Sean Barrett wrote:
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Chris Jenkinson stated for the record:
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
At work or on Wikipedia?
At work, I would risk being fired, sued, and possibly prosecuted.
On Wikipedia? It would be wrong. It would also be breaking several promises I've made.
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
The situation is not reasonably similar; it's not even remotely similar.
Disclosure of the information I handle at work would immediately and directly endanger lives and damage national security, and I am rather well paid for accepting the responsibility.
Disclosure of a Wikipedian's IP address can only lead to harm through tortuous chains of unlikely happenstance, and the privilege of contributing to Wikipedia's success is not sufficient compensation to persuade me to accept the possibility of a prison term.
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
Aside from this point, the question of what would happen if Sean or Kelly or anyone with the tool would release private information to the public is a good question.
They would lose access to the tool certainly. Very likely, they would lose position at the arbcom. Aside from this, I suppose that anyone having private information released by a person without a good reason (such as protecting our network) have the opportunity to sue Sean, Kelly or whoever on top of suing the Foundation.
Maybe a question to ask a lawyer ?
Ant