Judge rules website must disclose anon commenter info

[Underscore]

A Philadelphia judge has ordered philly.com to reveal the name of an anonymous commenter, in a defamation suit brought by electricians’ union leader John Dougherty.

An attorney in the case says it could have a broad impact on incendiary online comments and those users, sometimes called “trolls,” who post them anonymously.


I bring this up because GOM stated he'll never reveal member info. While I don't envision him being publicly eviscerated and shouting "Freedom!" I'd rather he not be put in this position at all...

[The Man On The Street]

AVfMs OFFICIAL POLICY - and that goes for all our endeavors (YT, Forums, etal) - is that we will NEVER bow down to this sort of thing. I have it on good authority that Paul, Dean, JtO are in agreement with me, we will NEVER give out info. We'd go to jail first.

Al

[Jack H.]

AVfMs OFFICIAL POLICY - and that goes for all our endeavors (YT, Forums, etal) - is that we will NEVER bow down to this sort of thing. I have it on good authority that Paul, Dean, JtO are in agreement with me, we will NEVER give out info. We'd go to jail first.

Al

then why are you forcing all comments on the main site to go through disinterested third parties such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or Disqus who DO NOT HAVE such a commitment to the safety and well being of your readers?

[The Man On The Street]

then why are you forcing all comments on the main site to go through disinterested third parties such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or Disqus who DO NOT HAVE such a commitment to the safety and well being of your readers?

Although I have some input as to how the front end of AVfM does things, I am not the be-all/end-all of the decision process; whereas here on the FORUMS, I AM. I am sorry that you feel as if you are forced... It is not our intentions. Social media, like it or hate it, is here to stay and we are only trying to stay on top of the things that folks are interested in/use. Our growth as a movement as well as a media force depends upon us 'being in the know' so to speak.

ETA: If you'll notice, the Facebook, myspace, twitter etc stuff is NOT ACTIVE here. and as far as I am concerned, it never will be. I do not like the fact that when you turn these social media things on within a forum, trackability is easier and a persons ability to be whom they want to be here is compromised. I am not willing to do that to the membership.

Al

[Jack H.]

it's not a feeling of being forced, it is now impossible to comment without signing in using one of those sites, None of whom have demonstrated ANY trustworthiness with regards to peoples personal information.

saying you are committed to NEVER giving out info and are willing to go to Jail to protect us then turning all responsibility for safeguarding that information over to those who DO NOT have such a commitment is both dishonest and hypocritical.

if hypothetically you were to leave you kids in my care trusting me to watch over them because I swore to protect them and then if I was then to leave and turn them over to the care of a registered child molester have I done my sworn duty to protect them? they were safe the entire time they were in my care after all? I'm not responsible for them getting molested because I didn't molest them personally I can't be held accountable for what happened while they were out of my care. besides they should get used to it, child molesters are here to stay we haven't gotten rid of them in all of human history.

but of course we're not talking about children getting raped here were talking about people being [b]murdered[/m] by Violent Feminists or Government kill squads under their control which Isn't nearly as Bad right?

[strix]

then why are you forcing all comments on the main site to go through disinterested third parties such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or Disqus who DO NOT HAVE such a commitment to the safety and well being of your readers?

Twitter, Facebook and G+ are conveniences, but you don't have to involve them in order to get a Disqus commenting account. The only organisation you have to give any information to is Disqus, and then only an email address, and not even an email address that is tied to anything to do with your real identity.

Is getting an extra freebie email address really that difficult? There are at least two dozen webmail providers, many of which are free (so no connection with your real identity). Most webmail providers include some means to forward mail elsewhere, so you need not even miss out on notifications.

In fact, you don't even have to verify the address, although you'll be stuck in permanent pre-moderation until you do.

Sooner or later, you have to trust somebody online, even if it's only your ISP. If you believe that complete online anonymity is actually possible, let me disabuse you of that: knowing what I do about internet surveillance, giving an email address to companies like Disqus, Google or even Facebook is a very, very minor concern because the authorities don't need access to those companies' records to find out who you are or who your ISP is.

In fact, as a rule, I'd say that the Disquses and Googles of the world are in some ways safer than any given random website. Those guys have bigger pockets to defend legal action (from people other than lawful authorities) and have more to lose by just rolling over and handing over the info than comparatively little orgs like AVfM. That said, the mods of any Disqus-enabled site you comment on can see your email address so, meh. It depends on your risk analysis and why you care.

Also, if you've ever clicked the "subscribe to thread" or "subscribe to site" checkboxes on the old system, Automattic (aka wordpress.com) already have your email address. Likewise, whoever hosts your email address knows you read and comment at AVfM. Why would you trust Automattic or your mail provider any more than Disqus?

Given all of that, I really don't see what the big deal about Disqus is. It really isn't any more dangerous than an in-house comment system.

[Androgen]

I've stopped commenting on the articles, assuming they're a Stasi entrapment plot to round up dissenters dissatisfied with the demonization and vilification of males in society.

[Jack H.]

you seem to be under the impression I'm not already using randomly generated throw away emails or that I don't already connect through fake IP addresses
I'm not overly concerned for my sake, rather I fear for the safety of less Informed commentators.
as for having to trust someone eventually, I did I trusted Paul Elam and AVfM who trusted YOU Stix since you've taken these steps with the site I'd say someone's trust was misplaced ether mine or theirs take your pick.
Trust like respect is not something anyone should just give away those are things that need to be earned and I must say there are many people on here I would trust but AVfM Itself and you personally Mr. Stix Mr.River of Death(very appropriate btw) have lost that trust.

I have had more than enough contact with radfems to know that the genocide talk isn't just Idle chatter, you should maby pay attention to it just sayin.
I'm pretty sure Androgen here is trying to Troll but he might as well be telling the truth.

[Androgen]

you seem to be under the impression I'm not already using randomly generated throw away emails or that I don't already connect through fake IP addresses
I'm not overly concerned for my sake, rather I fear for the safety of less Informed commentators.
as for having to trust someone eventually, I did I trusted Paul Elam and AVfM who trusted YOU Stix since you've taken these steps with the site I'd say someone's trust was misplaced ether mine or theirs take your pick.
Trust like respect is not something anyone should just give away those are things that need to be earned and I must say there are many people on here I would trust but AVfM Itself and you personally Mr. Stix Mr.River of Death(very appropriate btw) have lost that trust.

I have had more than enough contact with radfems to know that the genocide talk isn't just Idle chatter, you should maby pay attention to it just sayin.
I'm pretty sure Androgen here is trying to Troll but he might as well be telling the truth.

I'm really not. If you haven't noticed, western society is extremely misandristic. I'm utterly terrified for my personal safety to discuss these things in a non-anonymous forum. Even suggesting something like "well, maybe women should be as responsible for their choices when they drink as men" might end in a lynch mob from either the right or the left.

[Hlaford]

You can't stop IP addresses being attached to e-mail accounts, so I'll not share my e-mail with anyone I don't trust. Ever heard of Lawful Intercept? It is in action regardless.
Making such account safe means:
- going for a web proxy
- opening a bogus e-mail account
- going for another web proxy
- signing in at Disqus...ting service
- switching back to the first web proxy for confirmation
- writing a comment using yet another web proxy

Far too much hustle. I'll not comment on the main page any time soon. Guess we'll see more "diversity" in commenter population, and overall far less comments there.

[strix]

You can't stop IP addresses being attached to e-mail accounts, so I'll not share my e-mail with anyone I don't trust. Ever heard of Lawful Intercept? It is in action regardless.
Making such account safe means:
- going for a web proxy
- opening a bogus e-mail account
- going for another web proxy
- signing in at Disqus...ting service
- switching back to the first web proxy for confirmation
- writing a comment using yet another web proxy

I know a fair bit about lawful intercept, having worked in a tangentially related business for a number of years. What you say is only half true: taking those steps will only protect your IP from Disqus and from the moderators of the site you're commenting on, but it won't help maintain your anonymity from the authorities because most LI is done on the subscriber/ISP end rather than the DC end (so far as I know. Actually, sensors are probably located in both places, but I know for sure they're located in customer-end networks.)

Beyond using an encrypted VPN service — and even then, not really, because I'd be astonished if there weren't sensors at those VPN providers — there pretty much isn't anything you can do to protect your anonymity from law enforcement when using your home internet account.

I'd also point out that most of LI revolves around pattern recognition. Any amount of use of encryption and proxies etc is an enormous red flag waving, "ooh, look at me!" to an LI sensor. In fact, using a proxy actually makes it easier for LE to find you, because pretty much most of the extant open proxies are known by the intelligence services. (It's pretty straight forward to figure out what IPs are acting as proxies, whether intended or not, based on traffic analysis.)

If you take LE out of the equation, then who are you worried about? Disqus? Disqus-enabled sites? I'd worry more about the latter than the former, because Disqus themselves have less incentive to abuse IP and email address information than the operators of any given Disqus-enabled site does. Oh, Disqus does data-mine IP/email address data and sell the results — where else can they get revenue to support their business? — but I don't see that as being anything like as insidious as the potential for LE to abuse LI data.

About the best you can do is to avoid drawing attention to yourself and get a web-mail account such as gmail or safe-mail.net (if you're super paranoid, though since that service is not free your real identity is connected via payment info and you'd have to trust safe-mail.net not to disclose the connection between you and your account — so, in fact, a free webmail service like gmail may in some ways be safer still) and live with the fact that people will track you on-line.

The only alternative is simply not to participate. The point is that local accounts and commenting systems like what we used to use afford no notably better security than Disqus does (or perhaps I should say, Disqus is not notably worse than local commenting systems.)

Far too much hustle. I'll not comment on the main page any time soon. Guess we'll see more "diversity" in commenter population, and overall far less comments there.

Well, quality, not quantity, but in any case I'd have to say that data-to-date don't bear out your prediction.