-Prominent cases regarding internet anonymity-

Source:

http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=1222575&cid=40942&categoryId=32854
(prominent cases regarding internet anonymity)

My topic:

Internt anonymity should be granted

 

What I hope to learn from this souce:

I want to find some famous incidents of internet anonymity,  which can be a part of my essay as supporting evidences, and provide me with ome solid ideas on how internet anonymity interact in the real world.

Notes:

The ARMM censorship case

 Julf Helsingius has always felt that the anonymity of the people who use his service should be protected completely (or as completely as possible). Many net users disagreed with this policy and felt that users who employ anonymity services in order to post abusive messages or commit illegal acts should be exposed. One of the greatest supporters of this view was Dick Depew, the news administrator on usenet. Depew strongly disagreed with Helsingius' policy of complete anonymity and announced in March of 1993 that he would cancel all anonymous messages originating from Helsingius' server. Depew had written a piece of software which he called ARMM (standing for Automatic Retroactive Minimal Moderation) which was designed to send out cancel messages instead of posting the anonymous posts. Since Depew was an administrator on usenet, he was in a position to do this, whereas normal users of the system did not have this capability.
After 2 anonymous messages were canceled using the ARMM program, an anonymous user called  retaliated by posting Depew's address of employment and the name and phone number of his supervisor on the net. He told users that he had done this in response to Depew's censorship and urged users to complain to Depew's supervisor. Helsingius eventually deactivated the account of the anonymous user, but never revealed his identity. About a month later, Depew released a revised version of the ARMM program on the Helsingius server, which some people felt was in response to the fact that Helsingius refused to reveal the identity of the user. The revised program severely backfired, both technically and politically. The software had a bug which caused it to post hundreds of messages on various newsgroups, causing a few mailservers to crash and generally making many net users angry. This situation caused a great deal of outcry over attempts at censoring and policing the net. It also caused many users to publicly express their support for Helsingius' policy of absolute anonymity. Both of these issues are extremely important in the ongoing debate about what sort of legal restrictions should be put on the net and what types of legislation will be created for this purpose

*To know what Hesingius is, refer to Research 1

Anonymity and the Church of Scientology

In January of this year, the Church of Scientology asserted that somebody had broken into a CoS computer and had stolen privileged information. An anonymous user then spread this information on the internet and posted it on alt.religion.scientology and other newsgroups, where supporters and critics of the church have been feuding for 3 1/2 years. The church submitted a request to one of the newsgroups to close down completely because the posts had allegedly violated trademarks and copyrights held by the church. The church also threatened to hold the newsgroup operator and Netcom, the internet provider, legally responsible for such violations. A federal judge eventually refused the Church's request for an injunction against Netcom and the newsgroup operator to stop posting such information. The judge ruled that it would be an impossible burden on the service provider to have to monitor all of the traffic through its service. This ruling shows that there is some hope that anonymity on the internet will eventually be legally preserved.
On February 2, lawyers for the Church of Scientology also contacted the operators of several anonymity services, including Julf Helsingius, and demanded that they stop further anonymous posts to the newsgroups or legal action would ensue. After Helsingius made it clear that he would not voluntarily reveal the identity of the user in question, he was informed that the Finnish police were being contacted via Interpol. On February 8, Finnish police informed Helsingius that if he did not reveal the identity of the anonymous user, they would serve him with a search warrant to seize his entire server with the identities of all of the users who utilize his anonymity service. The Finnish police used the fact that the anonymous user was suspected of "unauthorized use of a computer" as the grounds for their search and the confiscation of the information from Julf Helsingius. Faced with the choice between revealing the identity of only one of his users or all of them, Helsingius reluctantly supplied the Finnish police with the name of the anonymous user involved in the CoS case. On February 14, Helsingius is informed that the criminal investigation in the CoS has been dropped. In this case, Helsingius was forced to choose between protecting a user who relied on their service for anonymity at a time when anonymity was crucial and protecting the records of all of the other users of the system. The most practical choice was made and Helsingius intends to continue his anonymity service, but it will be interesting to see if any changes are made in the penet.fi system as a result of this choice. Additionally, the fact that complete anonymity on the internet was compromised by the authorities brings up many legal questions about the future of anonymity on the internet.

Anonymity in criminal cases

Recent debates about regulation of the internet have involved the hot topics of child pornography and abuse. The use of anonymity or pseudonymity in these criminal activities has recently come up in a court case involving two men in Texas. Gene Howland and Daniel Van Deusen ran a bulletin board service called "Lifestyles" in Houston, Texas which provided its more than 1000 subscribers with pornographic material, including child pornography. The two men, using the pseudonyms "Poo Bear" and "Wild One", lured two young boys to their home and forced them to commit sexual acts. Both men were indicted on March 11 on charges of sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and indecency with a child. Cases such as this one encourage assertions that the internet should be regulated and that anonymity should be eliminated since it enables people to use on-line services to commit criminal acts more easily.

Legislation in South Korea

In 2002, with the increase of internetcrimes, the Krean government has made it compulsory for internet users to go thorugh self verification process before posting writings onto prominent websites. This was legislated in line with the upcoming national election, with the purpose of preventing people from performing illegal election campaigns. Anybody who refuses to go through such processes have to pay a fine of 10000000 Won(10000 USD).
After implementation, several problems regarding infringement of individual rights and so on. This led to the withdrawal of the legslation on 2012.8.23, on account that the effects of such legislation is minimal, and that foreigners without social security numbers have difficulty making use of the websites. It was also shown that a large number of local website users moved to foreign websites, where their personal information need not be revealed. The advantages of the legislation was deemed far less than the disadvantages that followed it, leading to its abolishment.

 

More:

These cases provided me with some real-life examples.
However, some famous examples are not mentioned, such as Anonymous hacks, abusal of the internet through anonymity, and etc. Some more background research in needed.