Friez

That's rich. Lets see here: You post your name on your website(public domain). This makes it really easy to find your Bebo (also public domain). And on your Bebo you make it public information as to what college you attend. You offer up that information voluntarily I'm afraid to say. Unless I'm missing something here, It's probably unlikely the college let loose any of your personal information. You're only digging yourself a deeper hole.

You missed the point though: People get hunted for providing the means even if they're legally ok. Read up on the entire Napster thing. As for Microsoft.... Ever wonder why MSN treats mp3 files as 'harmful'? I'm fairly confident Microsoft got some flak from a certain third party. Mind you these days Microsoft get a lot of flak fullstop... So even they have been chased about because of providing 'the means'. It might not be illegal, but as history has proven it can still bring in legal problems nonetheless. I agree that the blacksmith should not be blamed because someone else committed a murder with the knives they made, but the point stands that people really do get legal action taken for providing the means.

Tell it to Napster. File sharing: Perfectly legal, almost all networks everywhere share files in some form or another. However, this particular service was used primarily to distribute copyrighted MP3's. Napster totally in the right and the end-user is to fault would you not agree? Funny how Napster got totally dragged down by the RIAA for providing the means of illegal activity. Your site also provides the means of allowing the end-user to go places they should not, so would you not say you're in a similar boat? Logically you'dd think only the end-user is only to blame, but sadly reality tells us this is not the case. You're lucky that you had the foresight to keep accurate logging (or at least so you tell us), because (as someone previously mentioned) if they followed the trail back and it stops at you, who do you think gets incriminated? Sure, you may be 'innocent' and not accessing that content, only providing the means.... but it still puts you at risk, and ultimately you're held responsible for your actions.

I used to be quite the troublemaker when at school. I secretly managed to install netbus on every single machine in the network once, and was fully aware of how to bypass filters. Now through a massive stroke of irony I work as an IT Tech in a school and can understand the sheer danger of such actions. Examstudies: As an 'underground' site, what is your policy if someone uses your services for illegal actions? For instance what would you do if somebody uses your services to illegally and 'anonymously' surf for child porn? Shrug it off? Now who's to blame? You? The end user? Or perhaps it is us, the IT Techs who are supposed to stop people like you from allowing the end user to do so? Think about that for a while and consider the side-effects of your website. It might be cool if you do it privately and keep it a secret among yourselves for your own personal use, but once you unleash it to the unsuspecting public a lot of control slips out of not only our hands but your hands too and that is a most dangerous thing for anybody. Edited to make more sense!