Oh come on Rapaire, do you think no anonymous guests knows any of the information you just threatened us with? It isn't like we don't know how big and bad the Mudcat wolves can be, despite the fact that most people here don't want to believe they would ever do such a thing.

As to legal wrangling, well. If someone sues you, you have to defend yourself, don't you? If someone reports the website to any myriad number of institutions, organizations, corporations, investigations can be a big pain in the ass, can't they?

Donated to Max's favorite personal charity lately, and wondered where the money went? A complaint form can be filed online with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office for charities fraud:

http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/ppd/charity/compform/form.cfm

And they do investigate all complaints received.

Been to the Mudcat auction lately? According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Internet auction fraud is the No. 1 con game on the Net, and they are required by law to investigate every complaint filed with them too.

There are hackers too, who could shut down this place in a New York minute.

So sure, Max and the elves can cause some trouble. They can expose the identities of anonymous users of their website and take their vengeance by taking a few pounds of guest flesh. But I'll take an attorneys advice as to whether or not there is legal recourse for the person whose identity was exposed--that is determined state by state.

I don't know what makes you think Max/Mudcat can do that sort of shit without paying a price for such unethical cyber behavior Rapaire. Karma is karma, as they say.

But what I really find amusing is the idea that it is all about secret identities, and if the anonymous guest's identity can somehow be exposed, then Mudcat will win. Win what? What makes people think the only reason why someone is posting anonymously is because they don't want the world to know it is them posting?

So, go ahead and say message #_______ came from IP #_________ and we traced this machine's movements to this website and that, and here are all the bank account numbers, credit card numbers, email accounts, we have mined from this IP (go ahead and try publicly publishing that information here and see what the legal ramifications are!) and the ISP is ________ and the account is in the name of __________.

Sure, Max can do it. But he better be damn sure he has plenty of money for lawyers, and a lot of time to spend with government investigators if he does.