A hypothetical question...

Pacer66

Hi,

I'm doing a bit of digging on behalf of a mate and am hoping someone can advise. I think I probably know the answer to this but if he were to spot a post on a web forum that appears to have been made by an employee which breaches company policy can he do anything to trace the employee who made the post?

Thank you in advance.

P66

McKneff

So why does he want to do that then, we really dont want to help someone who'se mate might want to resurrect this post to enable him to get someone the sack now do we. So why?

Pacer66

He hasn't actually decided he wants to pusue anything ( in my opinion it's not even certain it's posted by an employee) but he feels the post was inciting others to take actions to make his company lose money. I don't think it's even possible to trace the poster and am hoping that's the answer I can take to him to put him off the idea. He needs to just forget it in my opinion but it would be easier to persuade him by saying it's impossible!

santer_2

You could ask the forum administration about the post and poster if you find it, though how likely is it that any real details were used to register

flaky0u

Most forums will show the posters IP address to the administrator, which could potentially show where the post was made from, but it's not 100% because you can spoof the IP address or use a public access machine.

fwor

In my opinion, he has no chance whatsoever of ~proving~ that the employee made the post, unless those who operate the forum choose to co-operate.

Typically they will only co-operate by providing IP addresses if asked to do so by the police in pursuit of a criminal matter, and from what you've said this isn't one.

If you can get an IP address, you would then have to prove a link to an individual name and address and, again, no ISP will help in a case like that.

If the post is defamatory or harmful to the company, far easier to get the legal dept to write to the forum operator and just get the post removed.

Pacer66

fwor wrote: »

In my opinion, he has no chance whatsoever of ~proving~ that the employee made the post, unless those who operate the forum choose to co-operate.

Typically they will only co-operate by providing IP addresses if asked to do so by the police in pursuit of a criminal matter, and from what you've said this isn't one.

If you can get an IP address, you would then have to prove a link to an individual name and address and, again, no ISP will help in a case like that.

If the post is defamatory or harmful to the company, far easier to get the legal dept to write to the forum operator and just get the post removed.

Thank you very much. This is exactly what I have told him so I am glad you were able to confirm what I thought to be correct.

Hopefully he will now just put this to bed but if anyone else can confirm it may help yet further!

Thank you.

McKneff

Beleive me fwor knows what they are talking about, you dont need to wait for any further confirmation.

Sorry if i was a bit off, just making sure. So it wasnt really a hyperthetical question really.

esuhl

The IP address would be considered a personal datum under the Data Protection Act (assuming it's a UK-based site), so they wouldn't just give it out to you.

But this isn't actually a criminal matter as fwor suggested - it's just a breach of company policy. So I don't think the police would be interested. I think there might be a way that you can present the case to a judge saying that you want to sue for breach of contract and ask them to issue a court order to request the IP address that was used. Again, I'm not 100% sure, but I think the judge can refuse if he/she thinks that the case is either too trivial or is likely to fail due to lack of evidence.

You would then need to get another court order to get the ISP to reveal the subscriber who pays for the account that was using the IP address at the time of the contractual breach. You would then need to prove that it was the defendant that committed the breach of contract and not someone else using their network connection.

All in all, not an easy job. This case illustrates one of the problems:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/john-Doe-Hard-Drive-!!!!!!-BitTorrent-Grandmother,news-11867.html

cit_k

Was the post made during working hours?

Was it made from a company computer, or via the companies internet connection?

Check the companies logs to see who accessed the site in question at that particular time.

The company is responsible enough to log all site visits etc etc?

In what way would it be breaching company policy out of interest?

edgex

esuhl wrote: »

The IP address would be considered a personal datum under the Data Protection Act (assuming it's a UK-based site), so they wouldn't just give it out to you.

But this isn't actually a criminal matter as fwor suggested - it's just a breach of company policy. So I don't think the police would be interested. I think there might be a way that you can present the case to a judge saying that you want to sue for breach of contract and ask them to issue a court order to request the IP address that was used. Again, I'm not 100% sure, but I think the judge can refuse if he/she thinks that the case is either too trivial or is likely to fail due to lack of evidence.

You would then need to get another court order to get the ISP to reveal the subscriber who pays for the account that was using the IP address at the time of the contractual breach. You would then need to prove that it was the defendant that committed the breach of contract and not someone else using their network connection.

All in all, not an easy job. This case illustrates one of the problems:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/john-Doe-Hard-Drive-!!!!!!-BitTorrent-Grandmother,news-11867.html

that would never be allowed, as its essentially a trawling exercise


to sue an employee for breach of contract requires 2 things;
the name of the employee
evidence that they have breached the contract

in this scenario they have neither