UK Judge Orders Wikipedia To Reveal User's Identity 260
BoxRec writes with this excerpt from The Daily Mail: "A mother trying to identify a blackmailer who posted 'sensitive' details about her child on Wikipedia has won the right to find out who edited her entry. In the first case of its kind, a High Court judge has ordered the online encyclopedia's parent company to disclose the IP address of one of its registered users."
Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
So, someone anonymously leaks information about shady financial dealing by a businesswoman, and then sends a letter indicating that the press was notified of these dealings. Apparently no request for payoff has been made. Sounds like a whistle blower not a blackmailer.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
She also received anonymous threatening letters suggesting her accuser would reveal information to the press.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232901/Wikipedia-ordered-reveal-identity-editor-accused-blackmailing-mother-child.html#ixzz0Yfq9nBa3 [dailymail.co.uk]
Doesn't that depend on what was in the letters? If he's demanding something and threatening to reveal it if not, that's blackmail... especially if the supposed "information" is not true.
According to the article, we don't know what the information was or whether it was true or not (emphasis mine).
The amendments made to the woman's entry involved information about her professional expenses claims and details about her child which the judge did not reveal. She has also received two anonymous letters - although it was not possible to say if these were from the same person who altered the website.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232901/Wikipedia-ordered-reveal-identity-editor-accused-blackmailing-mother-child.html#ixzz0Yfqcw5Yk [dailymail.co.uk]
It does say it involved expense claims, but that isn't proven to be true or false either... so you're believing someone that has presumably sent threatening letters over the businesswoman. She denies the wrongdoing, by the way.
it's not whistleblowing, its blackmail (Score:5, Informative)
whistleblowing is when you go to the press and release info of a criminal nature. blackmailing is when you send letters to the target with a threat to release the info, whether of a criminal nature or just a private, sensitive nature
please report to the nearest droid maintenance facility and have your moral circuitry checked out, thanks
Re:Jurisdiction? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Jurisdiction? (Score:1, Informative)
Can this order really be enforced? What country's laws is Wikipedia bound by?
If any of its officers want to ever travel to the UK, then yes, it can be enforced.
Re:Streisand effect? (Score:3, Informative)
an anyone tell us what the article was?
Her name has not been released and is being kept secret. You should read the article :)
Re:Jurisdiction? (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia is run by the Wikimedia Foundation, which is based in the U.S, so I believe that they are bound by U.S law.
and the US probably has a mutual legal assistance treaty with the UK, including whatever local legal framework is necessary to give such treaties effect. Which means if wikipedia refused to comply then a letter can be sent over to a DA or somebody responsible for this stuff in the US with a copy of the court order and that would be obligated by the treaty to go to a US court and request a subpoena which the court would be obligated to enforce pursuant to the treaty. if wiki then refused to comply it would be found in contempt of the US court. (not to mention the UK court).
obviously it depends on the exact wording in the treaty but generally thats how MLATs work.
WARNING - DAILY FAIL (Score:5, Informative)
This news article was taken from the Daily Mail, a far-right tabloid newspaper which contains more foaming-at-the-mouth madness than a month of Fox News. This story was in all probability sandwiched between an article about how the eeevil not-quite-as-right-wing government are spending *your* taxes on a Christian Vegan Lesbian Holistic Nicaraguan Islamic Learning-impaired Whale-Yoga Ashram, and how the Fish-People really run the BBC which is why they showed eeeevil Nick Griffin and not an episode of Last of the Summer Wine.
Believe pretty much any article you read on Wikipedia before you believe the Daily Mail.
Re:Jurisdiction? (Score:3, Informative)
The servers are in Florida.
But that doesn't exclude the possibility that the Wikipedia or its managers may have a significant legal presence and exposure elsewhere.
The Wikipedia database is stored on a server in the State of Florida in the United States of America, and is maintained in reference to the protections afforded under local and federal law.
Jurisdiction and legality of content [wikipedia.org]
Re:Do you believe everything someone tells you? (Score:3, Informative)
Good article on this at the Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/03/wikipedia_blackmail_case_disclosure/ [theregister.co.uk]
According to The Register article, Wikipedia WILL release the IP address when presented with an order by the court.
There appears to be some kind of business dispute behind all of this: "One of G's companies is in dispute with a person whom she believes is also behind a smear campaign against her. An anonymous letter she received appeared to be a threat to claim that her expenses claims amounted to theft. Another anonymous letter disclosed the information that was later published on the Wikipedia page."
Re:Streisand effect? (Score:2, Informative)
The edits in question have been removed from general public visibility.
Re:Jurisdiction? (Score:5, Informative)
# In reply, lawyers for the Respondent made a number of preliminary observations. First they addressed the request made on behalf of the Applicants that the amendment be deleted. They stated that the Respondent is not the publisher or writer of the article relating to the mother, or of the amendment. They said they would refer the request for the deletion of the archived version of the amendment to "the community of volunteer editors, one or more of whom may attempt to address your concerns". They referred to the immunity they claim under section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act (1996) from most civil liability for content they did not originate or develop. They stated that the Respondent does not conduct operations within the jurisdiction of this court. Nevertheless, they stated that they were happy to forward the Applicants' request to their volunteer community.
# The amendment was removed promptly following the request made on behalf of the Applicants.
# In their letter of 19 November lawyers for the Respondent next addressed the Applicants' request for the IP information. They stated that it is the policy of the Respondent that such data be released in response to a valid sub poena or equivalent compulsory legal process. They added:
"Without waiving our insistence that no court in the United Kingdom has proper jurisdiction over us as a foreign entity, we nevertheless are willing to comply with a properly issued court order narrowly limited to the material you ask for in your letter".
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2009/3148.html [bailii.org]
Re:slashhordes: (Score:2, Informative)
Nope. The court thinks she has reason to think that it is blackmail:
"In ordinary language, the mother believes that she is the subject of an attempt at blackmail. On the information before the court, she has reason to believe that."
Section 7
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2009/3148.html [bailii.org]
Re:Tor (Score:5, Informative)
Well IIRC Wikipedia had a policy not to let IPs of proxy servers and Tor IPs have editing abilities, but they cannot block all of them as not all of them are "known". I know because I tested it out one time and I was blocked from editing and had an error message that says Proxy/Tor IP addresses are blocked due to abuse. Now they may have lifted the block since then, but I think Wikipedia wants to know who is editing their articles so that a person cannot edit their own entry if they are notable enough to be listed and organizations cannot edit their own articles on their organization and many tried to get around that via proxy servers and Tor, and thus Wikipedia blocked those IPs from editing.
But I could be wrong, someone try it and see what happens.
Re: Crossing Borders (Score:2, Informative)
If you read the judgement:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2009/3148.html [bailii.org]
the court accepts that it doesn't have jurisdiction but that the WMF has agreed to cooperate to an extent.
Re:Tor (Score:3, Informative)
Eh it was more the shear amount of generalised vandalism that was coming through TOR rather than conflict of interest issues.
Re:Streisand effect? (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed - the edit was apparently made to the woman's entry, so come on - can anyone tell us what the article was? And we should be able to see the actual edit itself in the history, unless that gets tampered with...
To be honest I think my view on this depends on what we're talking about - is it blackmail about either false or private details? Or is it a whistleblower case?
On another note, it's sad how every story covering this (well, the Mail, the Telegraph) likes to bash Wikipedia with other example mistaken edits. But how much false information has been published by these same newspapers? At least with Wikipedia, it's often quickly reverted (and in most cases they wouldn't even know if it wasn't possible to go trawling through the history), yet newspapers often never retract their bullshit.
Wikimedia's legal team can - and do - revert entries and leave no history entry. They can (and do) also perma-delete some entries.
Re:Tor (Score:4, Informative)
Tor exit nodes have a hostname that begins with tor-exit - and Wikipedia blocks on that. Most open proxies can feasibly be detected.
*sigh* (Score:3, Informative)
If only I read followup headline that said 'wikipedia tell UK to blow it out their ass,' today would end as a good day. Then wikipedia gets removed from the UK and pissed-off protesters would show the government that they are sick of trading in protection for their freedoms. It would then be followed by a spectacular event of pink clouds precipitating candy and rainbows that we can use as space elevators. Finally, all UK politicians would simultaneously get a hearts attack, become resuscitated, then get another heart attack.
Re:Tor (Score:2, Informative)
They are not always blocked; primarily only blocked when abused, and there are methods such as exemption through which some people edit through open (or closed) anonymous proxies.
Sometimes they make exceptions and allow people to edit through known open proxies, or so states the site / policy / block message for open proxies, to contact them.
More details here, at Wikipedia:Open_Proxies [wikipedia.org], in particular:
Re:slashhordes: (Score:5, Informative)
We don't have a DA filing charges and issuing a warrant.
No, because this is the British High Court of Justice, which deal with important and high profile cases. The judge is a senior one with many years of experience, and he issues a court order instead of a warrant. She requested the editor's IP from wikipedia; wikipedia refused, but said "Without waiving our insistence that no court in the United Kingdom has proper jurisdiction over us as a foreign entity, we nevertheless are willing to comply with a properly issued court order narrowly limited to the material you ask for in your letter".
So she's gone to the High Court to get the information, on the basis that the user who posted the article has a case to answer for, and the Judge agreed. If he didn't think there was a case to answer for, he wouldn't have issued the order. Whether that ends up being a civil case or a criminal case handled by the CPS likely depends upon who that IP belongs to. She believes it will belong to someone to she already has a dispute with, and if so (presuming she gets another court order for the ISP to hand over subscriber details for that IP) then there's quite possibly enough evidence there for the CPS to become interested, and the judge does think there's enough evidence for a blackmail prosecution.
But on the larger point - are you saying that a civil case appellant should never be able to gain user information from a 3rd party on the basis that that user has a case to answer for? Because that's an awfully restrictive setup, where only criminal proceedings can gather information from 3rd parties.
Re:What's exactly the problem? (Score:3, Informative)
That would be pseudonymous not anonymous.
Re:WARNING - DAILY FAIL (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it does. The BNP have been trying to clean up their image lately; they try not to say anything explicitly racist, at least not in public. They're just concerned about uncontrolled immigration, you know? Oh, and Islam isn't a race so hating Muslims isn't racism. They sound uncannily like a Daily Mail opinion column.
Mind you, you can't call the Mail inconsistent on this; they've been concerned about uncontrolled immigration for decades. Like in 1938, when they were quite outraged about all the stateless Jews from Germany pouring in from every port.