How did IRC ping timeouts end up in a lawsuit?

Wow, I read the linked case ( https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2025/3063 ) and the High Court judge's ruling has a remarkably strong and thorough discussion of both modern Internet forum culture and the law. Really interesting writing.

A whole other part of this argument that could be made is about the inherent assumption that a ping timeout is caused by an event that only affects one machine.

Glad to see a case that could've very easily gone sideways due to its technical nature come out right.

This vaguely reminds me of years ago when a friend got hit at an intersection and went to court to fight that he wasn't at fault. I ran the numbers a bit and found that whoever hit him would've been moving at a very high though not outlandish (think maybe 60mph in a 30mph or something) speed. But they never showed up and he won by default

The facts were never argued, the other party failed to follow procedure.

See also https://techrights.org/i/2025/12/case-judgment-summary.html

Why do I get a 403 when trying to read this? My IP is from Brazil, don’t see a reason to be geoblocked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ironically I think the technical analysis argues that he could infact be guilty.

He goes from, 11 seconds is a big gap to, anything within 90 seconds could be the same person.

The real question is, how often did the timeouts coincide.