Beginning of the end for internet anonymity ?

By Hum
in Back Page News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Hum

Posted
Posted

Anonymity is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the United States was founded, in part, thanks to Thomas Paine's anonymously written, pro-revolution pamphlet Common Sense. On the other hand, 12-year-olds who post anonymously on the internet can be rather unpleasant and cause real problems by cyberbullying. Whether you think the good outweighs the bad, this news is troubling indeed: A far-reaching bill introduced in the New York State Senate could end the practice of posting online once and for all.

Sen. Thomas F. O'Mara / NY SenateIntroduced by New York State Sen. Thomas F. O'Mara (R?Big Flats), S6779 would require that any anonymous post online is subject to removal if the poster refuses to post ? and verify ? their legal name, their IP address, and their home address. From the (likely well intentioned) bill (from a senator who clearly does not "get" the internet):

"A web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate. All web site administrators shall have a contact number or e-mail address posted for such removal requests, clearly visible in any sections where comments are posted."

Critics are quick to point out how dangerous and ineffective the anti-privacy bill would be in the off chance that it somehow passes. After all, IP addresses do nothing to verify a person's identity, and including your home address on a controversial internet post could open you up to real-life threats.

In effect, the bill is an online stalker's dream. Of course, the most likely result of the bill's passage would just be the full-scale elimination of all comment systems everywhere, because the system is an unworkable burden on both the poster and the "web site administrators" who would need to respond to ludicrous take down requests at all times of the day.

source

Grand Master

TEX4S

Posted
Posted

This will never see the light of day - its actually hilarious - shows just how moronic and out of touch with reality our lawmakers are.

Can you imagine ? LOL

All of the checking and verifying everyday & all day.

Sometimes when I hear these crazy ideas for bills I wonder if there was any thinking or if it was a knee-jerk reaction.

  • Glassed Silver
  • Like 1
Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted
So I guess Hum gets a free pass to post needless crap?

What, in your opinion, classes this as "needless crap"? As far as I can tell it ticks all the boxes for Neowin: It's technology based, it's recent news, and it opens up a discussion. Thinking about it, your post is the unnecessary one as it doesn't provide anything useful to the discussion.

Back to the subject, I can't see this going through. The Government really need to have people that know what they're talking about when it comes to creating a bill for the technological world.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Posts

    • A coalition of publishers sued OpenAI and Microsoft over scraping content without consent

      By Hamid Ganji · Posted

      A coalition of publishers sued OpenAI and Microsoft over scraping content without consent by Hamid Ganji Image via Depositphotos.com AI companies often rely on readily available internet content to train their chatbots and provide users with instant answers. This method of AI training is fast and relatively inexpensive, but using a website’s content without permission or compensation is not something publishers like to see, and this is exactly why Microsoft and OpenAI are now being sued. As reported by Bloomberg, a group of publishers that collectively own nearly 400 newspapers has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The coalition argues that the two companies scraped their content to build AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot without paying any compensation. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, argues that while AI products have generated billions of dollars in market value using publishers’ work, none of that value has been shared with the publishers. The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages and injunctive relief for alleged copyright infringement and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “Defendants systematically and secretly crawled the Publishers’ websites—including content behind paywalls and other access restrictions—and copied the Publishers’ articles, stories, and other original works onto their own servers without authorization,” the complaint states. The publishers also described the AI boom as a “death knell for local journalism” if AI companies that scrape content for free are not held accountable. Former New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and his law firm, Platkin LLP, are representing the publishers. “Our models empower innovation, are trained on publicly available data, and are grounded in fair use,” OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told Bloomberg. This is not the first lawsuit involving the unauthorized use of publishers’ content by AI firms, but it is one of the largest coalitions ever formed against the free use of content by AI chatbots. In 2024, OpenAI and Microsoft also faced a similar lawsuit from eight newspapers that claimed AI products were benefiting from their content without permission.
    • Rufus alternative Ventoy now supports Windows 11's mandatory update, fixes major boot bug

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      Rufus alternative Ventoy now supports Windows 11's mandatory update, fixes major boot bug by Sayan Sen While Microsoft has its own official Media Creation Tool used for making bootable USB media, there are some popular third-party utilities as well which offer additional options like bypassing system requirements, Microsoft Account creation, and more. One of these is Ventoy, and the software has received its latest update today. In fact, the app actually got a slew of updates over the last couple of days, three version releases in total, to be specific. The first release, version 1.1.13, was pulled as there was some unspecified error in the update, and as such, the corrected version 1.1.14 was pushed out. Following that on very short notice, 1.1.15 was published as well. For those unfamiliar, Ventoy is an open-source utility that lets users create a bootable USB drive once and then simply copy ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD, or EFI files onto it without repeatedly formatting the drive. It supports both legacy BIOS and UEFI boot modes, Secure Boot, and a wide range of operating systems, making it one of the most versatile tools in the category. The biggest change in version 1.1.14 is an updated Secure Boot shim file aimed at resolving the UEFI CA 2023 issue, which is basically a compatibility problem that has affected Secure Boot environments on some systems. If you recall, we reported about severe boot issues on HP devices following the release of updated Secure Boot 2023 keys. For anyone who may not be aware, back in early 2024, Microsoft announced that it was updating Secure Boot keys as they were going to become 15 years old in 2026, which is also when they are set to expire. As such, the new 2023 certificates have been rolling out with the newest Windows 11 updates. Updated boot manager and Secure Boot certificates are crucial for protection against malware like bootkits. These are mandatory updates. Alongside that, the VentoyPlugson graphical plugin configurator was updated in sync with the release. The update also introduces a new VTOY_SECURE_BOOT_POLICY option within the Global Control plugin, giving users more flexibility in managing Secure Boot behavior. Ventoy has also received a fix for a startup issue when Secure Boot was disabled. Microsoft does officially allow users to boot systems without Secure Boot as long as the PC is Secure Boot capable. The full changelog is given below: Update secure boot shim file to solve the UEFI CA 2023 issue. The new release use a new CA, so you need to enroll the new key for the first boot time. VentoyPlugson update synchronously. Global control plugin add a VTOY_SECURE_BOOT_POLICY option. Fix the boot issue when Secure Boot is disabled in the UEFI firmware. You can download the latest version of the app here on Ventoy's official GitHub repo or from Neowin software stories.
    • Windows 11 is now five years old

      By grunger106 · Posted

      Windows 11 is fine, no issues on any of the machines I've run it on since release. The stricter security requirements are a good thing, sometimes the baseline needs to change and people will winge, but it is what it is. Happened with the move from 9x to NT - broke compatability Happened with XP SP2 when security started to become a serious consideration Certainly happend with Vista that brought in UAC, the concept of not running as admin (something that has been the norm in Linux/Unix from pretty much the start) and a completely new driver stack. Windows 11 will probably get looked back at as the point where even consumer and SMB IT was dragged kicking and screaming into a somewhat secure by default configuration.
    • Windows 11 is now five years old

      By matthiew · Posted

      Bluestacks has been emulating Android on Windows for fifteen years. It's janky and riddled with ads though, so WSA looked like it was going to be a huge improvement over the emulator experience. Too bad Microsoft dropped the ball on that.
    • Anthropic accuses Alibaba of using 25,000 fake accounts to copy Claude's capabilities

      By James W. · Posted

      Classic. China would be nothing without Western, Japanese, and South Korean technology.

  • Recent Achievements

    • Rookie
      krychek57 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Grand Master
      Jaybonaut went up a rank
      Grand Master
    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      441
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      172
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      134
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      78
    5. 5
      Xenon
      77
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!