“Internet privacy” is an oxymoron and the subject of debate in Spokane, Washington.
The Spokesman-Review newspaper received a tip that city Mayor James West was offering jobs to men he met in a Gay.com chat room. According to The AP, the paper hired an “expert” to track three screen names believed to belong to West. Confident that it was West, the paper published several stories, as well as transcripts of his conversation from the chat room.
Now West, the subject of a recall vote for misuse of city computers, says he was “brutally outed” by the paper and his conversations online were private.
Internet privacy advocates say there’s not such luck online.
“You cannot count on anonymity in virtually any online communication, unless you are an expert at using encryption and do a lot of research on the service you are using,” said Beth Givens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. “If someone is determined to find out who you are, they will.”
Via My Way News
