if the NSA/FBI/what have you are building of a file of people who are too stupid for their own good, who will say things like this just to see if the dog will bite. Maybe they'll have a big crackdown one of these days, and lower the stupidy quotia of America. Ah well, one can dream....
Listen to me Peter, I want this bench. You go sit on that bench over there, and if you're good I'll tell you the rest of
The real issue here seems to be that a consequence of modern Rules of Procedure is antithetical to general notions of privacy. Without passing on the merits of the lawsuits that are the subject of the article, consider the following hypothetical:
(1) Unfavorable (but clearly not defamatory) information about MEANCO is posted on a website served by ISPSERVICES by an anonymous person identifying herself as an employee of MEANCO.
(2) MEANCO files an absolutely ridiculous defamation action against a Jane Doe. (ISPSERVICES is NOT a defendant, hence no Cubby issues arise).
(3) Since Jane won't step up to the bat, nobody questions whether the lawsuit was valid, and nobody moves to dismiss.
(4) Now, discovery begins in earnest, the lawyer issues a subpoena through the Clerk of Court to ISPSERVICES, who complies therewith, the employee is identified, and the lawsuit is dropped without prejudice.
(5) MEANCO fires the employee.
On the merits, MEANCO never intended to prevail in its lawsuit, and nobody was ever in a position to challenge it. Yet Jane's true name is revealed without a whimper -- indeed, she isn't even in a position to safely intervene without giving up anonymity.
Without passing on the merits of the legal system (discovery is, at the end of the day, a very good thing -- but it does have serious problems), or the merits of having no accountability by absolute anonymity (anonymity is, at the end of the day, a very good thing -- but it does have serious problems), it does seem that the status quo makes it pretty easy to pierce the veil of anonymity, even where there is no good faith basis for the claim in the first place.
if($$USER{uid} > 0) {
$ident=$ENV{REMOTE_ADDR};
} else {
$ident="anonymous";
}
The SQL INSERT happens right after this, so I'd say you're pretty much safe. Now as far as the HTTP server logs go, that's another can of worms.. ..
The Lawless Wild West had laws, but the authorities were spread rather thin.
Just because you don't get caught for a while does not mean there are not laws.
Or we can go a little further back to one of the foundations behind many laws. The Code of Hammurabi, its full text in English, or its foundations, Babylonian law.
109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.
Granted, Yahoo might consider that a little harsh.
AOL has a weird scheme where IP's get issued per connection, not by session! Therefore, they would have a unusually long log of who is using what IP address at exactly what times. I don't doubt that they keep such records, however, but I would be surprised if they keep them for very long periods of time.
I log IP's for users logging onto my system but I only keep the detail for a few days. I keep track of IP's as part of an effort to keep players from running more accounts than is permitted. For AOL users, I only keep the first few IP addresses -- I have no idea how many different IP addresses average AOL session might use.
However, unless a provider makes no logs of connections, it is easily possible to trace connections back to the originator. Since the network has to know where each packet of an interactive session is going, a way to trace the connection must always exist.
If some wings of our (U.S) government have their way, I would expect to eventually see packet logging required at all routers! Of course, performance and costs would take a big hit, but hey, it'd be for the "war on drugs" or "for the children", right?
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Did you notice the TV camera in the lobby of the library? At the gasoline station across the street?
Anonymous posting is a two edged sword wich ballances out.
On one hand, Anonymous posters (shouldn't be) accountable for what they say, as there should be no way to find out who said it.
On the other hand, people should realize that anonymous posters will not be accountable for their statements, so what an anonymous poster posts could easily be a load of bullshit.
If corporations can sue for "libel" then corporations can threaten to sue over anything that puts them in a bad light. This is a bad thing(TM), and would seriously and legaly inflict on free speach. It happens somewhat now, but if even those who post anonymously can be targeted?
I would say that freedom of speach also means freedom from restrictions on that speach. (Although I would also assume that "Freedom of Speach" refers to "Freedom to express concepts/ideas to others" as opposed to "Freedom to vocalize in any way at any time").
If people can now be sued for "libel", what's to prevent the US government from passing a law prohibiting "Promoting harmful political systems" and then the courts interprating "harmful" as anything that isn't the current US government.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
It seems to be a common misconception that the Constitutional protection of speech extends to relationships between private individuals. It doesn't.
Example -- A few years ago, Sheryl Crow released an album with a song about someone committing a crime with a gun bought from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart refused to sell the album. In an interview, Sheryl Crow said that they couldn't do that because, "...it's in the Constitution."
This assumption is wrong. The Bill of Rights does not apply to businesses and individuals. It only protects citizens from government.
While the government would (in theory) not be able to stop you from criticizing your employer publicly, that doesn't prevent the employer from taking action. This action may be dismissal (especially if you've violated a Non-Disclosure). If your speech wrongfully cost the employer money, they may file a civil suit to recover the damages.
(Not a lawyer)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
(On a a packet of nuts) Warning: This product contains nuts.
(On a microwave meal) Warning: This product may be hot after microwaving.
(On the underside of a cake box) Warning: Do not turn this product upside down.
I remember a line out of 'Priest' (good film, sexy Linus Roach and sexier Robert Carlisle
An example: I took my dog to the vet's yesterday (sick little doggy :( but getting better :) and was sitting in the waiting room with him on my lap, snoozing. Small child comes up and starts clapping his hands together (deliberately) about 18 inches from his snout (the dog's not the childs). Doggy is, naturally, unimpressed, and makes a very ominous growling sound in the back of his throat. Next thing I know, the little brat's mother is telling me that my dog is dangerous and it shouldn't be in public. Hello? This is a VETERINARY SURGERY? This is where you take dogs when they are ill and understandably not in their best humour? This is NOT the place where small, uncontrolled children run around frightening said sick dogs, right?
Ok, I'm ranting a little bit now
I'm glad I got that off my chest, I think I'll go and lie down, now.
Richard
First of anonymous postings should be taken for what there worth. You have to consider the source. (Where is my slashdot password..?)
However if your going to post, you have to realize its the same as publishing. You can't Libel, slander , publish trade secrets and do things you wouldn't be allowed to do in any publication. Even if its just the "internet"
For example:If your making comments on the Yahoo board about how undervalued the stock is, and you own the stock, its the same on a smaller scale as someone writing in the Wall Street Journal the stock is undervalued and owning the stock. There was a former stock trader who used to give finacial stock advice at noon on CNN or something. He was getting advice from some of his former connections.. There was a NYT magazine article on who was this guys "anonymous sources" and were they feeding him information that was self serving.
Whistleblowing is a good reason for anonymous postings, but there are laws that (try anyway) to protect them.
Just my 2 cents.
/A
For example, Deja.com is known to be recording much of Usenet. Usenet has always been generating large amounts of bytes per day. When Deja began recording Usenet it was not expected that anyone could store so much stuff for long periods, so for a while people expected that what they were posting was going to vanish within days (except for scattered file copies by interested individuals). Now we know that Deja is likely to have old utterings.
Warning: Tipping or rocking may cause serious injury or death.
I agree with you completely. The above sticker, seen on a vending machine, is a prime example that we have become a society that is no longer held accountable for our own actions.
I envision a day where every product comes with a pamphlet/book of warnings, ie: Warning: A pencil in the eye can cause blindness. A pencil in the ear can cause brain damage.
Free speech is free like software (heh) not free like "above the law". However, it should almost always be free like beer.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.