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Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

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Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#101

Post by schlowmo »

r0m4n0 wrote: post #37
Overtonwindow wrote: post #15

Point of clarification: I know the police are allowed to lie and fudge the truth to suspects and defendant, but is there a legal requirement for them to be forthcoming and truthful to Judges in warrants? Also, tending to agree that even if they had included TOR in the search warrant, the judge would have most likely signed it anyways becasue child porn is a big "must do something" thing, and the technology would have…

It does get really hairy. Having read a few technical related warrants (and by no means can I speak to many), they are truly using every last bit of persuasion to convince a judge to sign the warrant and usually request to sweep as much information as possible. They start off with all their goofy worthless technical qualifications eg "3 week cyber security training at McAfee Sleuthing Summit". Then proceed to go into…

You can read those mentioned qualifications for this particular officer in the Affidavit for Search Warrant at page 2:

https://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2016/04/08/146...

My favorite is "Basic Computer Skills for Law Enforcement" which could be literally everything, starting with "How to play minesweeper?"

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#102

Post by CaptSpify »

codyb wrote: post #99
TearsInTheRain wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there should be a certification system in place before judges can rule on technical topics

But then might there not need to be a certification for other areas as well? Might be a hard thing to set up.

Hard? sure, but probably necessary...

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#103

Post by rev_bird »

downandout wrote: post #96
imchillyb wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest about immunity, but... We don't prosecute the Department of Transportation when someone transports several hundred million dollars of cocaine across their roads. Why should we treat digital highways, overpasses, and offramps, any differently?

This isn't even close to a reasonable comparison. Until it can be investigated, the only available suspect in a case where illegal activity originates from a given home user's IP is that user. The DOT isn't the sole operator and user of the roads it builds.

>The DOT isn't the sole operator and user of the roads it builds.

An exit node operator isn't the sole user of the IP address they're assigned either. Yes, they're the only available suspect, but that doesn't change the fact that it's based on outrageously flawed evidence -- it's basically one step up from a hunch, and I don't think it's nearly good enough to be kicking someone's door in.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#104

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #62
Synaesthesia wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really shouldn't be illegal, it should be protected, like free speech, as noted in the article, "It's like raiding the mailman's house for delivering an illegal letter with no return address" In fact I think that's why they withheld the fact that he runs a TOR node from the judge.

Given that most of the content on Tor is illegal,[1] I'm not sure the mail is really the appropriate analogy. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/02/survey_of_the...

[deleted]

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#105

Post by woodman »

rayiner wrote: post #62
Synaesthesia wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really shouldn't be illegal, it should be protected, like free speech, as noted in the article, "It's like raiding the mailman's house for delivering an illegal letter with no return address" In fact I think that's why they withheld the fact that he runs a TOR node from the judge.

Given that most of the content on Tor is illegal,[1] I'm not sure the mail is really the appropriate analogy. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/02/survey_of_the...

I don't know why you wouldn't link directly to the paper, unless you're hoping that Schneier acknowledging its existence lends it some credibility.

> most of the content

Easily refuted: the authors had a spider crawl hidden services, which is laughably stupid. They claimed that there where 5,205 hidden services, of which 1,547 hosted illegal content. Another study [1], one which actually took advantage of network statistics, found the number of hidden services closer to 30,000. Also, well over 90% of Tor traffic is unrelated to any hidden services.

So not most. As far as the analogy is concerned, hidden services would be more like the personal thoughts of the mailman - not the mail he is routing.

[0] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00396338.2016.114... [1] https://research.torproject.org/techreports/extrapolating-hi...

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#106

Post by zaphar »

I have a question for any Legal Professionals here.

Reading these news stories it sounds like warrants can be very invasive but that there is no advocate for the target of the warrant involved in the process. What protections for the target are there in the process of obtaining a warrant, given the serving of one can be so invasive and damaging?

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#107

Post by CaptSpify »

johansch wrote: post #61
vidarh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 admi…

If I were in the position of that judge I would like to be able to bring experts on my own. Is that possible? (I wouldn't trust either the defense nor the prosecution to provide me with neutral information via their selected experts.)

Although I agree with you, but if I was on trial, I wouldn't want to trust a judge who brought in "his friend who knows a lot about computers". I'd want to make sure they were vetted first.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#108

Post by qbrass »

orthecreedence wrote: post #72
Arzh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still do that crap with Go (Golang) for no damn reason, it'll never stop because even if they have read that they don't care.

And LISP =]

* (or 'Lisp 'LISP)

LISP

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#109

Post by CaptSpify »

15charlimit wrote: post #87
geggam wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the same non technical people whose eyes glaze over and change the subject first chance they get ?

The blade cuts in both directions. Yes it is a disservice to themselves and others that non-technical people zone out as soon as someone starts talking about technical issues. But it is also a disservice to themselves and others when technical people don't even try to simplify (in a non-patronizing way) high level concepts for consumption by the general public. Both sides aren't actually "trying". Both sides should b…

We need a Nye/Tyson/Sagan/Feynman for computers.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#110

Post by CaptSpify »

dublinben wrote: post #10
Freak_NL wrote: post #2

This 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?

Best practices for running an exit node cover most of these concerns.[0] The most important one the individuals here didn't follow is 'don't run your relay from home.' A properly registered tor exit relay running in a datacenter somewhere will attract a courteous inquiry, rather than a 6am raid. [0] https://blog.torproject.org/running-exit-node

If you run it in a DC, don't you risk exposure to someone cloning it and getting the data you have stored on it? No, you shouldn't keep sensitive data on it, I know, but still could be cloned/compromised without you knowing, right?
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