An in-depth guide to Freedom Hosting, the engine of the Dark Net • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by drakeandrews » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 1:11 PM UTC

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…

A better analogy might be someone selling armour piercing rounds marketed as "cop killers", espousing their efficiency at getting through standard issue police vests, with a tiny disclaimer that you shouldn't kill cops.

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

#22

Post by pathy » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 1:25 PM UTC

fsniper wrote: post #20

pathy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ser…

FH was set up to be a safe haven for CP and other illegal/semi-illegal content. Anonymously on TOR. Good luck serving them a notice about hosting that content. It was never meant to be anything else. Let's not kid ourselves, it was not a white hat business.

Comparing it to a normal service like a road provider or a hotel is just laughable. They have legit business. FH was primarily used for unsavory business. That totally changes the equation. The intent behind the service is pretty damn important.

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

#23

Post by TerraHertz » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 1:36 PM UTC

As usual, it's pretended to be all about 'protecting the children'. Yet Freedom Hosting sets up an independent, unmonitored bank (Onion Bank), and ONE MONTH LATER gets destroyed.

Actually it's all about control of money.

Anyone who thinks the government, FBI, etc gives a damn about 'safety of the children' is hopelessly naive. And is exactly the kind of person who'll be fooled when the government _says_ they are 'doing it for the children'.

This is the same government that has bought 1.6 billion rounds of hollow point ammunition (and is buying more), and also forces ever-increasing numbers or ever more toxic immunization shots on infants. While denying the Autism and auto-immune disease epidemics have anything do do with inoculations. Oh, and also cheerfully fired hundreds of tons of depleted uranium munitions into Irag and Bosnia, resulting in vast suffering of countless deformed children, for thousands of coming generations.

Gaol Marques and shut down Freedom Hosting to "protect the children"?

Bullsh*t.

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

#24

Post by shabble » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 1:52 PM UTC

fsniper wrote: post #20

pathy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ser…

Assuming it's true, this quote from the article:

A Freedom Hosting account cost a one time fee of $5 or was free with an invite from an existing member. It offered unlimited space and bandwidth, an onion domain (“xxx.onion”), “Fast Network with 24/7 Uptime,” PHP and MySQL support with unlimited MYSQL databases [...]

A one-off payment of $5 per site? I can't see how the hosting company could make any sort of profit whatsoever, and probably not even break-even (although it does depend on how many sites per server, and how much bandwidth the Tor links can actually take)

If an established hosting provider decided that they also wanted to offer hidden-service hosting, and it was misused without their ability/requirement to police it, I think it'd be a different matter (although gathering evidence that a particular .onion site was hosted with them would be problematic, certainly).

One of the problems here is that as purely hidden services provider (and presumably, some relatively anonymous form of payment, cash-in-the-mail or whatever), there's no practical way for legal authorities to contact them about investigations, or even determine who has jurisdiction.

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

#25

Post by shabble » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 1:59 PM UTC

TerraHertz wrote: post #23

As usual, it's pretended to be all about 'protecting the children'. Yet Freedom Hosting sets up an independent, unmonitored bank (Onion Bank), and ONE MONTH LATER gets destroyed. Actually it's all about control of money. Anyone who thinks the government, FBI, etc gives a damn about 'safety of the children' is hopelessly naive. And is exactly the kind of person who'll be fooled when the government _says_ they are 'doi…

Or, due to recent publicity surrounding internet monitoring capabilities of various agencies, they decided to move fast before countermeasures appear. If it were still a secret, they probably wouldn't risk tipping off their (bigger fish) targets to their abilities, but now it's use-it-or-lose-it.

And it'd be great PR to justify all those surveillance capabilities with the general public.

Or, it's just a coincidence.

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

#26

Post by fsniper » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 2:49 PM UTC

shabble wrote: post #24

fsniper wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ser…

Assuming it's true, this quote from the article: A Freedom Hosting account cost a one time fee of $5 or was free with an invite from an existing member. It offered unlimited space and bandwidth, an onion domain (“xxx.onion”), “Fast Network with 24/7 Uptime,” PHP and MySQL support with unlimited MYSQL databases [...] A one-off payment of $5 per site? I can't see how the hosting company could make any sort of profit wh…

Financials of the business is of course questionable and seemingly unprofitable. I have no obligation in this context but running unprofitable business is not a crime. If it was most of the current startups are screwed :)

In current situation, without concrete or even any evidence hosting provider is held responsible as facilitator for child pornography. AFAIK this "business model" for encrypted and stealth mode hosting is not unlawful so law enforcement is trying to facilitate unavailable law with holding the "suspect" with related but not actualized crime.

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

#27

Post by FedRegister » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 4:42 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #19

ewillbefull wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

If you didn't encrypt your mail in Tor then you have made a big mistake and you get what you deserve.

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

#28

Post by devero » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 5:31 PM UTC

x0054 wrote: post #5

I think this are the kind of comments that turn people away from the freedom argument. If Eric Eoin Marques is proven beyond reasonable doubt to be the operator of the freedom hosting and that he knew about the child porn content, he should be responsible for the content. Look at this argument in real world terms. If you are an owner and operator of a motel, and you rent a room to someone who then goes on to rape and…

I agree, this makes sense.

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

#29

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 05, 2013, 5:51 PM UTC

drakeandrews wrote: post #21

tzs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

A better analogy might be someone selling armour piercing rounds marketed as "cop killers", espousing their efficiency at getting through standard issue police vests, with a tiny disclaimer that you shouldn't kill cops.

[deleted]

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

#30

Post by fsniper » Tue, Aug 06, 2013, 8:35 AM UTC

pathy wrote: post #22

fsniper wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ser…

FH was set up to be a safe haven for CP and other illegal/semi-illegal content. Anonymously on TOR. Good luck serving them a notice about hosting that content. It was never meant to be anything else. Let's not kid ourselves, it was not a white hat business. Comparing it to a normal service like a road provider or a hotel is just laughable. They have legit business. FH was primarily used for unsavory business. That to…

So if you are a hotel owner which happens to be used for illegal operations, say pimping, money laundering or drug dealing you are "a facilitator" for these crimes?