On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 7:43 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 2:43 PM, Theo10011
<de10011@gmail.com> wrote:
Outside prosecutors can not prosecute, or charge any editor based on their username, whether its User:someguy542 or User:Ladiesman232, there is no real world link without the IP records.
A charitable foundation? Bad PR? Every OSP uses this and it is an actual and often-used legal defense. Youtube uploaders don't use their real names, their social security numbers or even their resident country. Same with Facebook, in case of legal proceeding, just a FB page is not enough to link identity for an entire legal case. There are a few posters on this list, not using their real name, is it PR to say you can not legally link their real identities to their email addresses without going through their email provider?
Secondly, it is often relatively trivial to identify people. You'll remember that the person who posted the Seigenthaler hoax was identified from his IP, and lost his job (I think he got it back afterwards, when Seigenthaler took pity on him and spoke to his employer). Furthermore, many established Commonists and Wikipedians either disclose their real names on mailing lists and/or their user pages, have pictures of themselves on Commons from Wikimania or other Wikimedia events, or are otherwise trivially identifiable. Take the recent Beta M case, for example.
You must have some super-powers to identify people on commons without their IP info then, most of us need CU and even that is not conclusive or linked to any real identity. I don't know a single thing about any editor that they doesn't choose to mention on their user page. To have that weak of a chain of identification, enough to prosecute someone and stand up to legal scrutiny, is something totally different.
If you want, I can list 100 users on commons and en.wp, please identify them for me if it is that trivial. I have only talked to them for a couple of years, but I still can't tell anything about them, no names, gender, location. I'm usually surprised to learn those things, when they are actually revealed, I never thought someone's real identity and personal information being trivial to figure out.
Even in the case you mention, the only identifiable information was his IP, the OSP is usually the only one with access to that information.
Yes, an anonymous uploader who made only one edit from an Internet café may escape scrutiny. Although the other day I came across one uploader who had inadvertently uploaded geolocation data from his mobile phone along with his image, identifying the precise street address of the bedroom in Germany where the image was taken ... many mobile phones these days include geolocation in their metadata.
Actually, most smartphone have the option to add geolocation data to the metadata. They can turn it off or on in their settings. Most people already do upload geolocation data along with their smartphone images without knowing about it. It is actually very, very common.
Regards
Theo