Is your company, or are you, being defamed on the Web? Are whistleblowers leaking your secrets? Well, call your local “cyber tracing team” -- they can fix the problem for you.
The day feared by many who advocate freedom of expression on the Internet may be upon us. Cyber tracing is fast becoming an attractive and lucrative industry with a wide range of services on offer.
These are just a sampling: Minara El-Rahman of the site FindLaw maintains that the stakes are high, and there is no shortage of victims in today’s world of widespread and instant messaging.
There are several facets to the problem of Internet defamation, however, apart from anonymous, personal attacks posted on Twitter or Facebook and widely distributed within seconds. There are disgruntled and vengeful ex-employees making false or misleading statements that can have a real impact on the fortunes of a company. There are whistleblowers believing it safe to reveal all about corporate wrongdoings in Wikileaks.
The rights or wrongs of defamation on the Internet, as well as questions of identity protection, are issues on their own, but just a cursory browser search reveals that cyber tracing is a growth industry with a plethora of law firms and private investigators specializing in this field and advertising their services in a variety of ways.
Indeed, it seems that cyber tracing is big business, and arguably more lucrative than personal accident ambulance chasing.
Although most would think this form of digital ambulance chasing would be a U.S. innovation, it is a U.K. law firm, Wragge & Co., that appears to be a leader in this area. The firm recently announced a new department specializing in hunting down the makers of anonymous online statements, and it appears they even claim the ability to trace anonymous Web users as part of the service.
Cyber-related services offered by firms like this range from tracing perpetrators of stalking, sexual harassment, and online criminal behavior to “catching your spouse cheating,” a tactic where firms search through dating databases to locate specific email addresses.
No doubt an argument in favor of these services would be that they are filling a gap in law enforcement resources, but they also raise a series of ethical questions relating to privacy and the Internet.
Yet another twist is the appearance of companies offering “reputation management services,” where a subscription buys a monthly report detailing personal advice on your up-to-date online reputation. For another fee, instances of “bad reputation” comments revealed by dedicated name searching can be destroyed (no guarantee), or perhaps, if slanderous enough, used as evidence when suing for defamation.
Victims of defamation may soon find, however, that their potential share of rich pickings has shrunk, at least in the U.K. There, the Ministry of Justice is considering allowing only one action for defamation on the Internet -- even if the same defamation is repeated several times.
The most sensible approach to defamation or reputation that I have come across, however, is provided by blogger Michael Grimes on his Website, where advice on “managing your reputation" can be downloaded in a chart format.
While some Web users may consider the third-party cyber tracing route, or in some cases the not-so-legal route as offered by some online cyber tracing services (i.e., hacking), hopefully the vast majority on the Web will see reason, and these cyber tracing teams may find their task a little more difficult than they bargained for.
— Jart Armin, Editor of RBNexploit.com, a watch blog on the infamous RBN (Russian Business Network), and HostExploit.com
This Cyber-tracing stuff is really good for celebrities;The rest of us ordinary types with boring ordinary lives shouldnt take whats written about us online that seriously.
After all,the people who really know us well would not just go by what is written about us online-rather they would realize that we are nothing like that in person(if its a negative or slandering posting).As for this lady was she really that famous that her "reputation" would get harmed by that anonymous blogger??? Or did she do it just get her 15 mins of fame? I dont know and I dont care.
Bottomline is still the same -Dont post things about you which you dont other people to see online.
And Leave the cellphones and cameras off when you are doing "You know what..."
I appreciate your willingness to explain your viewpoint. My IT security world is significantly tamer than yours. So, your thoughts have real value. Keep up the great work.
If someone is unfairly maligned there should be some form of addressing the injustice. So for your friend I think they should give it a go, just select a reputable "cyber tracing" outfit, and ensure the terms of reference are equitable.
However, I am uneasy on the whole on this area. For example as in many parts of the web there will become different levels of "access to justice" and "greater fear" some where they blog from etc.
For example if based in or web publishing from the US you will have greater chance of being sued for what you say than if you are in The Netherlands. This is why Wikileaks moved their operation to a server base in Belgium.
Using your friend as further hypothetical example if whoever defamed was based or hosted from say Kazakhstan then whoever she hired would have a near impossible job?
So on the wider issue as a trend - we will look forward to offshore bullet proof, anonymous, and proxied blog serving????
Good comment; while I agree on one hand re: to encourage better behavior, on the other could this increasingly discourage bloggers, Twitter users, etc. From saying what they think or reporting perceived injustice?
Would this inevitably see the end of Wikileaks and the like?
You kind of hinted at it, but I would love to know what you thought about this tactic.
I have a friend that is considering using this type of service right now. Someone is defaming her on-line and it is not her fault. It just so happens that another person has her same name and the person responsible for the defaming has the wrong person.
Yes, I did hear about that this morning and had forgotten about it when reading this article.
Something is going to have to be done because too many people are having their lives ruined through activities done under their name by someone else. In this way, I can see many ways that cyber tracing could cause much trouble for the wrong people. It could also help, but if a hacker is good enough, he could hide a trail nicely.
That said, can you imagine the people who would have porn placed in their computer? (As how much would you want to bet they will not have the ability to trace it any further than the host computer.) Their life will be a living hell. Oh, eventually the real criminal may be found, but untill then, the owner of the computer could be held for something he not only didn't do, but had no knowledge of.
Actually, caller id didn't do too much to stop crank calls and such. It doesn't cost much to have your phone number so it does not show up on caller ids. Plus now with the disposable phones, it gives another hard to trace way to make undesired calls.
As far as cyber tracing, this could be good and this could be bad. I can understand a company wanting to find out who is leaking secrets and cyber tracing is a totally legitmate use in this case. But what about the company who may just be afraid that an employee or employees that they just laid off, might try to leak something? Will these teams require decent proof that there is a problem, or will they just track anyone the company asks, without any signs or proof at all that someone has done something?
Also, who will determine what is defamatory and what isn't? Of course if a statement is not true, or one person describes another in nothing but profanity, then the person has a right to find out what is going on. But will politicians use this as a way to find and go after people who do not agree with them or have stated they will not vote for them? If you call someone "an idiot", will the trackers be coming after you?
I think services such as this do have their place, but also need to be used cautiously, carefully, and on a limited/urgent basis.
Various posts on Internet Evolution have talked about the loss of privacy in the digital world. That loss applied whether you are using the Internet for good or evil.
You may have done nothing wrong - but by your use of Facebook, Twitter and other services you create a digital fingerprint.
Somebody who is trying to do something wrong - defamation on a website for example - can try and remove their digital fingerprint - but it will not be easy.
Consider the unabomber who was caught only after he demanded a manifesto be printed - and his sister in law recognized his style of writing. Today, not only do you have personal recognition - but there are tools that can search the web looking for patterns. Perhaps that person's Facebook ramblings match the writing style of the defamation text on a website.
Just like the wide availability of caller id took the wind out of crank and obscene phone calls - we can only hope the wide availability of ways to track internet behavior will help encourage better behavior.
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Fatal System Error, the book just released by West-coast-based journalist Joseph Menn, is really a public policy statement written as a thriller for a wider reading public. UPDATED 2:45 PM
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