Am I the only one who can’t fathom how this was without Aldebaran’s permission? If he wants his location to be confidential, that’s fine. Many Dopers leave their location field blank, or put in a joke or frivolous location. If a person did not have a geographical location listed in his or her profile, and did not make his or her location a topic of discussion, then in that case, yes, I can see that it would be a violation of privacy for an administrator to post that information.
But here we have an example of someone who did not choose to keep his location confidential, but who told it to anyone who would listen. Aldebaran has said many times, and even listed in his profile, that he’s in the Middle East. It seems to me that, by him saying where he is, even if he’s lying, he’s implying that people are allowed to know where he is.
I’m unclear on the significance of the fact that he’s never claimed to be in any particular country, since “the Middle East” is a real, geographical location. Would it have been acceptable if Lynn had posted that he was in “northern Europe”, rather than saying “Belgium”?
So where does this end? If I make several posts claiming that I’m in NYC, when I’m really posting from Niagara Falls as confirmed by the IP address, will an admin now come by to inform the rest of the board that I’m lying? How about if I claim that “Miss Doper X” and I are in a torrid relationship, and I’m posting from her computer right now–will an admin tell the rest of the board, “According to the IP registries, you’re not”?
Or does that rule only apply to Dopers who have pissed off the administration in some way?
Thank you for your response. I was curious about these “steps” that you mention. Will there be an official list posted? A sticky perhaps?
I look forward to response. I’ve been on this board for 4 years now and am concerned about privacy violations. I hope that this incident will have some positive result.
If you were to say, “I’m in NYC at this moment and there is a lot of strange police activity going on.” Then a bit later someone else says, “Bullshit. I’m in NYC and it’s a normal day.” After the two of you go back and forth, it would be reasonable, in my opinion, to run an IP check and see who’s full of crap. Of course, IP checks might not be a 100% valid way to do that but I am sure that you can see my point.
Remember the Skewbald incident? I believe it was Coldfire who used an IP check to verify that Skewbald was posting from where he said he was from.
Aldebaran was saying the he was currently in the M.E. and throwing that in the faces of people during debates. If he were in the M.E. it would give his opinions more credibility because he was there, where the action is. Many people have said how great it is to have a poster who is from that area so he can share his point of view. Now it turns out that he’s not in the M.E. after all. He’s been using that “fact” in debates and lying about it. I think it’s germaine and entirely appropriate to out him.
He didn’t want us to know exactly where he was because he was lying.
But he claims to be using proxies, which, as I understand, would give the physical address of the proxy, not necessarily the computer connected to it.
As far as lying about it, so what? Maybe he’s lying about being a Muslim. Are you going to tail him to make sure that he prays five times a day and isn’t thinking about drinking Thunderbird while he does it? IIRC, he’s claimed to have discussed points of religion with some of the greater thinkers in Islam, are you going to ask him to post pictures of him standing next to them? I know Ald goes through some pretty rigorous cross-examination and manages (AFAIK) to hold up consistently enough to allay any suspicions (which I wasn’t even aware existed, maybe I’m naive).
If he claims to be a Muslim and gives advice about how to replace a clutch in an '88 Accord, it doesn’t matter. If he claims to be a Muslim and he answers a question about Islam from the point of view of a Muslim, it’s significant. (I do believe that he really is a practicing Muslim, don’t get me wrong.) I think it’s an example of not debating fairly if one were to do this.
Yes, I do, and Skewbald was a putz, but some things have changed since then, and I will explain below.
OK, here’s the problem I have with it. As Aldebaran quoted from the board contract,
(bolding mine) Now, IANAL, but when I worked at a university in England in 2000 I was responsible for implementing the Data Protection Act 1998 (UK), an act which brought the UK’s data protection laws into line with those of the rest of the European Union. Country of residence, no matter how mundane or obvious it might seem, certainly did fall under “any personal information.”
You and Chronos have claimed that, as Chronos put it,
According to the data protection laws I worked with, that was no defense against an entity divulging personal information. For an example, under the terms of the DPA 1998 St. Edmund Hall, the college I worked for, could not release transcripts without the student’s consent. It didn’t matter if a student told the entire population of Oxford what was in his transcript, the Hall could still not do so without his consent. Even if the student was lying about his transcript, that did not absolve the Hall from the responsiblity of keeping the data private. (I should mention here that in practice the Hall asked every student to sign a release form before they started classes. Whether anyone ever challenged that, I don’t know.)
Now, yes, of course, legally the Chicago Reader is likely in the clear here. (If the Reader were based in the EU, I don’t think they would be, but, again, IANAL.) But the situation you and Chronos suggest seems to me the slipperiest of slippery slopes. It suggests that, if the Reader found that I was lying about an aspect of my personal life, that if by some mechanism they uncovered the truth about it, that they would be in the right to “correct” me. After all, it was my fault for lying about it, wasn’t it?
Of course. But IMHO that didn’t give the admins the right to breach his private information on the board. IMHO this either should have been handled off-board, or his actual location should not have been mentioned in Lynn’s post.
(Note: I here enclose information on the Data Protection Act 1998 (UK), which is substantially similar to EU regulations on data protection. I do not know whether Aldebaran believed he was under similar protection, but I include this information for sake of completeness here.)
This is to certify that I am not actually in the Witness Protection Program.
I recall Aldebaran speaking of being in Belgium at one point. I recognize that the “tent in the Middle East” can be symbolic and hyperbolic and represent a cultural point of view.
Lynn has always been kind to me and I understand why a knowledge of IP’s is important to mods and administrators. But I don’t assume that everyone is in such a relatively safe position to speak from as I am. And I believe that she made the wrong choice in giving out private information about Aldebaran. This is not in keeping with SDMB policy as I understand it.
We never know why someone needs to keep location information private.
To use the occasion of a legitimate complaint to scold Aldebaran is, to my thinking, very inappropriate. Since he had tried communicating through email first, perhaps a response in email for any past indiscretions would have been more in keeping with setting a good example for non-jerkish behavior.
Personally, once I stopped being so defensive about Aldebaran’s questions and began to listen without assumptions about his motives, I found his posts very worthwhile and provocative in a good way.
I hope he doesn’t stop posting because of this. He may not understand that nothing sinister was intended.
This law prevents me, as a nurse, from sharing medical information to anyone without the patient’s permission. The patient might be standing out on the busiest street corner screaming that she has herpes, I can’t tell her husband so he can protect himself. I know of a situation where a woman told her husband she had cancer when she didn’t and could not say a word.
I am certainly not saying this message board is as serious as someone’s health but like Zoe said, one never knows why someone might not want their location known. What it boils down to is that it was wrong to post that information. Wrong. I don’t care if the he was lying out his ass, it doesn’t excuse the INCORRECT behavior of posting that information. It seems with the apology given and then the smackdown in the next breath, the board is throwing the ball back in the court of the OP which seems shady at best but also seems to be working from some of the posts here.
Like mentioned previously, I’d also like to know what steps are being taken to prevent this because IMHO, it removes credibility from the board in general. To me, it’s like the LAPD beating the crap out of people and then expecting the rest of us to follow the laws.
Amen to that. For all we know, ** Aldebaran ** could have exceedingly good reasons for refusing to disclose his location, and it itsn’t up to anybody else to second guess the validity his motives, decide whether it’s likely or not that such reasons could exist, or whether or not a particular information is generic enough to be disclosed without causing harm.
And the fact he could have lied (I’m not sure why people are assuming he lied, by the way, since he never hide that he had close connections with both a M.E. country X and Belgium) seems quite irrelevant to me. Besides, he could have valid reasons to lie too. And finally, I’m pretty certain we read a lot of lies on this board on a regular basis. Assuming that he actually lied to make a point, I’m quite convinced he hasn’t been the only one.
So, I’m quite pleased by the decision of the SDMB administrators on this issue.
Douglas Adams wrote, “Space is really big. You won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
I cannot fathom how narrowing down his position to a single country, especially considering that country is about the size of Maryland with a population of over ten million, could have any implications whatsoever. If he were truly some “hunted man”, narrowing it down to that level would be no help whatsoever to the hunters.
You know, I could probably narrow my location down for you to the town I live in (population: a sprawling 8,000 and change) with the confidence that there’s little hope of you ever being able to find me.
So acting as if Lynn blew his anonymity is sheer over-reacting. Especially since Aldebaran posted his location (per Jeff’s link) himself last year.
It isn’t the point. The point is, she used her access to this personal information and made a comment in a post.
What part of the word ANY in "“Chicago Reader, Inc. respects your privacy and will never release any personal information about you without your consent.” is unclear to you?
Those aren’t the rules according to Aldebaran, those are rules according to the Chicago Reader. If I have to agree to the rules to post here, the people who police my posts should have to follow the rules as well. It really is just that simple.
What steps are being taken to prevent the release of this type of information?
My query has nothing to do with the OP. I have no experience with him on the board, nor do I have any criticism with his debating skills or with his being a “jerk,” to quote a lot of other folks.
I just want some assurance that the private information I submit will remain private, and that some overzealous admin or mod won’t use it to win an argument.
Who cares if ** Aldebaran** is lying about his location or not? His location is irrelevant. Does living or working in the Middle East sway anyone’s opinion? Hardly. Either you think he’s full of shit or you don’t.
His arguments must stand on their own merits. Who gives a fuck about where he lives?
The only reason I’m even part of this conversation is because I feel pretty uncomfortable with Lynn looking up private information then posting about it.
So, ** Mr. Zotti **, what steps are you taking to ensure that this does not happen again?
And they didn’t. The term “personal information” as used in online privacy policies has a specific definition and scope, and means specific information which is capable of being used to identify that individual. One’s country of origin is not normally considered personal information. For example, from the Children’s Online Privacy Act, definitions:
Sorry but I’m not a child and those examples weren’t given as explanation of “personal information” when I signed up on this board.
Hate to break it to you QED, but Ed Zotti already acknowledged that this was a mistake. He said it was a breach of privacy. No need to try to rewrite history on the board’s behalf.
Excellent try though, I’m sure it has been duly noted as have all of the rest of our posts here.
Yes, I can read, too. And I’m saying he was wrong to say so. Ok, I’ll grant you that if Aldebaran had specifically asked that his country of origin not be published, then that’s a different matter. He claims he did, but I’ve not seen such a post myself.
Q.E.D., so is it okay if SDMB gives out some personal information when they said they wouldn’t give out any?
I thought about not letting people know where I live – even the state – and I have a good reason. But I changed my mine eventually. That was my choice to make.
I have had a very creepy experience happen from another forum and do not wish for my identity to be pinpointed. It was the safeguards here that allowed me to feel safe.
Who gets to decide that that should not be important to me?
Oh man, that is really reaching. You’re saying that we have to specifically tell the board what information we DON’T want them to tell others about us? Seriously, you don’t really believe that do you? I’ll have to look again, but I don’t remember seeing it say “Chicago Reader, Inc. respects your privacy and will never release any personal information about you without your consent if you tell us ahead of time what you don’t want known.” I guess I’ll have to put my request in now that they don’t share A SINGLE SHRED OF INFORMATION about me with anyone if we’re going to go with your interesting new rule.
I have to admit, it is nice ending my night on a laugh. For that, I thank you and bid you goodnight.