what difference would it have made if the Judge was told about it?
Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
21–30 of 236 posts
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#22[deleted]
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#23PSA: "Tor", not "TOR".
https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#WhyCalledTor
"Note: even though it originally came from an acronym, Tor is not spelled “TOR”. Only the first letter is capitalized. In fact, we can usually spot people who haven't read any of our website (and have instead learned everything they know about Tor from news articles) by the fact that they spell it wrong."
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#24This is probably what I find most worrying about the TOR concept. By running an exit node, you open yourself up to all sorts of legal actions. But if you can't run a TOR exit node as an average citizen, won't all exit nodes end up being run by NSA, GCHQ, and their ilk?
They thing is, they knew he was running a TOR node. They knew they wouldn't find anything. In a _real_ raid for suspected child porn, they confiscate all the equipment. If it's encrypted, you don't get it back (without the money to spend on good lawyers, and then it will be 6 months minimum. Without good lawyers, even if you're never charged, it will probably get wiped and auctioned off, because US police can confiscate anything they damn well please).
There was another article, either here or slahdot or somewhere, talking about how there have been several of these TOR node raids. I doubt they even had any evidence of illegal material being downloaded. I think the FBI got all these local police departments to do this intentionally to scare people.
The guy should have never turned over his passwords either. He would have lost his machine, but IIRC, the Seattle privacy group he's with decided to scrap those machines anyway since they couldn't be sure the PD didn't tamper with the tor server.
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#25Money quote in the last paragraph: "When we get into things like this," [Judge William Downing] said, "anonymizing stuff, that’s well over my head technologically, then it becomes very murky and hazy." That sounds to me like the judge likely wouldn't have known what a TOR node was if the police had told him these guys were running one. Technology isn't slowing down, so how can we make sure the law keeps up?
He is willing to admit that it goes over his head, which presumably also means that he'd be willing to read up on it or seek advice if necessary.
The biggest problem isn't judges who doesn't know everything - they have to deal with cases covering every possible discipline and can't possibly know everything about everything put before them. The problem is when they believe they do, or don't care, or don't want to admit it and decides to just trust law enforcement blindly instead.
I'd like to think that a judge that readily admits what he doesn't know will make sure to learn or seek suitable advice when necessary.
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially since the agencies in question can easily "plant" the network evidence they want.
Can they? Does the client have any control over the route that their traffic takes through the network? Not a rhetorical question^
The client has full control. Tor works by having the client chain proxies ("nodes"). Tor hidden services add some complications but in that case too the client creates its own half of the proxy chain.
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#27Money quote in the last paragraph: "When we get into things like this," [Judge William Downing] said, "anonymizing stuff, that’s well over my head technologically, then it becomes very murky and hazy." That sounds to me like the judge likely wouldn't have known what a TOR node was if the police had told him these guys were running one. Technology isn't slowing down, so how can we make sure the law keeps up?
The judge is allowed not to be an expert. The police are not allowed to lie by omission when getting a warrant.
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually really sad because I was wanting to see if I could implement an exit node all by myself as a side proejct, but then I realized the potential danger I'd be putting myself in. Naturally, I'd have to host it to test it, so I had to throw this one to the way-side
You still can but, make sure you don't do it in your house. Even one of the operators said, I guess I should have rented a server for this. Not that I agree with the warrant however, I'm not putting my dog's and children's lives in danger.
This is the advice given by a few people, but I'm not sure how valid it is.
If the police have probable cause to search a server at a datacenter, then they would likely also have probable cause to search the computers of the owner's of those servers. In which case, we're back to 6am raids (probably done at the same time as the datacenter raid to prevent evidence tampering)
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#29what difference would it have made if the Judge was told about it?
He might have found the grounds for issuing the warrant inadequate.
Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor
#30Money quote in the last paragraph: "When we get into things like this," [Judge William Downing] said, "anonymizing stuff, that’s well over my head technologically, then it becomes very murky and hazy." That sounds to me like the judge likely wouldn't have known what a TOR node was if the police had told him these guys were running one. Technology isn't slowing down, so how can we make sure the law keeps up?
This will be the question that defines the era.
The singularity has come in the sense that technological progress has been accelerating and the rate of legal adaptation to it is constant. The rate of technological change outpaced legal change 20-30 years ago and now the difference is really starting to hurt.
This problem will only get worse. Can we build new laws that handle the ever growing expanse between the capacity of technology and the legal system and cultural expectations?