Lawyers in general are idiots and should be avoided like broccoli and poisonous snakes. Present members of bountiful excluded.

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch has some incorrect but very common notions about how gubbermint can make our lives better.

LM

Janey: what is the legal recourse for when something like internet bullying occurs? If someone receives offensive PMs or threatening emails, for example. Especially when there's little evidence from whom it occurs, and such?

--Ray

I don't think that this would solve internet bullying. Bullying occurred in person before the internet existed, so lack of anonymity wouldn't solve anything. And besides, it's the website operator who would pay if someone used a false name and address when signing up. That's just plain stupid, in my opinion.
Basically, if this bill becomes law, and they try to enforce it on everyone whose website is available in Kentucky (that is, everyone who operates a web site), then I will shut this site down. If there is even a small chance that I would wind up being liable because someone signed up with a false name and address, I would rather close the board than face that potential liability.

Technically you can track down a lot, but practically it can be pretty difficult. Each time you connect to a website, the computer running the website writes down the unique address that your computer is using. However, most computers connecting to the internet share addresses. It would sort of be like if each time you call someone, you are assigned a telephone number for that call. Caller ID wouldn't be of much help in determining who called you because the number would be different each time.
You can track the unique address back to the Internet Service Provider that it is assigned to, and they can check their server logs and see who was using what address at which time. It's a pain, though.
You can also access the internet from an internet cafe, where you have a certain degree of anonymity. But I would be surprised if internet cafes didn't keep records of who used what computer at what time.
Or, of course, you could do it from a library. They typically keep sloppy records of who used what computer.
The type of "covering your tracks" that Janey is talking about involves routing your request through one or more intermediaries, thus making it harder to track down the real culprit. If you have access to a network of zombie computers (computers that have been taken over by a virus) you can have them originate the requests, and thus make it pretty hard to track the connection back to its source.

Of course this sort of law would only apply to servers in the U.S. so the effect would be everyone migrating to an overseas site to host their blogs and forums. I wonder if the Soverign Nation of Sealand is still available. You could run this thing from there Arbi!

I don't feel clean anymore knowing that Arbi. Thanks!

I knew it!

I hope you like hockey, Jason.