Liskula Cohen case reminder: Consider the source
Liskula Cohen
Recent developments in the Liskula Cohen/anonymous blogger/”skank” case have launched a round of comment in traditional and new media sites over the value of anonymous comment, whether the right to be anonymous is under attack and even whether courts should somehow tame the Internet.
Ultimately, I see the case as a reminder that increasingly, the web means readers must be discerning about the source. That doesn’t mean anonymous speech should be dismissed, ignored or banned.
In my own newsroom, at least one reporter has engaged me in discussions over the case, forwarding me “The Moral of the Story” blogger’s take on the case in The New York Times, which calls the kind of vile anonymous commenting we’re all familiar with a malignancy.
The importance of anonymous speech in our democracy has already been widely discussed. That the right to be anonymous would ever be at issue is ridiculous, though I will confess this right now: It’s very easy for me to don the rose-colored glasses on the subject. I’ve never been the victim of an anonymous attack on my character or my livelihood. I’ve not been denied business or opportunity because, unknown to me, someone made a flawed judgment of me based on a scurrilous, anonymous attack.
So anonymity isn’t going away. The fact that anonymous speakers can be help liable for their violations of law isn’t going to change; anonymous speakers always risk being exposed. That’s why John Doe cases are filed.
It seems to me that the biggest value of this case for the rest of us is a reminder to consider the source. When readers are faced with an anonymous comments, they have two choices. Read more
Interesting stuff I saw online, Aug. 22 to Aug. 25
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Aug. 22 through Aug. 25:
- Is It O.K. to Blog About This Woman Anonymously? – The Moral of the Story Blog – Interesting take on the idea of anonymous comment. The writer comes down against it.
- The Risks, and Rewards, of Social Media for Newspapers – Nice rundown on policies and pitfalls in newsrooms over the use of social media — professionally and personally.
- Teaching Online Journalism Updated tutorials for Audacity (audio editing) – "I finally revised and updated the three tutorials I use to teach journalism students and professionals how to edit audio using Audacity, a free program that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux."
- Out of the Frying Pan and into the Mildly Uncomfortable Sauna: The Not-So-Bad-But-Still-Unconstitutional Social Networking Ban – Wow. "A week ago, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a bill, HB 1314, making it illegal for convicted sex offenders to access a 'social networking website.'"
4 security links: Why you better secure your blog
Hackers are trying to break into my blog. I know this because months ago, I heeded the advice of other bloggers and boosted my security measures. That included installing the “Limit Login Attempts” plugin. Within days, I started getting WordPress notices when someone was locked out of my blog. I’m the only authorized user.
Since then, I get one or two WordPress alerts every week. Yeah, I was surprised, too. But this is a story about a small success.
Last week, I checked the logs and noticed that the same IP address had been locked out 64 times. I checked and found it came back to a site hosted by Amazon Web Services. I e-mailed their abuse address. They asked for a little more information; a few days later, I got a nice reply.
We have completed an initial investigation of the issue and learned that the activity you noticed did indeed originate from an Amazon EC2 instance. These intrusion attempts that you report were not, however, initiated by Amazon…
That said, we do take reports of unauthorized network activity from our environment very seriously. It is specifically forbidden in our terms of use. We’ve already contacted the Amazon EC2 customer who controlled the instance in question and informed them that they are required to terminate their unauthorized interaction with your network, failing which we will terminate their instance. In cases of egregious abuse or as we otherwise deem appropriate, we will immediately terminate all their instances and suspend their account.
That made me happy.
The lesson here: If you haven’t already secured your blog, do it. I’m not going to go into detail about what I’ve done, but I’ve included links to some of the sites I consulted. Alas, since I’m using WordPress, I’m not sure what the best resources would be for you users of TypePad, Movable Type, Blogger, Drupal….whatever.
And I’m not naive enough to think that my blog is impervious to a determined hacker. Consider this my “knock on wood.” Here’s the links.
10 Tips To Make WordPress Hack-Proof. The Ultimate Guide
guvnr.com | February 24, 2009
This is a must-read for keeping your blog safe, especially if you’re blogging in WordPress. I followed this one almost point-by-point. Complete with videos.
10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress
Smashing Magazine | January 26, 2009
Once again, a must-read, but this one is also for WordPress users only. Some of it is a little technical, so you have to be comfy getting under the hood of your installation.
Blog Security – Tips on Keeping Your Blog from being Hacked
ProBlogger | September 7, 2006
ProBlogger is always good. This one is pretty straightforward and doesn’t have a lot of “wow, didn’t think of that” advice, but it’s worth a look.
How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords
One Man’s Blog | March 26, 2007
Good advice on figuring out a password that works for you, and not the hackers.
Interesting stuff I saw online, Aug. 12 to Aug. 14
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Aug. 12 through Aug. 14:
- Video: Social Media Revolution – Great video, lots of stats about the boom in social media growth. Thanks @stevebuttry
- Employers Are Freaking Out About Twitter and Facebook, Study Shows – Fascinating Citizen Media Law Project post includes hysterical example of dumb employee, Facebook and her boss.
- The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging – "The same problems come up again and again, keeping bloggers from building a real audience for what they have to say. So how about you? Do you commit one of these seven deadly sins with your content?"
- News numeracy: online tools for reporting numbers – Journalism.co.uk: "Following on from Steve Harrison’s excellent two-part guide on news numeracy, ‘How to: get to grips with numbers as a journalist’, here’s a round-up of some of the best online tools and sites for journalists when reporting figures and stats."
Interesting stuff I saw online, Jun. 1 to Jun. 8
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Jun. 1 through Jun. 8:
- Boston Police Would Tweet A Zombie Attack | NewsTechZilla – "I love things like this; when an organization or company I assume is otherwise faceless is able to properly use social media (by, gasp, being social), it always kind of makes me happy."
- ConvoTrack – Loads comments from Twitter, digg, etc. on any page – "This simple bookmarklet will load comments from Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Reddit, HackerNews and any blog mentioning the article and will load it in a handy sidebar."
- 50 Great Examples of Data Visualization – "Below are 50 of the best data visualizations and tools for creating your own visualizations out there, covering everything from Digg activity to network connectivity to what’s currently happening on Twitter."
- Is this useful? An account of how I started blogging and how it changed my journalism – "Pete told me this was known as “crowd-sourcing” and had a wide range of potential applications for newspapers. I can not stress enough how helpful it was to have someone that I could call to have coffee with and pick their brains on how the web “worked”. I started to look at journalism in a new way through Pete’s explanations of blogging."
Kurt's Tweets- Funny. SW airlines magazine bothers to mention that pacemakers are always authorized electronic devices. #fb
- A disgrace, St. Louis. People still litter? http://post.ly/OUsk
- Redemption for Lindsey Jacobellis in snowboardcross? Only click if you really wanna know. http://bit.ly/99OgbM
- West Countians: If you're in the market for a pancake supper tonight, there's one here: http://stmartinschurch.org.
- The fiddling continues, even as Rome burns.