Re: The Register: Anonymity no protection for online libellers
> Mark Weston, technology law specialist at MAB Law, says the ruling was > another link in the chain of judicial authority saying that you cannot be > anonymous. If they can find out who you are, you aren't "anonymous," you are "confidential." Anonymous means no trail was created which might be examined to disclose your identity, and no individuals are in possession of that information, and might disclose it. Confidential means the information exists, but that people have promised to keep it secret, until they change their minds. There is a vast difference, for instance, between confidential HIV testing, and anonymous HIV testing. When I want to be anonymous online, I rely on technology, not peoples promises, and if this individual had been truly anonymous, he would not have been identified. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
The Register: Anonymity no protection for online libellers
The tenuous nature of online anonymity was underlined yesterday, thanks to the final ruling in the Motley Fool libel case. Terry Smith, chief executive of city firm Collins Stewart Tullett, won undisclosed damages from Jeremy Benjamin, a fund manager. Benjamin had posted what he now accepts as false allegations on the Motley Fool forum, www.fool.co.uk under the pseudonym "analyser71". ... Mark Weston, technology law specialist at MAB Law, says the ruling was another link in the chain of judicial authority saying that you cannot be anonymous. He likened this element of the ruling to cases where ISPs have been forced to reveal the identity of filesharers to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). "It should make posters more careful. The supposed anonymity online is only temporary," he told us. "Just as in the offline world, as long as someone knows who you are, they can be forced to reveal your identity." [Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead] Read the complete article at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/24/motley_ruling/
