ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by Pyianno

To answer your question, in the event that the lawyer did attempt to sue (and I would say there is a less than 1% chance of his ever doing so), he would have to obtain a court order for the disclosure by ARRSE of any personal data held about members.

DPA does not protect you from a court order.

The fact that ARRSE's servers are in Russia might though.

Location of servers no longer holds. Look at what happened to piratebay.org whilst yes initially successful because their servers were in sweden, international law got introduced to handle that. best way around it is to mirror the site to servers to a location such as the cayman islands or something.

Originally Posted by Idrach

Okay. ARRSE is readable in Nebraska, hence it is potentially subject to suit there. And findings against a foreign company in a US court can be enforced by the courts of some other countries - UK included. The question is whether Jimbo actually has sufficient standing to sue in Nebraska. "Standing" being an important part of US law not particularly appreciated by Brits. 'Cause we're in a much smaller country, for one thing.

Note - not actually a lawyer but spent a number of years being made to sue websites round and round the world so learned a bit about it.

Agree on the 'potential'. Question on 'standing', would Jimbo need to be resident in the great State of Nebraska to file suit. Supplimentry question, what would be the cost to him in doing so using a turd, sorry, third-rate firm of ambulance chasers?

Damn your eyes, Jimbo! I really need to read this thread for serious debate rather than just for sh!ts and giggles now!

Originally Posted by Zero_Over

The fact that ARRSE's servers are in Russia might though.

Possibly. It depends whether the order was issued against the host or the administrators of the website (wherever they are based).

It is possible to issue a Letter of Request from a UK/US court to a court of equal standing in another jurisdiction asking them to countenance a disclosure order.

Basically, it's very fucking complicated and it takes serious money, a lot of legal expertese and ideally offices in all of the jurisdictions in which you need to bring proceedings.

I expect this might be beyond the resources of Messeur Shortt.

All that Arsse will be able to provide are IP addresses, then his solicitor would have to get a court order for the IPs to provide the information they hold. Then there's a little matter of proving that the subscriber to that IP address is in fact the poster.

Originally Posted by Pyianno

I expect this might be beyond the resources of Messeur Shortt.

Careful there, fella. He's well connected, don't you know.

Shame it's not to the mains by crocodile clips to his testies though...

Can't we just keep it simple and say.....''Oi Yank Lawyer...fucking jog on''.

Originally Posted by sunami

All that Arsse will be able to provide are IP addresses, then his solicitor would have to get a court order for the IPs to provide the information they hold. Then there's a little matter of proving that the subscriber to that IP address is in fact the poster.

Yep. This is all correct. US courts are very picky on this point since the advent of Wi-fi as potentially anybody could have been using an IP if the connection isn't properly secured. Also if anybody on ARRSE has been using proxy servers, VPNs, public access points etc.

In English courts they judge the 'balance of probability' burden of proof a little differently and will gladly nail somebody to the wall.

It's potentially a never ending maze.