Take Evidence Online

AMRO1001 said:

For example, someone publish a negative story on you online, and you want to take some evidence( which might be used legally) on the spot that you are worried that this story will be removed later.

Click to expand...

Okay, someone published a negative story and one is "worried" it will be removed? Why would you not want it removed?

The internet doesn't change anything in the general subject of evidence. I saw some guy in a white hat point a gun and rob someone on the street. The fact that the guy might change his hat later doesn't change anything about what I saw.

If you print out the web page, and you swear an oath that your print-out is accurate, then it's up to the other side to deny it was there, and a judge or jury can figure out which one to believe.

It is also possible to go to sites like screenshots.com and click the link "queue screenshot for update". Screenshots.com will capture the screenshot, and then the proposition becomes "if you are lying about what was there, then how did it get into a third-party archive."

There are a number of websites designed for this specific purpose:

http://abovethelaw.com/2016/06/how-to-capture-online-evidence-the-easy-way/

Or, you can simply take out your smartphone, take a picture of the page, and then you have a dated electronic record of what was there. That's no different from my situation involving the guy with the gun. I can take a picture of the robbery in progress as well.

The question of "but is the evidence forged" is, again, one that is certainly not new to the internet.

I take screenshots with my ipad all day long for that very reason, even when I'm on my desktop!

This reminds me of a legal question on Usenet back in the days when the internet wasn't even used for commercial purposes.

Someone had asked, "Can an email be used as evidence?"

"Evidence" is not a thing that is a free-floating concept. Anything might be "evidence" of something. What matters is the purpose for which something is being proposed to be used as evidence.

So, my answer to that question was pretty simple. If someone sends me a long email that I print out to 100 pages, and then I take that 100 pages, roll it up into a long cylinder and beat someone to death with it... then I'm pretty sure that email is going to be used as evidence in my trial.