“What’s to say you’re not typing away at some cafe with wifi?”
I think your computer still advertises its address, otherwise how would you get email?
The BTK killer was sending taunting emails to the police and they actually nailed him in the process at his churches’ PC. But, they’d have equally nailed him at McDonald’s.
Well, maybe, they’d have to catch him being online then quickly trace it to where he was before he left. Difficult? maybe; impossible? no.
Well the point is that a judge that orders a website to cough up personal information on one of its participants may be wasting time. The website could come back and say ‘John Doe residing in Friendly Heights’. If the ISP comes back with a computer address, then it’s up to the plaintiff to figure it out from then on.
It’s a fool’s errand to chase someone on the internet unless a crime investigation is underway and ALL the tools are brought into play to trace the criminal. For civil cases it’s not worth spit.
So my first impression is this is a typical philly bully judge who is shooting out orders without knowing if they are realistic. Philadelphia is a very corrupt place. On the other hand if grassroots people in Philadelphia are involved and they are credible, then normally good judges will hear the case and act as judges should. It’s difficult to know without being there.
To be sure I would need to hear a tape of the judge or see a transcript to see what his reasoning was. A wise judge would just tell the plaintiff that he is not going to expend court resources over cyber searches that have a high probability of leading nowhere.
But the point is that millions upon millions of comments and allegations are made on the internet everyday. If a union thug wants to hunt them all down, I think that’s a problem not only with the union thug but also with using court resources for useless investigations. Then again the Philly mob controls many judges, and they are not brilliant.