Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

dailydot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 30 posts

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#11

Post by pathy »

tzs wrote: post #6
mtgx wrote: post #2

"Eric Eoin Marques, 28—the “largest facilitator of child porn on the planet,” according to the FBI". I hope he wins the trial for that reason alone. FBI's thinking is very dangerous here. Basically what they're saying is that if they can't monitor/censor freely the content they want then you're a "facilitator" for whatever crime is happening on the network. If you apply this logic to something else, you'll see how li…

> If you apply this logic to something else, you'll see how little sense it makes. "If you don't give us your encryption keys, or use PFS, you're a facilitator of terrorism" That's not even remotely the same logic. > "If you sell guns, you're a facilitator of gun crime." Nor is that. > If you're an ISP that doesn't block sites that we say are piracy sites, you're a facilitator of piracy Nor is that. To make your gun…

Exactly this.

mtgx's logic is severely flawed. The intention is, if nothing else, very important. Let's not kid ourselves, he knew what he was hosting and what kind of content he was facilitating the distribution of.

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#12

Post by Kliment »

bkoa wrote: post #10
_b8r0 wrote: post #3

The big problem with all of this is that despite Tor being a decentralised network, 50% of sites on Tor were centralised in the hands of one provider. For Tor, this is like Amazon EC2 permanently going down. It'll route around the problem and they FBI will have probably stopped a total number of 0 child porn consumers and authors in the process, but it'll be heralded as a success by the FBI because they'll have stopp…

Why do HN people feel the need to portray everything the US federal government goes after as a martyr for free speech? Of all the Internet-related crimes, I think stopping pornography depicting minors is one of the least controversial laws to possibly enforce. I know it's more convenient to group everything the FBI, CIA, and NSA do into an "obviously evil" bin, but sometimes you need to appreciate enough nuance to no…

From what I can tell, the issue is that there has so far been no evidence that this move will do anything to actually prevent the distribution of child pornography. That is, it might be collateral damage without fulfilling its primary objective.

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#13

Post by dil8 »

Kliment wrote: post #12
bkoa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do HN people feel the need to portray everything the US federal government goes after as a martyr for free speech? Of all the Internet-related crimes, I think stopping pornography depicting minors is one of the least controversial laws to possibly enforce. I know it's more convenient to group everything the FBI, CIA, and NSA do into an "obviously evil" bin, but sometimes you need to appreciate enough nuance to no…

From what I can tell, the issue is that there has so far been no evidence that this move will do anything to actually prevent the distribution of child pornography. That is, it might be collateral damage without fulfilling its primary objective.

I was thinking the same thing... While I agree that hosting cp is definitely a problem. Going after the service provider does not get to the root of the actual problem. Having said that, the story is quite young so I guess we will have to wait and see what transpires.

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#14

Post by bkoa »

Kliment wrote: post #12
bkoa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do HN people feel the need to portray everything the US federal government goes after as a martyr for free speech? Of all the Internet-related crimes, I think stopping pornography depicting minors is one of the least controversial laws to possibly enforce. I know it's more convenient to group everything the FBI, CIA, and NSA do into an "obviously evil" bin, but sometimes you need to appreciate enough nuance to no…

From what I can tell, the issue is that there has so far been no evidence that this move will do anything to actually prevent the distribution of child pornography. That is, it might be collateral damage without fulfilling its primary objective.

So? It's pretty clear that the owner knowingly allowed it and perhaps even promoted it. It's obvious that this person broke a serious law. Should the FBI just turn a blind eye because shutting down a hosting service won't be 100% effective at eliminating that content forever? No. We don't prosecute any crime conditionally on the basis of how effective that specific prosecution is at eliminating current/future instances of the same crime. Just because prosecutions of some Internet-related crimes are unjust doesn't mean you should employ mental gymnastics to side with every alleged Internet criminal.

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#15

Post by ewillbefull »

_b8r0 wrote: post #3

The big problem with all of this is that despite Tor being a decentralised network, 50% of sites on Tor were centralised in the hands of one provider. For Tor, this is like Amazon EC2 permanently going down. It'll route around the problem and they FBI will have probably stopped a total number of 0 child porn consumers and authors in the process, but it'll be heralded as a success by the FBI because they'll have stopp…

Seems like a lose-lose situation for the FBI. They propose laws to spy on everyone to protect children, and people tell them to do some "old fashioned police work" instead. You know, go after the real bad guys and you don't need draconian laws to make it easier.

Then they do some old fashioned police work, and you get cynical responses like yours. They didn't warrantlessly wiretap anyone, or violate anyone's rights, to take down someone who was knowingly breaking a horrific law.

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#16

Post by dil8 »

bkoa wrote: post #14
Kliment wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I can tell, the issue is that there has so far been no evidence that this move will do anything to actually prevent the distribution of child pornography. That is, it might be collateral damage without fulfilling its primary objective.

So? It's pretty clear that the owner knowingly allowed it and perhaps even promoted it. It's obvious that this person broke a serious law. Should the FBI just turn a blind eye because shutting down a hosting service won't be 100% effective at eliminating that content forever? No. We don't prosecute any crime conditionally on the basis of how effective that specific prosecution is at eliminating current/future instanc…

I don't dispute that this if convicted is a criminal offence. I guess I was coming from the angle that the children who are the victims should be the priority...

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#17

Post by belorn »

bkoa wrote: post #10
_b8r0 wrote: post #3

The big problem with all of this is that despite Tor being a decentralised network, 50% of sites on Tor were centralised in the hands of one provider. For Tor, this is like Amazon EC2 permanently going down. It'll route around the problem and they FBI will have probably stopped a total number of 0 child porn consumers and authors in the process, but it'll be heralded as a success by the FBI because they'll have stopp…

Why do HN people feel the need to portray everything the US federal government goes after as a martyr for free speech? Of all the Internet-related crimes, I think stopping pornography depicting minors is one of the least controversial laws to possibly enforce. I know it's more convenient to group everything the FBI, CIA, and NSA do into an "obviously evil" bin, but sometimes you need to appreciate enough nuance to no…

> I think stopping pornography depicting minors is one of the least controversial laws to possibly enforce.

While it might be uncontroversial, some people would still prefer if the state used effective and evidence-based methods to prevent child abuse, rather than using ineffective, costly, and what ever method that get most media attention.

For example, mandating that schools has trained counsels at staff is a prime example in identifying and preventing child abuse. Having a trained expert which kids, parents and teachers can go to is important line of defense. New teachers should also receive basic training when studying at the university, so they can detect psychological, emotional, social, and physical signs of abuse.

Current studied methods in creating effective prevention program also includes group-based sexual abuse prevention education for children (http://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/docs/...). Sadly, the efforts in creating more effective prevention efforts is sadly somewhat low priority (see linked document).

It should also be noted, that in that whole document, more strict Internet regulation is not mentioned at all as effective prevention method. Feel free to speculate widely why the researchers did not mention it.

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#18

Post by ds9 »

mtgx wrote: post #2

"Eric Eoin Marques, 28—the “largest facilitator of child porn on the planet,” according to the FBI". I hope he wins the trial for that reason alone. FBI's thinking is very dangerous here. Basically what they're saying is that if they can't monitor/censor freely the content they want then you're a "facilitator" for whatever crime is happening on the network. If you apply this logic to something else, you'll see how li…

I think you are right about the motives of the FBI, and the reasoning of the copyright cartel. However, there is a relevant difference.

The copyright "maximalists" seem to think everyone should be able to accurately detect piracy, effortlessly - but in fact it is unreasonable to expect service operators to know the names of the latest Hollywood movies, or to have any way of knowing what files are authorized by the copyright holders, for which recipients, and which are not authorized.

In contrast, there are, I assume, signs of CP which would alert any reasonable person - it requires neither special knowledge nor knowledge of other parties' business relations.

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#19

Post by belorn »

ewillbefull wrote: post #15
_b8r0 wrote: post #3

The big problem with all of this is that despite Tor being a decentralised network, 50% of sites on Tor were centralised in the hands of one provider. For Tor, this is like Amazon EC2 permanently going down. It'll route around the problem and they FBI will have probably stopped a total number of 0 child porn consumers and authors in the process, but it'll be heralded as a success by the FBI because they'll have stopp…

Seems like a lose-lose situation for the FBI. They propose laws to spy on everyone to protect children, and people tell them to do some "old fashioned police work" instead. You know, go after the real bad guys and you don't need draconian laws to make it easier. Then they do some old fashioned police work, and you get cynical responses like yours. They didn't warrantlessly wiretap anyone, or violate anyone's rights,…

They did take down a email provider which was known as "safe" to use by activist and political refugees. By now, they will have to live with the knowledge that anything they wrote is the property of the FBI, and could be leaked at any time. It can be used by the foreign office of the USA as a barging chip, to trade spy information or get prisoners released in exchange for the information. Anyone who used TorMail or freedom hosting as part of an political dissidents campaign will now have to put their life in the FBI/USA hands.

Re: An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net

#20

Post by fsniper »

pathy wrote: post #8
fsniper wrote: post #7

So if you are an ISP and have a router in any way used for any kind of networking over internet, you are possibly or most probably facilitator for money laundering, child porn, piracy, terrorism or any kind of online crime that's possible. Or you should have implemented resource expensive deep packet inspection and filtering solutions.

Oh please, there is a significant difference between knowingly (let's not kid ourselves) hosting such unsavory material and accidentally sending it along. The intent of Freedom Hosting was clearly to host questionable material.

Please there is absolutely no difference between supplying unquestioned hosting or supplying unquestioned passage for unquestioned data.

Let's put in daily means, either if you are a landlord or an hotel owner you are not obliged to question your guests criminal activities nor if you are a road provider you are obliged to question your passengers intends. This is exactly the job of the law enforcement.

If you are served for denying access to some criminal and you do not comply matters change.

In this case you are expected to take measures even if it is not your business to judge someone and you are held responsible.

Post reply on HN