A link that clarifies what is harassment/bullying on the internet and what laws cover it. Although the article starts of in relation to children, most of the acts of law are not age specific.

CLICKY

Intersting topic!

I'm guessing this is pointed at the recent events that have happened, Let's Jst drop it and move on, it gets boring after a while dragging it up all the time.

Looks like you guessed wrong - I was looking at the future not the past. Sorry to bore you and put that wooden spoon away.

Very interesting. Although I'm yet to visit a site/forum or see anything on any of the various social networking sites that I frequent that would fit with it.

It would never be an easy one to put into practice.

These laws have been out for ages.

There is a gang of people that have been intent on bullying and harrassing people on here, you all know who you are. Your all like a bunch of school kids in a playground, isn't time you all grew up and respected other peoples opinions!!!

We are all individuals and are entitled to our OWN opinions, life would be pretty boring if we all thought the same.

Thanks DD for the link, makes very interesting reading!!!

its very easy once a copy of your database is requested. Database backups are a snap shot in time.

But like neighbour disputes a guideline is preferred.

Contact site admin
Contact Datacenter (where its hosted)
Then you would consider the police.

How ever you can reverse that chain if someone takes there life.

Its easy to be tough on the internet.
As we call them internet warriors.

Your right ste the laws have been out for ages but first time internet users don't always know what protection / laws are out there. And to those internet warriors sitting behind keyboards you can be traced back. Technology has moved on almost everything is recorded and backed up.

Wiki is backed up every night.

Couldn't agree more!

Yes technology has moved up a notch,
You cannot hide behind your keyboards, your ip address reveals your location and id bear that in mind cyber bullies.

No, it doesn't. Even 20 years ago there were simple ways to get around tracking anyone by IP.

Your IP address reveals your local exchange, tens of thousands of people might use this exchange. In order to get anything more than that you have to get a subpoena to get the ISP to reveal the account associated with that IP at that specific time (since IP's are rotational, they get reassigned constantly).

'Course this generates all sorts of problems because there's a billion different ways of masking your IP, I'd bet anyone who has a teenage kid could ask them how to do it and they'd point you in the right direction (proxy to get through their school network to reach facebook etc). Simple things like using a cgi proxy (anonymizer.ru is a good one, .ru = russia and they stonewall IP requests) or using basically any http proxy. Then you have more complicated things like using a VPN like swissvpn that don't keep records so they have no information to release to authorities anyway. TOR fits into this as well since it's getting a bit more common now, thats a program that strings together dozens of proxies so you're behind a bunch of them. Even simply using some sucker's open wireless gets around any issues arising from IP records.

You know anyone that works in the police? Ask them how much it costs to subpoena an ISP to get IP details. Talking hundreds of pounds per. Police just don't do it unless they absolutely have to.

So yeah, technology has moved up a notch, it's never been easier to hide behind a keyboard.

Intresting topic!

I agree with you Becky .

I also wish people would stop bringing this bullying crap out at any given opportunity, it's very tedious, very boring, and not to mention factually incorrect.

So, I suggest those calling 'Bully' use the above link and do something about it, since it's such a cut and dry case.

Otherwise, drop it and find something more interesting and productive to stick your nose into.

@Ex0 - you can't get subpoenas in this country, so it looks like you may have been looking at American procedures.

The Secretary of State (and anyone representing him) has a right to obtain details from all UK ISP's and doesn't need a warrant. If they fail to provide the details on request (or fail to keep satisfactory records), they can be prosecuted.

Most anonymizer sites are in the game of making money, they are much more cooperative than they would like users to believe, they don't want to lose their revenue by being shut down but they also don't want the users to know they cooperate either, so a cozy arrangement generally exist.

There are other methods of tracking a changing IP which are automated, only trips through VPN are immune to tracking, but outside of the VPN they can still be tracked.

Its quite easy - the internet is bi-directional, you can't have a situation where you put a page request out on one IP and it arrives back on another without it being obvious that you pass an instruction for the expected return IP, otherwise it wouldn't know where to go.

If you use Modem access to a foreign ISP then it may start to get difficult, but not many would bother to get stuck with slow modem speeds again.

@nobody - its you that just raised the topic that you say shouldn't be brought out at every opportunity

Not nice!

Becky you are new on here and should make your own judgement about people.

They ARE used in this country (they are more commonly known as witness summons to the lay person and known as a witness citation in Scotland).

There are two types of subpoena - the ‘subpoena duces tecum’ which means that the court requires you to provide certain specified documents, or a ‘subpoena ad testificandum’ which requires you to attend court to give evidence.

A failure to attend when subpoenaed can be treated as a contempt of court.

Thanks Wench, I thought I should have checked that statement, but a policeman (or individual) can't apply for a subpoena as he does a warrant, it is only the Court/Judge that can require/issue one. Is that right??? (if that makes sense???)

I wasn't looking at anything, I was going from memory and personal experience.



This was a law brought in when those ridiculous section ~40 terrorism laws came into effect, court orders are required to obtain account holder information, ISP's are required to store and provide certain information, they don't do it for free.



Duh. Good luck getting info from .ru or .in proxy services. Perhaps my example of anonymizer.ru lead you to believe I was talking about popular anonymizing services hosted in the US like hidemyass or proxify, I wasn't.



You're talking about hitting nodes as they get routed or sniffing traffic? MITM attacks? those require a GREAT deal of infrastructure to be controlled or directly accessable by whoever is supposed to be tracking the changing IP. It's not realistic.



SSH Tunneling? Proxychains?



Ugh, no one would go to that much trouble when you can buy VPN access with virtual cc's or bitcoins for a couple dollars a piece. Interesting idea though.

All UK internet traffic is monitored at Menwith Hill and/or Fylingdales by both UK and US governments.

Almost all major Russian internet services are run by Russian Universities, the government there is more restrictive than ours. The chances of anonimzer.ru (or whatever) being a truly independent subterfuge organisation are extremely slim and governments do cooperate, they can't afford not to.

The Secretary of State powers for obtaining records came in before the terrorism laws as they were already in place under the Telecommunications Acts, I think the terrorism act added requirements for what was held and for what timescales.

Although there are a lot of theoretical ways to confuse your ip source, most are reliant on third parties who you don't know what they are really doing - as I said, they like the users to think it works - but does it really