Having unmasked himself as Article III Groupie, David Lat has disappeared. We haven’t heard a word from him. His blog is now offline. Why? What’s become of David? Will his blog be back?
The Mysterious Disappearance Article III Groupie

Posts about Anonymity by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
Having unmasked himself as Article III Groupie, David Lat has disappeared. We haven’t heard a word from him. His blog is now offline. Why? What’s become of David? Will his blog be back?
“Article III Groupie” is the pseudonym for the mysterious author of a wildly popular blog about the federal judiciary, Underneath Their Robes. The blog is a lighthearted and witty discussion of the federal judiciary, chronicling the lives of judges and law clerks. Article III Groupie (or A3G for short) describes herself as an attorney from a Top 5 […]
Many people don’t realize that Microsoft Word encodes information about the authors and editors of each document. It’s called “metadata.” For example, some of this data is contained under the “Properties” section of the “File” pull down menu. An article in the New York Times describes what can be revealed when metadata is examined:
An interesting recently-filed lawsuit raises the issue of whether a company can file a lawsuit just to find out the identity of an anonymous blogger in order to fire him. The case involves an employee of Allegheny Energy Service who posted an anonymous comment to a Yahoo! message board devoted to his company. He made the posting […]
Anonymous bloggers received a great victory this week in a case decided by the Delaware Supreme Court — Doe v. Cahill (Oct. 5, 2005). The case involved John Doe, who anonymously posted on a blog statements about Patrick Cahill, a City Councilman of Smyrna, Delaware. Doe, in criticizing Cahill’s job performance, noted that Cahill had “obvious mental […]
This interesting AP story demonstrates how illusory anonymity can be on the Internet: