The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that IP addresses are personal information.

[Ognistysztorm]

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that IP addresses are personal information. This could mean that Wikipedia's doxxing of opponents could finally be affected and outlawed by the ruling.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/suprem ... -1.7130727

[boredbird]

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that IP addresses are personal information. This could mean that Wikipedia's doxxing of opponents could finally be affected and outlawed by the ruling.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/suprem ... -1.7130727

They ruled that police need a warrant to get the IPs. That's reasonable. It will not affect Wikipedia in any way. Wikipedia is not the police. They see our IPs when we decide to participate in their website and the answer is to stop participating. I've seen no evidence that they track people who view their pages. Police might ask for that kind of thing, though.

[journo]

Don't have a huge opinion on this but could be a step in the wrong direction.

It used to be that public forums and chats (and even some search engines) would publish user and admin IPs by default so that individuals, individual admins, or groups would be attacked rather than neutral service providers. Thinking about it, it wasn't necessarily a bad idea.

However, now people feel entitled that every single website act as a personal shield for them, which is a bit odd in the grander scheme of things. No one expects this of park rangers or people in charge of other IRL areas for IRL free speech.

That said, Wikipedia wasn't one of those early sites which published registered user information by default. Wikipedia instead has a culture of shielding the identifies of even the people they ban and/or dislike. An exception being when they tie banned usernames to IP addresses, but that isn't done at a particularly large scale.

[Ognistysztorm]

Don't have a huge opinion on this but could be a step in the wrong direction.

It used to be that public forums and chats (and even some search engines) would publish user and admin IPs by default so that individuals, individual admins, or groups would be attacked rather than neutral service providers. Thinking about it, it wasn't necessarily a bad idea.

However, now people feel entitled that every single website act as a personal shield for them, which is a bit odd in the grander scheme of things. No one expects this of park rangers or people in charge of other IRL areas for IRL free speech.

That said, Wikipedia wasn't one of those early sites which published registered user information by default. Wikipedia instead has a culture of shielding the identifies of even the people they ban and/or dislike. An exception being when they tie banned usernames to IP addresses, but that isn't done at a particularly large scale.

Except that the practice of swatting had taken form as a major toxic phenomenon sometime in the 2010s, which involves making false calls to the authorities in order for them to send militarized police to their homes and to use heavy handed tactics against targets as if they're criminal or terrorists. In fact it has caused casualties already, most notably in Wichita where an innocent man was mistakenly shot to death by policemen. Considering that, it is actually an improvement in safety when the Canadian supreme court decided that IP addresses are personal information after all.

[journo]

Don't have a huge opinion on this but could be a step in the wrong direction.

It used to be that public forums and chats (and even some search engines) would publish user and admin IPs by default so that individuals, individual admins, or groups would be attacked rather than neutral service providers. Thinking about it, it wasn't necessarily a bad idea.

However, now people feel entitled that every single website act as a personal shield for them, which is a bit odd in the grander scheme of things. No one expects this of park rangers or people in charge of other IRL areas for IRL free speech.

That said, Wikipedia wasn't one of those early sites which published registered user information by default. Wikipedia instead has a culture of shielding the identifies of even the people they ban and/or dislike. An exception being when they tie banned usernames to IP addresses, but that isn't done at a particularly large scale.

Except that the practice of swatting had taken form as a major toxic phenomenon sometime in the 2010s, which involves making false calls to the authorities in order for them to send militarized police to their homes and to use heavy handed tactics against targets as if they're criminal or terrorists. In fact it has caused casualties already, most notably in Wichita where an innocent man was mistakenly shot to death by policemen. Considering that, it is actually an improvement in safety when the Canadian supreme court decided that IP addresses are personal information after all.

How would designating IP info as personal info help police find swatters? Just puts one more obstacle in front of them. Although, to be honest, there isn't really any foolproof privacy on the internet. Even people making fake bomb threats through the Tor network are easily caught by motivated feds (not local police) just by using a timing analysis.

[Ognistysztorm]

Don't have a huge opinion on this but could be a step in the wrong direction.

It used to be that public forums and chats (and even some search engines) would publish user and admin IPs by default so that individuals, individual admins, or groups would be attacked rather than neutral service providers. Thinking about it, it wasn't necessarily a bad idea.

However, now people feel entitled that every single website act as a personal shield for them, which is a bit odd in the grander scheme of things. No one expects this of park rangers or people in charge of other IRL areas for IRL free speech.

That said, Wikipedia wasn't one of those early sites which published registered user information by default. Wikipedia instead has a culture of shielding the identifies of even the people they ban and/or dislike. An exception being when they tie banned usernames to IP addresses, but that isn't done at a particularly large scale.

Except that the practice of swatting had taken form as a major toxic phenomenon sometime in the 2010s, which involves making false calls to the authorities in order for them to send militarized police to their homes and to use heavy handed tactics against targets as if they're criminal or terrorists. In fact it has caused casualties already, most notably in Wichita where an innocent man was mistakenly shot to death by policemen. Considering that, it is actually an improvement in safety when the Canadian supreme court decided that IP addresses are personal information after all.

How would designating IP info as personal info help police find swatters? Just puts one more obstacle in front of them. Although, to be honest, there isn't really any foolproof privacy on the internet. Even people making fake bomb threats through the Tor network are easily caught by motivated feds (not local police) just by using a timing analysis.

No, I meant that as long as the IP addresses are public, those bad people have easier time to swat people by simply looking up their IP address in those geolocation tools. The Canadian supreme court's ruling has plugged the security hole by treating those kind of information tantamount to credit card numbers.

[journo]

Except that the practice of swatting had taken form as a major toxic phenomenon sometime in the 2010s, which involves making false calls to the authorities in order for them to send militarized police to their homes and to use heavy handed tactics against targets as if they're criminal or terrorists. In fact it has caused casualties already, most notably in Wichita where an innocent man was mistakenly shot to death by policemen. Considering that, it is actually an improvement in safety when the Canadian supreme court decided that IP addresses are personal information after all.

How would designating IP info as personal info help police find swatters? Just puts one more obstacle in front of them. Although, to be honest, there isn't really any foolproof privacy on the internet. Even people making fake bomb threats through the Tor network are easily caught by motivated feds (not local police) just by using a timing analysis.

No, I meant that as long as the IP addresses are public, those bad people have easier time to swat people by simply looking up their IP address in those geolocation tools. The Canadian supreme court's ruling has plugged the security hole by treating those kind of information tantamount to credit card numbers.

Most people are not anonymous on the internet. Your proposal for IP addresses to be hidden as a rule to combat swatters only applies to a very small population of people. Also, for those people, it's better to simply trust and/or support the expanded national law enforcement efforts to combat that then to treat the entire internet like a ghetto.

[Ognistysztorm]

How would designating IP info as personal info help police find swatters? Just puts one more obstacle in front of them. Although, to be honest, there isn't really any foolproof privacy on the internet. Even people making fake bomb threats through the Tor network are easily caught by motivated feds (not local police) just by using a timing analysis.

No, I meant that as long as the IP addresses are public, those bad people have easier time to swat people by simply looking up their IP address in those geolocation tools. The Canadian supreme court's ruling has plugged the security hole by treating those kind of information tantamount to credit card numbers.

Most people are not anonymous on the internet. Your proposal for IP addresses to be hidden as a rule to combat swatters only applies to a very small population of people. Also, for those people, it's better to simply trust and/or support the expanded national law enforcement efforts to combat that then to treat the entire internet like a ghetto.

It's already a standard practice for regular social media websites to treat the leaking of IP addresses as doxxing which in turn is an actionable offense. The enforcement is especially more zealous on Reddit because of the collective trauma caused by the misidentification of an innocent person as the Boston bomber.

[journo]

No, I meant that as long as the IP addresses are public, those bad people have easier time to swat people by simply looking up their IP address in those geolocation tools. The Canadian supreme court's ruling has plugged the security hole by treating those kind of information tantamount to credit card numbers.

Most people are not anonymous on the internet. Your proposal for IP addresses to be hidden as a rule to combat swatters only applies to a very small population of people. Also, for those people, it's better to simply trust and/or support the expanded national law enforcement efforts to combat that then to treat the entire internet like a ghetto.

It's already a standard practice for regular social media websites to treat the leaking of IP addresses as doxxing which in turn is an actionable offense. The enforcement is especially more zealous on Reddit because of the collective trauma caused by the misidentification of an innocent person as the Boston bomber.

I have never heard of anyone in the USA ever being prosecuted simply for publishing an IP address. As they are legally considered public information in the USA. Publishing of personal address for harassment being prosecuted?, sure. But that's a different thing.