CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘Anonymity’ Category

Newspaper does not have to identify anonymous commenters, rules High Court: “The Daily Mail does not have to identify the people behind two anonymously posted comments on its website because to do so would breach their rights to privacy, the High Court has said.“

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

BBC News – Cyber attacks against Australia ‘will continue’

By Zoe Kleinman, Technology Reporter, BBC News
12 February 2010

An activist group that temporarily blocked access to key Australian government websites plans to continue its cyber attacks, the BBC has learned.

The group, known as Anonymous, was protesting against the Australian government’s proposals to apply filters to the internet in the country.

A man claiming to be a representative of the group said that around 500 people were involved in the attack.

The method they are using is known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS).

DDoS is illegal in many countries including the United Kingdom. There is no indication that the attack was carried out from within Britain. DDoS attacks typically call on machines in many different nations, making them hard to trace.

The sites were intermittently blocked on 10 and 11 February. The action has been condemned by various bodies including the Systems Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU) and Electronic Frontiers Australia.

‘All it takes is a few people to basically send junk traffic to their websites which is causing them to be offline,’ the man, calling himself Coldblood, told BBC News.

‘The people who are currently attacking (the government websites) are planning to keep doing it. It will probably keep happening until either they get bored or it gets sorted out.’

The sites are currently back online but the domains of individual politicians, including that of Stephen Conroy (minister for broadband, communications and the digital economy), were among those targeted.

Web filters

Anonymous is protesting against Australia’s plan to apply a country-wide filter to block certain content in 2011.

In trials already carried out the technology behind the filter has proved to be 100% effective in preventing access to designated sites.

The banned sites would be selected by an independent classifications body guided by public complaints, Senator Conroy has said.

He said the aim of the filter is to make the internet a safer place for Australian children.

Speaking to the BBC, Coldblood said that the activists did not support the creation of illegal content but that banning it would not tackle the issue.

‘If something is illegal which is done on the internet the government should try and prosecute them,’ he said.

‘If they ban it it will just appear somewhere again. What they really need to do is go after the people who are making this content.’

The group consists of ‘a few thousand people’ based all over the world Coldblood said.

They staged cyber attacks on Iran following the election protests and have publicly protested against the Scientology movement.

This was sparked after the Church of Scientology requested the removal of a clip from YouTube featuring Hollywood actor Tom Cruise.

‘One of our main missions is against censorship on the internet,’ said Coldblood.

The group had not had any direct contact with the Australian government, he added.

SAGE-AU said the attack was ‘the wrong way to express disagreement with the proposed law.’

‘The impact of DOS attacks is frequently felt less by government agencies than by system administrators, many of them SAGE-AU members, who are responsible for managing websites and servers,’ continues a statement on its website.

YouTube in Australia

Senator Conroy has also contacted Google requesting that the company begins to filter YouTube content in the country.

Google says that while it complies with the laws of the individual countries in which it has a presence, it would only investigate and consider removing content after receiving a ‘valid legal request’ about something already posted on the site.

‘We first check that the request meets both the letter and spirit of the law, and we will seek to narrow it if the request is overly broad,’ said a spokesperson.

‘YouTube is a platform for free expression. We have clear policies about what is allowed and not allowed on the site.’

Privacy pioneer search engine launches anonymous surfing service: “A search engine company that has won plaudits for its efforts to protect users’ privacy is launching a proxy-surfing service on Thursday by which users can look at web pages without the knowledge of the page owner.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Privacy policy clause is not justification for revealing anonymous poster’s identity, US court rules: “An anonymous web user who posted a comment under an online newspaper story cannot be un-masked, a US Court has ruled. It found that the person did not waive his rights to anonymity despite the contents of the site’s privacy policy.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

UK publishers win right to protect brewer leak source: “Five UK news publishers have won the right not to hand over leaked documents after defying successive UK court rulings ordering them to release the files. The papers claimed doing so would reveal their sources.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Wikipedia to disclose user’s IP address in blackmail case: “

Complies with court order to unmask suspect Wikifiddler

The High Court has ordered the publishers of the Wikipedia user-generated encyclopaedia to reveal information which could identify a contributor in a blackmail case involving an unnamed famous businesswoman.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Two German Killers Demanding Anonymity Sue Wikipedia’s Parent: “German courts allow the suppression of a criminal’s name in news accounts once he has paid his debt to society, a provision that is now pitted against the American First Amendment.

(Via NYT > Technology.)

Scientology seeks to squash anonymity: “

Anonymous attacks could backfire with tighter Aussie laws

A little local controversy involving the Church of Scientology and its critics could lead to curbs on the right to anonymity of anyone using the web.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Unmasked blogger Rosemary Port to sue Google for $15m$: “Google is to be sued for $15 million ($£9 million) by an anonymous blogger who was unmasked by the internet search company.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

Vogue model Liskula Cohen wins right to unmask offensive bloggerA Vogue cover girl has won a precedent-setting court battle to unmask an anonymous blogger who called her a ‘skank’ on the internet.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)