Don't worry. You were.

~EdT.

The only problem with it is that you have to have a thick skin – and a pretty good lawyer (which the person who originated this site certainly does.) People tend to get upset when you attempt the “public humiliation” route, as you can probably guess.

~EdT.

:>

dr.e

The problem with giving up anonymous is one conversely becomes a target themselves. Anyone who has posted their email address on an open web site knows, junk mail can be the least of yout worries. Being anonymous can be used as a shield as well as a weapon.

As far as tracking by IP, that too can be difficult. It requires access to information held by one or more ISPs, and if no law is broken, getting providers to release that info can be real problem. Add to this the fact that messages passing through sites designed to make headers in the email misdirect your search, you begin to see the technological problems. Hackers on the internet form the most industrious group dedicated to 'disappearing' identity. As I mentioned, junk mail is the least intrusive symptom of this phenomena, and even with laws created to stop this, you just need to check your inbox to know who's winning that war.

The only thing that may someday work would be the evolution of the new IPv6 addressing model proposed and beginning to be implemented. The new addressing scheme has more than enough addresses to provide everyone with their own unique address. The problem there is two-fold. Money – it will cost a ton to upgrade all the devices on the internet to use IPv6. The other is more political, if each person has their own number, the 'mark of the beast' crowd would go absolutely nuts. The last problem is even more concern, if you have one address, a government who can block that address also has the ability to 'disappear' you from the web.

Sorry, my inner geek must be heard from time to time.

I was gleaning that from this passage:

“Near as I can tell, the site where this photo appeared exists for the sole purpose of maligning other people. How pathetic.

(An aside: You’ve probably have heard of this slimy website already. This is the same site that’s doing its level best to attack Carrie Prejean (Miss California) by releasing “semi-nude” photos of her, complete with pointed commentary.)”

Lots of hate floating around out there.

The best cure for a person who purposefully seeks to harm innocents for sport by anonymous posting on the internet is to reveal their identity.

Yes! That's exactly what I was saying. So how do you think that could be accomplished?

The way I took your article, it struck me more as a condemnation of bloggers who seem to enjoy destroying people’s lives and being mean just for the fun of it, as opposed to the obvious disgust with death porn.

Although this particular incident is totally egregious, I don’t believe the answer is narrowly defined laws. The best cure for a person who purposefully seeks to harm innocents for sport by anonymous posting on the internet is to reveal their identity.

From there, public shaming would tend to dissuade others from the same antics.

I have not read the verdict in the case you noted, but I know that judges cannot create law in their jurisdictions, even though, as you quoted, this judge was outraged by the circumstances. If there is no law against the release of accident photos (not the same as crime scene photos) the judge would have his hands tied.

When I was in law school, the one thing I learned that has stayed and stayed with me, is that what we wish the law to be, and what the law is, are often quite different. Ethics is higher than the law, but ethics violations cannot be prosecuted unless there is also a violation of law.

As I mentioned re Columbine, the Public Information Act still can be sidelined for long periods of time by sealing records, (we see this amongst the Feds often too) as was done in Colo to protect the grieving families and precisely also, to keep others' mitts out of the matter for a time… for a huge grab to sensationalize came from many quarters….often with money-making motives cloaked in 'telling the real story,' or desire for some kind of prestige or prize going along with it.

Again, if there were a law of some sort, it would seem it would have to be narrowly defined, very narrowly indeed, as there are anonymous correspondants most of us journos have from foreign countries (like Burma) who are risking their lives to get information and photos out.

It's interesting to me more so, that the Chinese and Burmese and other governments are able to ferret out the IP's and locations of their anonymous bloggers and imprison or 'disappear' them in wink. It would appear there is already technology to find out who this fellow is who posts gore-pictures to his website. Interesting to know why/ how that tech. is or isnt being used.

THere are gore sites on the internet that collect the kinds of pictures you name, and sell them as CD sets to? THere are a proliferation of sites that just carry the gore photos that have put the selling of them at less of a premium i imagine

there are more kinds of porn than just sexual, that's certain and has been certain likely since the first head was put on a pike in the public square.

One of the things we know as shrinks, is a hyperfascination with gore may come from being deeply traumatized long ago. There are eidetic imprints made, esp on the young. One example is some who brought home entire catalogs of war-gore after wwII. You see it floating around for sale sometimes on ebay under cover of 'graphic war' pix.

I tend to wonder how to help a person insistent on gore-porn learn to be humane toward the suffering of others who are alive. There are mental conditions that preclude such, in some, however. Some with a gore-fetish may be unbalanced in other ways as well. Lack of considering consequences, lack of reason and constraint tend to pool together in obsessional thought.

A site person who has become a portal for others seeking gore, likely a kind of decayed prestige they dont want to give up. There may be nothing happening that is 'alive', in the site person's life elsewhere

When there's a sexual crime of maiming or mutilation of the living or the dead, investigators often look first at suspects who have obsessions with necrophilia. Necrophilia doesnt mean having sex with corpses, (although it could). It is a broad category that means a twisted 'love' of the dead. And under that banner come many predilictions, including amassing gore-porn.

In the Jon Bonet Ramsey case, and also in other cases across the country, often a person delivering the body, or a person in the morgue, or a subordinate person somewhere in the chain of the coroner's office will take pix of the dead or cop the autopsy pictures, copy them and keep them/ or distribute them.

The obsession is a lot like pedophilia in that regard. People who suffer from pedophilia dont hang out in banks. They hang out where children are. Same with people suffering from necrophilia. They hang out where the bodies are, or where others have access to the bodies, including effluvia, full access, and pix.

The coroner's office, the ambulances, the drivers, the deliverers of evidences, the ER, the first responders, the body prep rooms of funeral homes, etc., are staffed by persons who are utterly respectful of the bodies of the dead. And the families of the dying and dead. I think, they all deserve medals for doing the often heartbreaking work they do day after day. You have to grow a certain amount of armor to do the work, but also remain heartful. And most do both.

But people who suffer from necrophilia or what are called the pretty 'out there' dysmorphias or parasexualities, they still find their ways to those places too.

The person so disposed to gore, wants privacy and secrecy more than anything, because they are often fragile emotionally (I know, I know,) and they know that they would be soundly condemned and marginalized in no uncertain terms by most around them. It is an odd thing, that by alienating heartfelt and grieving others, the thing they fear most is being exiled themselves.