Stone Considers 'Several Avenues' in Hipcheck16 Quest

Although the deadline passed in December without a , Lisa Stone said that doesn’t necessary mean she’s given up her efforts to learn the identity of the person she claims defamed her son.

“I don't want to get into the legal aspects of the case. But let me just say that having seen the criteria that the Appellate Court set forth for determining whether to require a third party to release the name of an anonymous poster, we felt it best not to seek review in the Illinois Supreme Court,” Stone said. “This case was never about freedom of speech, which I advocate strongly. It's about adults being responsible for what they say and do to children.”

"It seems that the protections we have in our society are for a lot of things, but not for kids," she said.

Stone has until December to file her complaint on different grounds with the Cook County Circuit Court.

The Buffalo Grove resident initially filed the lawsuit in 2009 after an anonymous person, who used the screen name “Hipcheck16,” directed what Stone described as a defamatory remark to her son on a Daily Herald online forum. The newspaper released Hipcheck16’s IP address and the name of the user's Internet service provider.

That information in hand, Stone subpoenaed Comcast, the service provider, to learn Hipcheck16's identity. Comcast supplied the information to the Cook County Circuit Court, which agreed to share it with Stone. However, Hipcheck16 objected to that decision, and in November the of the commenter.

Although she has not received the information she sought from the court, Stone said she was able to use the IP address provided by the Daily Herald in 2009 to track the location of the computer used by Hipcheck16.

“Using that IP address, we were able to obtain the coordinates, latitude and longitude, so that an actual address was provided by a website that converts the coordinates into a physical address via Google, Virtual Earth, and iBegin,” Stone said. “Interestingly, the address from which Hipcheck16 accessed the Internet was one parcel away from the home of an elected official in April 2009."

Stone said she has not ruled out pursuing the case.

“There are several avenues that we are discussing," she said. "Once we investigate all of these possibilities, we will come to a decision."

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