Tracking an Internet stalker - Legal?

Tenshot

Hypothetical situation:

An anonymous Twitter user is harassing me on Twitter. I create my own anonymous Twitter account, strike up a conversation with them, lure them into clicking a link to a website I control, and then retrieve their IP address from the website logs.

The IP address turns out to be a static address owned by an Internet cafe. I visit said cafe while stalker is tweeting away, and book some time on a nearby PC. Looking over at the stalker's screen, I confirm they are using Twitter, and indeed, the only person in the cafe doing so.

I use my camera to record the stalker actually posting a tweet from the anonymous account; the screen is visible, but the stalker is seen only from behind. Shortly afterwards, I exit and record more video of the stalker on the street just outside the cafe, this time with their face visible.

Have I broken any Irish laws doing the above? Does it make a difference if each PC in the cafe is equipped with a webcam (i.e. reducing reasonable expectation of privacy)?

Farcear

Maybe Data Protection law -- more so if we assume that the website has a standard privacy policy.

That's an interesting scenario.

qz

In an internet cafe a webcam would only be used if the user wished. They're there for convenience more than in a "big brother" capacity.

Privacy argument of the Tweeter would win out I would say.

Tenshot

qz wrote: »

In an internet cafe a webcam would only be used if the user wished. They're there for convenience more than in a "big brother" capacity.

My thinking was that any user in the cafe could be using a webcam, which would inevitably capture at least some of what was happening in the background behind them, including the presence of other users. (PCs are often arranged in rows so that users sit with their backs to each other.)

I agree that it would be a very different scenario if the webcam on a particular user's PC was being used without that user's knowledge to record the user's activities.

Is there a legal difference between observing what is on another user's screen, vs capturing the screen with a handheld compact camera, if the recording is not made public?

Marcusm

It's hard to see how privacy can be expected in a situation such as this.

jasonpat

The solution of this problem is to get notice from the IT police, you can complain there dude,

Departed

Tenshot wrote: »

Hypothetical situation:

An anonymous Twitter user is harassing me on Twitter. I create my own anonymous Twitter account, strike up a conversation with them, lure them into clicking a link to a website I control, and then retrieve their IP address from the website logs.

The IP address turns out to be a static address owned by an Internet cafe. I visit said cafe while stalker is tweeting away, and book some time on a nearby PC. Looking over at the stalker's screen, I confirm they are using Twitter, and indeed, the only person in the cafe doing so.

I use my camera to record the stalker actually posting a tweet from the anonymous account; the screen is visible, but the stalker is seen only from behind. Shortly afterwards, I exit and record more video of the stalker on the street just outside the cafe, this time with their face visible.

Have I broken any Irish laws doing the above? Does it make a difference if each PC in the cafe is equipped with a webcam (i.e. reducing reasonable expectation of privacy)?

If you track it by a static ip how do you know what workstation to look for and how do you know it is the same tweeter?

Tenshot

Departed wrote: »

If you track it by a static ip how do you know what workstation to look for and how do you know it is the same tweeter?

This is beyond the scope of my original question. However, and keeping in mind that we're only talking hypothetically here:

• Most Internet cafe's run off a single access line and use address translation to map all their PCs to a single external IP address, which may be static or dynamic. Static is easier to trace back, of course. The objective is to identify the physical location where the stalker might be, not the specific PC within that location they are using.
  
• If there is only one person using Twitter in the cafe, and you see them tweeting a particular message, and the text of that message then appears as a tweet from the account of the stalker, with the same date & time, it's not a big stretch to say that the person who typed the message is in control of the stalking account. (At this point, the IP address isn't needed since you have physically observed the person in the act of posting an incriminating tweet.)

RandolphEsq

I'm confused; who is the stalker here?

Tom Young

Tenshot wrote: »

This is beyond the scope of my original question. However, and keeping in mind that we're only talking hypothetically here:

• Most Internet cafe's run off a single access line and use address translation to map all their PCs to a single external IP address, which may be static or dynamic. Static is easier to trace back, of course. The objective is to identify the physical location where the stalker might be, not the specific PC within that location they are using.
  
• If there is only one person using Twitter in the cafe, and you see them tweeting a particular message, and the text of that message then appears as a tweet from the account of the stalker, with the same date & time, it's not a big stretch to say that the person who typed the message is in control of the stalking account. (At this point, the IP address isn't needed since you have physically observed the person in the act of posting an incriminating tweet.)

Triangulation sillies!

jayteecork

RandolphEsq wrote: »

I'm confused; who is the stalker here?

Yeah who is it?

Are you male or female and is he male or female?

Farcear

jayteecork wrote: »

Yeah who is it?

Are you male or female and is he male or female?

Hypothetically.

jayteecork

Farcear wrote: »

Hypothetically.

That's boring, dammit!

I want pics of stalkers stalking!

godtabh

Tenshot wrote: »

Hypothetical situation:

An anonymous Twitter user is harassing me on Twitter. I create my own anonymous Twitter account, strike up a conversation with them, lure them into clicking a link to a website I control, and then retrieve their IP address from the website logs.

The IP address turns out to be a static address owned by an Internet cafe. I visit said cafe while stalker is tweeting away, and book some time on a nearby PC. Looking over at the stalker's screen, I confirm they are using Twitter, and indeed, the only person in the cafe doing so.

I use my camera to record the stalker actually posting a tweet from the anonymous account; the screen is visible, but the stalker is seen only from behind. Shortly afterwards, I exit and record more video of the stalker on the street just outside the cafe, this time with their face visible.

Have I broken any Irish laws doing the above? Does it make a difference if each PC in the cafe is equipped with a webcam (i.e. reducing reasonable expectation of privacy)?

Who's the stalker again?

If its a real stalker issue why not call the gardai?

Ifs "real" twitter issue just ignore them

Victor

Tenshot wrote: »

An anonymous Twitter user is harassing me on Twitter.

Report it to twitter.

busybee35

Report it to twitter

LOL simplest answer is always correct!

Rochelle

Husband unmasked former FF TD Chris Andrews after phantom tweets targeted wife

Krieg

well, this is interesting

MagicSean

Krieg wrote: »

well, this is interesting

Indeed. I knew that story was familiar when I read about it.

StupidLikeAFox

Rochelle wrote: »

Husband unmasked former FF TD Chris Andrews after phantom tweets targeted wife

Eddy Carroll and Kathryn Byrne understand that FF HQ sought independent legal and IT advice

...by starting a thread on boards.ie Legal Discussion forum

Tow

ColHol wrote: »

...by starting a thread on boards.ie Legal Discussion forum

Comes naturally to Eddie, he has been 'online' before most of Board's users were born.

Reamer Fanny

Why not just block them, why would you go to all that effort?

Gregor Samsa

justryan wrote: »

Why not just block them, why would you go to all that effort?

Read Rochelle's post above.