Privacy and anonymity concern

[petit534]

I was recently on a forum where the bantering started to get a little heated. It was one of those "hate" places where I should not have been but kept going back like a moth to the flame. When I read the posts, I just felt like I needed to say something in defense of the people they were bashing. Eventually, a mod I guess, started addressing me by my real name and making references to other websites that I had frequented. This caused a chill...how much do they know and HOW do they know it??? When I asked how they got this information, they not only didn't answer but banned me from the site and the forum. I have since been able to access the site but still banned from the forum...even when I try to log in with a different email address and name.
I don't really care to participate in that forum again but just curious about how all of this works. Someone told me about the "IP". When you sign up for a forum, can they trace your IP and get this private information? Is it even legal for them to disclose your personal information on the forum?
Thank you so much for your help?

[clanmills]

I am rather surprised by your story. However there are a several lessons I hope you take from this experience:

1) You are never as anonymous as you might think you are, when you are on the internet.

2) Please never get involved in any kind of verbal exchange on the internet - or anywhere else for that matter.

3) It's unlikely that the admins or moderators on the forum from which you were banned, have been able to figure out who you are by invading your computer in any way. However they have been to some trouble to find out who you are. Beware.

However I also note a trace of remorse in what you have written. Moreover you wouldn't admit any of this to us if you didn't feel some regret. I hope you'll keep out of this kind of trouble in future.

Robin

[petit534]

Thank you for your reply...yes I feel remorse and I have learned my lesson. My mother once told me to never put something in writing that you would mind the world to see....I am 61 yrs old..I should know better. I will only frequent friendly places from now on. I am relieved to know that they haven't been able to somehow infiltrate my computer.

Is what they did...putting my information in the forum discussion...legal?

Oh, I am pretty sure I posted this question twice...I just joined this site and messed up..please disregard the second question..

Thank you again.

[0siris]

Is what they did...putting my information in the forum discussion...legal?

I think that's a tricky question. And I don't have a definitive answer for you. See, forum providers are in some legal grey areas. WIMI, if I recall, is run out of Great Britain. I'm in the USA. In the USA, there's a bit of legal controversy over whether forum providers count as "service providers," or not. If they *are* service providers in a legal sense, then there is a set of rule that apply to them. If they are not (and I forget the term for what they'd be in this case), then there are many rules that do not apply.

But, if this is a big enough issue in your life, don't forget that there might be civil as well as criminal avenues of effort. If that site doesn't have a privacy policy in place, then they can be held to the privacy standards in your community. If they do, then I doubt the policy expressly grants them the ability to reveal you like you describe. And violating their own privacy policy opens them up to being sued by you. It is, of course, up to you to prove that they've damaged you in some way that a civil court would issue compensation to correct. That may be hard to prove. So you have to decide if that would be worth the effort and (possible) expense.

I don't mean to add insult to injury with this, but let me take a moment to state that this is all based on your side of this story. There is, quite possibly, another side that paints a VERY different picture. I don't know you, and I don't know them. I wasn't there to see what happened. It is, therefore, fundamentally impossible to give you clear and definitive advice. That's neither a defense of the other forum, nor a criticism of you. Just a reminder that having your own view of events is no guarantee that you'll be found in the right.

[petit534]

Thank you again for your response.
I am certainly not ready to sue anybody....the whole thing just kinda made me feel like a peeping Tom was watching me sitting here in my underware... The website was Votefortheworse.com which is a STUPID place for me to be. They bash on American Idol contestants...I can only imagine what you are thinking of me right now ..anyway, I was just snooping around. They kept bashing on this one poor contestant so I signed up...logged on and said my piece. Then they started lashing out at me... Thinking that nobody knew who I was, I lashed back. Then they referred to my real name..told me to go back to..and listed other websites I frequent...and I just got this chill up my spine. Then I started questioning them about how they got my information and they banned me. I have since gone back...just to look...and they do the same thing to other people.

I am just going to assume from now on...that when I join a forum to beware...Big Brother is watching
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

[AboveTheLogic]

you using the same forum name on all these other sites? if so, that's the connection

[petit534]

I use the same name on some sites but on votefortheworst.com I was using a name that I hadn't used before.

When I signed up for the site I had to give them my email address...as you do for all of these forums.

Can they trace me through my email address? I was also naive enough to have my name in my email address...duh... But that still doesn't explain how they knew what sites I had been visiting....ie geneology stuff.

[AboveTheLogic]

A search for email address and first/last name can reveal a lot of information if you have a considerable online presence.

The admin would know your general location by your IP as well. They were probably just creative with searching different sources with your IP, email address, and name... and one thing led to another.

[petit534]

Maybe I should feel special that they took that much time to research little ole me. I really don't have any skeletons for them to dig up...so I guess I just need to move on....thank for the education here..

[dekomusic]

You are lucky to be able to forget all about it. I have read stories of people that have been involved in same situations and had problems in real life as well. The internet is a miniature of our everyday life (until now, because in some years it may not be so small) with the exception that the rules (law) are not very clear in many cases.
Most importantly there is no law enforcement to catch the bad guys and prevent others to become bad guys. The internet has many grey areas so we all have to be really careful.

[active]

I believe in freedom of speech and I think that anonymity is important for that goal. I often wonder how anonymous anyone actually is on line. If it is even possible to be anonymous perhaps there are some things that can keep you more or less safe from violent intelligent people without morals.

[wimiadmin]

Originally Posted by active

I believe in freedom of speech and I think that anonymity is important for that goal. I often wonder how anonymous anyone actually is on line. If it is even possible to be anonymous perhaps there are some things that can keep you more or less safe from violent intelligent people without morals.

This is a great question. There are many tools out there that help you hide your IP, but in the grand scheme of things, you're still connecting to the internet from your IP and undoubtedly can be traced back to you at some point some way. I think it depends on how driven the person is in finding you.

[0siris]

Originally Posted by active

I believe in freedom of speech and I think that anonymity is important for that goal. I often wonder how anonymous anyone actually is on line. If it is even possible to be anonymous perhaps there are some things that can keep you more or less safe from violent intelligent people without morals.

I'd like to add to wimiadmin's post by also pointing out that I don't think privacy law in the USA has kept up with technology's ability to compromise our privacy.

Here's one example: Twitter. I hate the beast. But I know many people love it. It's Internet text messaging, basically. You can post from a PC, from a cell phone, you can include GPS data in it...

Errr.... what? Yeah. There was a story in my area recently of people who watch for Tweets from their local area. It's AMAZING what people post. In the story, one woman posted from her home with her cell phone. The app, as advertised, included her GPS location. She posted that she was going on vacation for two weeks. Guess what she found when she got back?

So, even if she'd blocked her IP... And is there anything illegal about reading Tweets? Heck no. There SHOULD be.

Privacy, like freedom, is HARD. All it takes is one little slipup, and it's gone, never to return.

[systemslave]

The whole concept of legal rights to anonymity is curious. Now don't get me wrong. I like my privacy perhaps more than you do. But the idea that anonymity will last on the internet is not based on history or law. Prior to the internet what great public forum was anonymous? You had to identify yourself to use a car on the street, identify yourself to write a check or use credit, identify yourself to get services almost anywhere. The internet has often been compared to the wild west where people made up there own rules and there was a lack of lawmen to enforce "rules of society". What does history teach us about the wild west? The more people moved in, the less wild it was. Anonymity on the internet is fleeting at best. It does not serve the purposes of government. So should you expect government to work hard to protect it? If you don't expect the government to protect your rights, who are you counting on?

[0siris]

In the USA, anonymity protections aren't involved in transactions between private entities/individuals. There are exceptions, like cameras in corporate bathrooms, etc. But, basically, the law is about protecting our identity from government, not each other.

So when government drags its feet, that makes its motives all the more clear.

[active]

Personally Identifiable information 1. How much are you broadcasting with each post, comment, question you type unto a website. 2. I know that Aol had a security breach a few years back and some one found 600,000 users a) name; b) user ID; c) search terms; d) websites visited. I have since learned that Google and most search engines store all available information on searches. And I also understand that because they are keeping records of what IP addresses and search terms and sites visited they can be and HAVE been subpoenaed by the Government in cases.
So, my conclusion is that no search is safe. If one day it becomes illegal to question government ( oops in South Carolina you are a criminal if you think your government is corrupt) then all your searches will be used against you in court. Recently I have found a site called http://ixquick.com quite an interesting site and they claim not to store data on searches nor IP addresses.

[active]

Originally Posted by systemslave

The whole concept of legal rights to anonymity is curious. Now don't get me wrong. I like my privacy perhaps more than you do. But the idea that anonymity will last on the internet is not based on history or law. Prior to the internet what great public forum was anonymous? You had to identify yourself to use a car on the street, identify yourself to write a check or use credit, identify yourself to get services almost anywhere. The internet has often been compared to the wild west where people made up there own rules and there was a lack of lawmen to enforce "rules of society". What does history teach us about the wild west? The more people moved in, the less wild it was. Anonymity on the internet is fleeting at best. It does not serve the purposes of government. So should you expect government to work hard to protect it? If you don't expect the government to protect your rights, who are you counting on?

Anonymity is as central to a Constitutional Republic as one issue can be. Even in our own history in the USA Benjamin Franklin wrote and published under a pseudonym in his papers on the value of the Constitution. Not only is Anonymity necessary for freedom it is central to the Unites States Constitutional Republic. One must forever have the ability to speak freely on any topic, for once that freedom, that liberty is denied ONE PERSON for any reason, All have been silenced. If you tell one man to shut UP because you don't like his words. I shall use an extreme example of the President of Iran spewing forth the lie that the Holocaust was a fraud. He must forever have the liberty to say that. If I were to say, "Now it is a crime to speak that thought", then what "thought" is next to censor? Perhaps the words, "I am a Christian" will be next. Perhaps the next people to be jailed will be those who question the government's story on 9/11. Freedom of Speech and Anonymity are as central to Liberty as O2 and CO2 are to breath.
How free is a man to speak his mind if he knows his boss will read his words? How free is a man if his job depends upon people believing he believes a certain way? NO man can speak freely if he is certain that he is being recorded and identified. GE will never allow NBC to publish a story negative to the farce that is Man made Global warming. They are not free. GE is bound to NBC etc and thus there will never be a broadcaster for NBC that will on their broadcast question the very source of GE's massive wealth.... Thank you for your attention.

[0siris]

Just remember that posting to the Internet is not *always* a private affair. The resource you utilize to make that post *do* matter. There are some exceptions, but in general, if you're using a computer that you did not buy yourself, and/or an Internet connection that someone else is paying for, then you have no legal right to privacy.

[active]

Originally Posted by wimiadmin

This is a great question. There are many tools out there that help you hide your IP, but in the grand scheme of things, you're still connecting to the internet from your IP and undoubtedly can be traced back to you at some point some way. I think it depends on how driven the person is in finding you.

The government has unlimited resources in finding you. I was in a computer class a few years ago and the teacher was a former GE employee in the weapons program and he was telling us about the technology of laser audio transmission. Every surface vibrates at a certain frequency and all sound has its own patterns and with this lasar pointed at any surface the voice patterns can be determined and reproduced. Do we have privacy, most can probably expect it. But if the federal Government gets you in their sites now that the Patriot act is law, YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS no matter what. If they come to your door they can take you away with a trial, with out evidence and they write the warrant on the spot without "Oath nor Affirmation" as required in the 4th Amendment. So until the Patriot Act is repealed I suggest taking as many steps as possible in protecting your personal information.

I will now step off the soap box,

Have a pleasant evening.

[wimiadmin]

We have to realize who the Patriot Act is targeting though. They can point their sound capturing laser at me all they want as I have nothing important to say.....demonstrated on my facebook page.

I think there have to be acceptable allowances. If the American People (including me) want further protection from anyone wishing to do us or this Country harm, then I'm willing to accept the fact that Big Brother might eaves drop on a conversation of mine. They'll quickly move on to someone with a more interesting topic.

I think with the internet, social media, cell phones, credit cards, security cameras, etc. our privacy becomes less and less private. So unless one lives under some alias in a rural part of the country with no friends, no internet, no credit card, no cell phone, not a single luxury (from Gilligan's Island) they're on the grid.

The question we have to ask ourselves is how much security are we willing to give up to keep our privacy. Personally, I'm doing nothing wrong. I earn my living, I pay my taxes, so the government has no business eaves dropping on me, peeping in my windows, checking my email, etc. BUT, if the safety and security of my Country and my fellow Americans depends on the government eaves dropping on me from time to time, I think I'm ok with that.....AS LONG AS it's effective and serves its purpose.

I often think Google knows more about me than the US Government though and perhaps Big Google is the one we should be worrying about.

<Stepping off soap box>

If we want to start a thread for this topic, I can move these posts to 'Off Topic Discussions', but I don't want the WIMI forum to become a political venue. There are plenty of other places on the web for that.