Received permanent ban from 'Corinthian'

Monty Burnz

Hi there.

Here's the shortest version I can manage. I'm a new poster on the Android forum. Today I made a post in which I asked if software existed to crack WiFi networks.

For this, I received a 7 day ban from the Android forum. I was not warned, I was not told in any way, shape or form that this was not allowed. I was simply banned. 'Corinthian' stated that the reason for the ban was 'Seeking software to carry out illegal actions.'

I sent a reply to this stating that a) I do not live in Ireland and b) I do not know the legal status of hacking WiFi is in the country where I reside. The point is that it is difficult to see how the mod could determine the legality of what I would or would not do if such software existed.

I further pointed out that if the post transgressed the rules of that forum, then I could understand why it was deleted, but that a week's ban (with no warning) certainly seemed 'a tad ridiculous'.

'Corinthian' replied to this that hacking WiFi is illegal in Ireland (I'll trust him on that) and that I agreed to abide by 'Irish Law' when I signed up to Boards, so that where I live is irrelevant. On the subject of the no-warning ban, he stated that 'Normally, I would consider an infraction and locking the thread, however there have been too many such threads lately and so a more aggressive policy is called for to deter such postings."

I replied as follows: "So I'm being banned for a week for posts other people made? That's a ****ing joke to be fair. And I'm not breaking any Irish laws if I'm using software outside Ireland, am I? So I AM abiding by the T&Cs." You can see that there seems to be some confusion here over exactly what the T&Cs refer to, what jurisdiction the apply to, etc. etc.

I was pretty annoyed at the no-warning, outright ban and the fact that 'Corinthian' seemed unwilling to engage in discussion on the subject (he had ended the previous message with 'I consider this closed' or some such. I conluded my reply with "I consider the matter closed too. You can appeal my contempt for the decision in the usual manner. " (the decision obviously being to leave me with a week's ban and no willingness to discuss the issue).

'Corinthian' replied to this message as follows:

Boards.ie is an Irish site and as such is governed by Irish law, as is all content on it. Additionally, as I already pointed out, when registering, you agreed to abide by Irish law in your use of the site (Boards T&C's, section 14) and you are in breach of this.

Where you live is irrelevant.

Is where I live irrelevant though? The fault here may lie with the T&Cs and their clarity. I can't see why it should be a problem on Boards.ie if for example I enquired about where I could buy a pistol in the US, even though ownership of such would be illegal in Ireland.
Corinthian continues:

You are not being banned for a week for posts other people made. You are being banned for a week for your post.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that, because of the behaviour of previous posters, a new poster is banned for something that should be a simple infraction (by the mod's own admission). Guess which way I look at it.

When I suggested you take the matter up elsewhere if you wish to dispute it, it was not an invitation to have a debate on the subject, let alone message me in a manner which is borderline abusive.

One last time, if you are unhappy with your banning, take it up according to the rules of Boards, as I suggested. If you respond to me again on this I shall make the ban permanent.

Having looked at the procedure for resolving disputes that I was referred to, it was obvious that I was supposed to engage in dialogue with 'Corinthian' to resolve this dispute. However, he was basically taking up a bullying posture by saying that he did not want to talk any more and that any further attempt to discuss this on my part would result in a permanent ban.

I looked again at the terms and conditions to try to determine exactly where my post could be determined to be in breach. It seemed pretty obvious that there is no breach in Irish law to ask for information on the existence of any type of software (if it is illegal to ask this of course, I stand corrected but I feel I am on pretty safe ground).

I am still interested in finding out whether such software exists, so I sent a private message to 'Corinthian' in as polite a tone as I could manage to mark a clear distinctionbetween the new query and the previous 'discussion', outlining a new post I would like to make on the board on the subject and asking which of the T&Cs it might be in breach of. I hoped to be able to construct a post that would both get me the information I wanted and still abide by the T&Cs of the forum. Unfortunately I can't access exactly what I sent (I haven't learned to navigate Boards completely yet, I'm fairly new) but I'm sure you can access the message in question.*(see below)

Here is the reply I received:

Hi Monty Burnz,

You have been banned from Android for the following duration:

Permanent

for the following reason:

Continued PM harassment, refusal to appeal earlier moderator action via correct channels, and ignoring warnings that this would result in a permaban if he persisted.

Please note that the 'continued PM harrassment', 'refusal to appeal via correct channels', 'ignoring warnings' - all of these consisted of a single PM asking for clarification of how to post a new query on the subject I was interested in without breaking any rules.

To say that I'm disappointed by the actions of 'Corinthian' in this case would be an understatement. I have had discussions with a few other mods on Boards to clarify where I went wrong in the case of infractions and have always been happy with how they dealt with the events. Typically (as in how this case started) it was because, as a new poster, I wasn't familiar with the culture of a particular forum. It seems that in the case of 'Corinthian', not only is ignorance of the rules no excuse (which is harsh, but fair enough) but any attempt to clarify what is and is not allowed constitutes 'continued PM harrassment', 'ignoring warnings' and 'refusal to appeal by correct channels'.

Thanks,
Monty.

*Edit - I've stumbled across my 'sent message' folder. Here's the message I sent to 'Corinthian'.

Hi there - I would like to raise a query with you with regard to the terms and conditions of Boards.ie and how they will affect a post I am considering making on the Android board.

I have had a look at the T&Cs to see exactly what I must abide by from a legal perspective, and this is what I have found:

4. What you agree to when joining Boards.ie

Boards.ie is made available for your personal, non-commercial use only, except where otherwise authorised by us.
You agree NOT to use Boards.ie to:

* post illegal Material

The post I am considering making does not include illegal material.

post Material that promotes or encourages illegal activity

The post I would like to make does not promote or encourage illegal activity. It would simply be a request for information about the existence or non-existence of a certain type of software. The software could in theory be used to engage in activity that is illegal in the ROI, but the same could be said of web browsers (child porn) or spreadsheets (financial fraud). A query about the existence of such software would neither encourage nor promote the use of such software in such a manner.

post Material that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, rights of privacy or publicity, or other proprietary right of any party

The post would not infringe in any of these areas, it would merely be a request for information.

I have looked carefully at the T&Cs of Boards.ie and I cannot find any condition that would prevent me making the new post that I am considering.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would outline to me whether such a query breaks the terms and conditions of Boards.ie and, if it is in breach, exactly which one it is in breach of.

I appreciate your cooperation in helping me to keep future posts within the T&Cs I have agreed to.

Cheers.

Monty Burnz

2 days later, not even an acknowledgement.

Monty Burnz

3 days later.

aidan_walsh

Hi Monty,

I'm sorry for not getting to this sooner. Due to a new job, I have been somewhat limited in my access online in the last week and have been a bit "fly by night" on my time on boards. I will look into this for you now, and will ask The Corinthian to offer his opinion on the matter.

In so far as the questions raised about the terms and conditions, while I have my own interpretations of them I am looking for further clarification from those who helped draft them initially so hopefully we should be able to clear this up shortly.

Regards,
Aidan

The Corinthian

Monty Burnz wrote: »

For this, I received a 7 day ban from the Android forum. I was not warned, I was not told in any way, shape or form that this was not allowed.

The rules that cover both the Mobiles/PDA and Android forums are available in the sticky thread at the top of the forum, and specifically cite illegal activities such as cracking software:

"No talk of illegal activity (unblocking stolen phones, accessing someones account, warez / cracking software, etc)"

Any 'warnings' are given entirely at the discretion of the moderators - posters are not 'entitled' to a warning.

'Corinthian' replied to this that hacking WiFi is illegal in Ireland (I'll trust him on that) and that I agreed to abide by 'Irish Law' when I signed up to Boards, so that where I live is irrelevant.

As I already pointed out to you, this is what you signed up to via the Boards T&C's, section 14. And indeed I would be very skeptical that active hacking of someone else's wireless network would not be illegal in pretty much all developed countries, let alone Ireland.

I replied as follows: "So I'm being banned for a week for posts other people made? That's a ****ing joke to be fair. And I'm not breaking any Irish laws if I'm using software outside Ireland, am I? So I AM abiding by the T&Cs." You can see that there seems to be some confusion here over exactly what the T&Cs refer to, what jurisdiction the apply to, etc. etc.

No, you were banned for a post you made - the transgression is yours, pure and simple.

The response, carried out by the moderators, is done so in the best interests of the forum.

I was pretty annoyed at the no-warning, outright ban and the fact that 'Corinthian' seemed unwilling to engage in discussion on the subject (he had ended the previous message with 'I consider this closed' or some such. I conluded my reply with "I consider the matter closed too. You can appeal my contempt for the decision in the usual manner. " (the decision obviously being to leave me with a week's ban and no willingness to discuss the issue).

No, I repeatedly told you that if you did not like the ban, there was a procedure for appealing it and I even linked to this forum for you.

Is where I live irrelevant though? The fault here may lie with the T&Cs and their clarity. I can't see why it should be a problem on Boards.ie if for example I enquired about where I could buy a pistol in the US, even though ownership of such would be illegal in Ireland.

Where you live is irrelevant. Again, the relevant section that you agreed to states:

"The agreement shall be governed by Irish Law and you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Irish courts in all matters regarding this agreement and your use of Boards.ie."

There is no problem with clarity there and hiding behind your own location, from a legal standpoint, is irrelevant.

Even if it were not, it would be unworkable; for example if you lived in a jurisdiction where pornography of minors was not illegal (more correctly not specifically legislated against), you could use this 'legality' as a justification to post links to images that would be illegal for Boards to show.

Having looked at the procedure for resolving disputes that I was referred to, it was obvious that I was supposed to engage in dialogue with 'Corinthian' to resolve this dispute. However, he was basically taking up a bullying posture by saying that he did not want to talk any more and that any further attempt to discuss this on my part would result in a permanent ban.

It is clear you did not bother to read the procedure for resolving disputes then. You attempted to resolve the matter via PM. I upheld my decision, because frankly your arguments amounted to the following two points:

1. It's not illegal where I live.
2. You didn't give me a warning.

Neither are convincing arguments IMHO. At that point you should have taken the matter to this level, as recommended. Indeed, look at the top of the page, there's even a pretty little flow chart that describes the process so that anyone can understand how it works.

I then repeatedly recommended you take it to this forum for further action and you repeatedly ignored this, instead continuing to PM me with borderline abusive messages. Eventually I warned you (yes, you even got a warning) do take it to the appropriate forum or the ban would be extended indefinitely.

You persisted and I permabanned you.

Frankly, I really don't think your ban should be lifted. You still insist in hiding behind the "it's not illegal in my country" argument and it does not seem to have even registered that you did anything wrong.

Might I suggest that you register onto a relevant forum in the country of your residence to find the cracking software you seek, as then there will be no problem with legality there - presuming there is indeed no problem with legality there.

Monty Burnz

Cheers Aidan.

Having read Corinthian's version of events - a rather more heavily edited version than mine, I would point out - I remain unconvinced of the following:

1: He claims that asking about the existence of software for hacking wireless networks is illegal under Irish law. The 'pornography of minors' example he gives is fallacious as I presume it is not illegal to ask whether or not child porn exists. I will concede that it would be impractical for Boards.ie to monitor where posters are posting from etc. so where I am posting from is irrelevant, but I will be astonished if it proves to be illegal under Irish law to discuss the existence or non-existence hacking software.

2. Step one of the dispute resolution process is to discuss via PM the issues around the ban. It seems Corinthian did not wish to do this from square one, in stark contrast to any other moderator I've spoken to on Boards.ie. I would not consider a single message to constitute a discussion, but it seems this was all I was allowed. I can understand that if a discussion drags on for 10 messages or whatever, covering the same ground and going nowhere, the moderator is within their rights to say 'take it somewhere else'. I got that message after my first message. That does not constitute a discussion in my book - I presume moderators are also expected to adhere to the dispute resolution process?

3. Corinthian fails to explain why he banned me permanently for asking for guidance with regard to a future message that I was hoping to make where I would get the information I was seeking without breaking the T&Cs of Boards.ie.

I would encourage whoever is looking into this to look at the entirety of the affair - Corinthian tries to make it appear that I was plaguing him with messages in spite of his kind warnings. In reality I sent 3 messages with regard to the original post, and I sent a single message with regard to creating a new post that would not breach the T&Cs.

Cheers.

The Corinthian

Just to add, that I think it relevant to cite the actual thread post that kicked this off:

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Does such an app exist for Android? I'm sick and tired of sitting in cafes or whatever with wireless networks that I can't access! Or in case of emergency being able to access the web to see a map or book something (I'm abroad a lot of the time).

Even the "it's not illegal where I live" argument falls flat on its face here, because by the original poster's own admission they are abroad a lot of the time (and whether abroad from Ireland or abroad from some other country of primary residency is also open to debate).

As such, unless they are only ever in countries where, by happy and highly improbable coincidence, cracking private networks is not illegal, it becomes clear that they would indeed be breaking the law.

Monty Burnz

The Corinthian wrote: »

Just to add, that I think it relevant to cite the actual thread post that kicked this off:

Even the "it's not illegal where I live" argument falls flat on its face here, because by the original poster's own admission they are abroad a lot of the time (and whether abroad from Ireland or abroad from some other country of primary residency is also open to debate).

As such, unless they are only ever in countries where, by happy and highly improbable coincidence, cracking private networks is not illegal, it becomes clear that they would indeed be breaking the law.

Again, I will ask is it illegal under Irish law to ask whether something exists? And under what statute?

aidan_walsh

It may not be illegal under Irish law to ask whether something exists, but we as a rule do not provide information on how to do something that is illegal under Irish law. This does not mean the discussion of it is illegal, but that boards.ie has chosen not to allow it.

Whether or not that something is illegal under the laws of where you are now (since we don't know where that is it makes it harder to judge if this is the case) is for you to discover, but as boards.ie is an Irish based website catering generally to an Irish-based audience we use Irish law as a baseline for our judgements.

We, as a general rule on the site, do not allow the discussion of any software that can be used to crack applications or, in this case, Wifi encryption. You will find entries to this effect in most if not all of the relevant Tech category forum charters.

Your example of where to buy a pistol in the US falls a little short, as in this case software can be obtained one way or the other from anywhere and would provide the same service in Ireland as in the US, Australia, Russia or any other country that could be mentioned where Wifi is available.

In this case in so far as the original ban goes, I will uphold that for the reasons I have outlined above.

While mods are not required to issue an infraction before a ban, depending on the particulars of the issue it is often recommended to do so. However, ultimately that decision is at the moderators own discretion.

You were also advised on the best path to take to resolve the dispute, which you ultimately did, and were asked to take this path rather than continue the discussion via PM. When you have been asked to take this path to resolve an issue, you are generally expected to make this your next point of contact as the chart at the top of the thread indicates. It was clear that The Corinthian was going to uphold the ban, so further discussion via PM was not necessary.

I do think however that a permanent ban from the forum is unnecessary. An extension of the ban may be warranted as a warning, but not to such an extreme degree. As such I will lower the duration of the ban to 10 days from its initial date, meaning an additional 5 days from today.

I hope this would be a satisfactory solution.

Monty Burnz

Aidan, I'm still puzzled as to why I was given the permanent ban for opening a new discussion on a future post with the explicit intention of finding a way of staying within the rules of Boards.ie.

Nevertheless, thanks for the time spent looking into this.