From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 15:44:35 +0800
To: Jason Burton <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: Privacy and the internet
In-Reply-To: <199811140949.BAA21751@toad.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19981115145719.00944580@idiom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 04:46 AM 11/14/98 -0500, Jason Burton wrote:
>Does anyone know what I should do if someone was posting sensitive
>information on a website?
>And what if the webmaster of the domain doesnt respond to the request for
>removal of information.
>IS there something that say's what is and isn't able to be published
>"personal information" on the internet.
>If someone can reply I'd appreciate it.
>Seeking council.

They don't call this The Net Of A Million Lies for nothing :-)

Depends substantially on what kind of information it is,
what jurisdictions you, the web site, and the poster are in,
and whether you're interested in seeking legal counsel
as well as just hacker advice.  IANAL, but there are a range
of torts from libel or slander to invasion of privacy to
emotional distress that sometimes apply, if you're into
that sort of approach; if the person the information is about
is a public figure, this seldom works, and if the information
is true, you've also got a much more limited case.

Alternatively, there's the Big Gun Flame War approach of 
making sure everyone knows what an unresponsive loser the 
web site providers are, though that does lose the opportunity to quietly 
get the information to go away, even if it hasn't already been
sucked down by Altavista, Yahoo, Hotbot, and DejaNews.

Most web sites are either on big commercial hosting sites with
relatively responsive abuse@wherever contacts, or else they're
smaller sites which get connectivity and/or hosting service
from larger providers.  So find out who their upstream providers are,
and talk with them about their customer.  
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639