York U scandal: staying anonymous online:
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- “There has been considerable discussion in recent weeks regarding the prospect of court orders mandating ISPs or other intermediaries disclose identifying information about anonymous individuals (Google model case, Ottawa city hall blog),” Ottawa law professor Michael Geist posted recently, going on a court order obtained by York University requiring Bell and Rogers to disclose subscriber information appeared to have been overlooked.
“Neither ISP opposed the order, which included some novel requirements in return for ordering the two companies to disclose the names of customers associated with particular IP addresses,” said Geist, observing:
“First, York University was required to pay the ISPs to compensate them for providing the information – Rogers gets $600, while Bell gets $300. Second, the court added a condition that required notification of the customers identified by Bell and Rogers so that they could apply to the court to vary or vacate the order. Despite constituting only three paragraphs, the order raises some very interesting issues including the questions about why a university would seek this order, the compensation to the ISPs, and the attempt to factor in a response from the identified subscribers.”
Said the National Post on Friday »»»
York University has won court orders requiring Google Inc. and Canada`s two largest telecommunications companies to reveal the identities of the anonymous authors of contentious emails that accused the school`s president of academic fraud.
The university took the extraordinary measures after an email was circulated alleging that president Mamdouh Shoukri perpetrated an outrageous fraud when publicly touting the appointment of a new dean.
In January, the school announced its hiring of Martin Singer as its inaugural dean of the new Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, said to be the largest faculty in the country. The announcement called Prof. Singer a renowned scholar of Chinese history and quoted the president as saying: York University is fortunate to have attracted such a strong scholar and administrator.
A week later, an email in the name of a group called York Faculty Concerned About the Future of York University was sent using a Google Gmail account to members of the York community challenging the statements regarding Prof. Singer`s scholarly output. Lying about scholarly credentials is the gravest offence, the email said before calling for the president`s resignation and a new search for a dean.
Predictably, given the involvement of giant online advertising company Google, the scandal is picking up steam not only in Canada, but also in the US.
“Think you can be anonymous online?” – asks Sam Gustin (right) in Daily Finance from New York.
“Most people simply have no idea how easy it is for law enforcement officials — and other litigants, like someone suing you — to gain access to personal email, Google searches, and other online information users think is ‘theirs’,” says Gustin, who covers technology, digital media, telecom, government regulation, among other topics.
The latest ominous evidence, “comes from our friends to the north,” he says, continuing »»»
A Canadian court has ordered Google to turn over the identities of anonymous Gmail users who had accused York University faculty members of fraud and dishonesty. Like similar cases in the U.S., the York incident shows just how easy it is for courts to allow authorities to gain access to “our” personal information.
“People need to know that very little information that they give or make available to third parties [like Google] is unavailable to the government or private litigants,” says Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. “I think most people are surprised at how relatively easy it is for the government and private litigants to obtain ‘their’ information.”
When York announced its hiring of Martin Singer in January as the first dean of its new Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, the university called the professor a “renowned scholar of Chinese history” and quoted university president Mamdouh Shoukri as saying: “York University is fortunate to have attracted such a strong scholar and administrator.”
Shortly thereafter, someone circulated an email from an account belonging to a group called “York Faculty Concerned About the Future of York University” among members of the community accusing Singer of “lying about scholarly credentials” and accusing Shoukri of perpetrating “an outrageous fraud.” The anonymous group called for the president’s resignation and a new search for a dean, according to Canada’s National Post.
University authorities were not amused, and won a court order in May compelling Google to turn over the IP addresses linked to the Gmail account. Google, in turn, identified Bell Canada and Rogers Communications as the internet service providers from which the email originated.
Last month, neither of the ISPs opposed a court order requiring them to turn over the contact information of the persons who used the Gmail account. This past week, Justice George R. Strathy of Ontario Superior Court called the orders a reasonable balance between protecting freedom of speech and protection from libel, according to the paper.
David Noble, whom the Post refers to as “an outspoken professor at York,” was outed as one person linked to the account. On Friday, he told the paper that York’s legal action was “a fishing expedition” and accused the university of “trying to create a chill among faculty.”
Noble maintained that the allegations raised about Singer were legitimate. “They are spending enormous sums, for what?” the Post quotes him as saying. “I think they are just desperate to find out who is involved,” adding that his colleagues wanted to remain anonymous because they were “afraid of reprisals.”
In response, Will McDowell, York’s layer, defended the action, saying, “Academics enjoy quite extensive latitude in what they say and what they write and what they research at Canadian universities, but I would say this about any of us: The right of free speech is not unlimited.”
“Like all law-abiding companies, we comply with local laws and valid legal process, such as court orders and subpoenas,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to DailyFinance. “At the same time, we have a legal team whose job is to scrutinize these requests and make sure they meet not only the letter but the spirit of the law.”
York now has the identities of half a dozen people who allegedly had access to the Gmail account.
American laws governing similar situations differ somewhat from Canadian statutes, but the York case is reminiscent of the recent “Skank blogger” ruling, in which a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ordered Google to turn over the e-mail and IP address of an anonymous blogger who called model Liskula Cohen “the skankiest in NYC.”
Writing about the case, my colleague Jeff Bercovici noted that the ruling could force anonymous internet cranks to go to greater lengths to shield their identity. “In trying to make people accountable for the vicious things they write online, that judge is only going to force them to cloak their identities ever more effectively,” Bercovici wrote.
Google search queries — obtained by court-ordered warrants — have been used in numerous criminal cases, including the recent case of a Florida man who was convicted of murder based on evidence that included his own Google research, which included searching on terms like “trauma, cases, gunshot, right chest.”
No matter how many precautions we take to remain private or cloak our identity, the authorities and other potential litigants usually have little difficulty obtaining this content. And they do it not by nefarious mean like hacking, but through our very own court system.
“Internet users everywhere would do well to take heed,” Gustin warns, adding:
“Your emails — and maybe even your Google searches — could be one subpoena away from the prying eyes of federal authorities, not to mention private litigants.”
Stay tuned.
(Cheers, Sam)
Google model case – Canadian model gets Google to unmask a nasty blogger, August 21, 2009
Ottawa city hall blog – Lawyer looks to unmask Ottawa city hall blogger, August 28, 2009
Michael Geist- York University Obtains Court Order For Bell & Rogers Subscriber Information, September 1, 2009
National Post – Google ordered to ID authors of emails to York University, September 11, 2009
Daily Finance – Internet firms help Canadian courts ID authors of controversial email, September 12, 2009
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