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Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

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Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#101

Post by chrisdevereux »

fredsted wrote: post #10

Is this is the "big brother" plan to eradicate anonymity services? Just argue "child porn!" and arrest everyone? The law quoted was: >Not only the immediate perpetator commits a criminal action, but also anyone who appoints someone to carry it out, or anyone who otherwise contributes to the completion of said criminal action. Anyone who contributes? Wouldn't this include ISPs or perhaps even the application server te…

I'm no Tor expert so please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't people trading child porn (etc) most likely be entirely within the onion network anyway and therefore have no need for an exit node?

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#102

Post by tomjen3 »

pritambaral wrote: post #70
peterjancelis wrote: post #63

It's too easy to scare people from hosting tor exit nodes right now. I think the way forward is to incorporate some use based digital currency payments to compensate exit node operators for their risk. Make it a business and let the market decide the insurance premium needed.

Who do you think can pay more? Dissident journalists or internet drug dealers?

Who cares who pays? Dissident journalists financed by drug dealers? I consider that awesome.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#103

Post by madaxe_again »

fredsted wrote: post #10

Is this is the "big brother" plan to eradicate anonymity services? Just argue "child porn!" and arrest everyone? The law quoted was: >Not only the immediate perpetator commits a criminal action, but also anyone who appoints someone to carry it out, or anyone who otherwise contributes to the completion of said criminal action. Anyone who contributes? Wouldn't this include ISPs or perhaps even the application server te…

Yup. Following this logic they have a long trail of people to prosecute, both living and dead.

Good luck to them figuring out who to prosecute for inventing spoken and written language, as that aids more crime than anything else.

Ban language! And water! And humans!

It's a blanket "we'll crush you as we damn well please" law. Most states have them.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#104

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

esbranson wrote: post #92
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That neither supports nor refutes my argument that Austrian's have no clue about Austrian style juries. It's very hard to refute that claim because you did not provide any sources for yours either. I would not know how to judge how Austrians see courts besides my limited exposure to the few law related classes I took and observing one of our most popular judges for a day and that obviously is personal bias. > I wou…

Well its not the courts themselves but the law which forms them. But the differences are fast becoming only theoretical. Now, mind you, Continental judiciaries have a superior administrative tribunal system which is a recognized part of their judiciary. The United Kingdom has even recently adopted this approach. It is only the United States AFAIK that continues to insist that some judges are not part of the judiciary…

> And apparently Austria uses what are, in effect, Anglo-American juries. They are selected at random from the electorate. They decide questions of fact. I don't see the lack of separation between "trier of fact" and "trier of law" as obviously better or worse.

There are two versions of "juries" in Austria: Geschworenengerichte and Schoeffengerichte. Either only become relevant if you have committed a crime that could get you in prison for 5 years or more. Geschworene decide of guity and not guilty and decide the punishment, Schoeffen do it with the help of a judge. Not sure how that is related to the American system where the decision is made of "proven and not proven" or am I misunderstanding you?

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#105

Post by schoen »

phn wrote: post #89

I know what I am suggesting is wrong on some levels, and creates a myriad of other problems, but bear with me. If I run a Tor exit node, can I block outgoing packets to known illegal servers/addresses? Would some kind of update mechanism of this list (of course, the question is controlled by whom?) warrant that known illegal servers are not available, and thus show/prove my intent that no ill use was endorsed by me?

Tor has a notion of exit policy, but it's only expressed in terms of permitted and forbidden TCP port numbers. This lets you, for example, decline to deliver SMTP traffic on TCP port 25. The exit policy can't list IP subnets (contrary to my recollection; I thought it could, and maybe it once did).

A lot of government investigations of Tor users do involve the use of pretty mainstream, popular services like Gmail, accessed over Tor. Someone can access Gmail over Tor and send e-mails that provoke a government investigation.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#106

Post by MertsA »

chrisdevereux wrote: post #101
fredsted wrote: post #10

Is this is the "big brother" plan to eradicate anonymity services? Just argue "child porn!" and arrest everyone? The law quoted was: >Not only the immediate perpetator commits a criminal action, but also anyone who appoints someone to carry it out, or anyone who otherwise contributes to the completion of said criminal action. Anyone who contributes? Wouldn't this include ISPs or perhaps even the application server te…

I'm no Tor expert so please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't people trading child porn (etc) most likely be entirely within the onion network anyway and therefore have no need for an exit node?

That's correct, people talk about shady things happening over Tor but how many cases that come up are actually something shady going over an exit node?

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#107

Post by VexXtreme »

xienze wrote: post #99
VexXtreme wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to downvote and here's why: > you're mostly helping drug dealers and child pornographers operate You could argue the same about encryption, so should encryption be banned or deemed immoral now? > That's why it's absolutely crazy to operate a node. Again, you could say this for any company that builds crypto software. > Find some other way to help if you value your freedom. You can still operate a TOR exit node…

> You could argue the same about encryption, so should encryption be banned or deemed immoral now? Sigh. This sounds just like the arguments about cars ("they can kill people, should we ban them too???"). Let's get real, the vast majority of Tor traffic is, shall we say, for nefarious purposes. Encryption has numerous applications which are perfectly legitimate and it could be argued that the legitimate applications…

> Let's get real, the vast majority of Tor traffic is, shall we say, for nefarious purposes.

I don't really understand your argument here. Are you saying that Tor should be banned because the ratio of illegitimate to legitimate applications is higher than that of encryption software? I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm just trying to understand what you're saying here.

> Safe for whom? You as an individual, perhaps. Definitely not safe for the guy running the exit node.

Well you would be the guy running an exit node on a VPS hosted by a hosting company/ISP (after all, they seem to be protected by law). Looks pretty bullet proof to me. Worst case scenario - they shut down your VPS.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#108

Post by esbranson »

esbranson wrote: post #92
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That neither supports nor refutes my argument that Austrian's have no clue about Austrian style juries. It's very hard to refute that claim because you did not provide any sources for yours either. I would not know how to judge how Austrians see courts besides my limited exposure to the few law related classes I took and observing one of our most popular judges for a day and that obviously is personal bias. > I wou…

Well its not the courts themselves but the law which forms them. But the differences are fast becoming only theoretical. Now, mind you, Continental judiciaries have a superior administrative tribunal system which is a recognized part of their judiciary. The United Kingdom has even recently adopted this approach. It is only the United States AFAIK that continues to insist that some judges are not part of the judiciary…

@the_mitsuhiko

> or am I misunderstanding you?

IDK I don't think you're misunderstanding me.. I was merely musing about this difference which you speak of--"Geschworene decide of guity and not guilty and decide the punishment, Schoeffen do it with the help of a judge". (Except that Anglo-American juries less often decide punishments--the common exception in the US being the death penalty.)

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#109

Post by owenmarshall »

downandout wrote: post #100
hueving wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share some of these laws? I'm curious because I haven't heard of such a case in the US.

I don't think one has been pursued here yet, but it doesn't mean they can't or won't. Our conspiracy laws are very broad. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371 That's the federal one, and each state has their own.

The essence of a conspiracy charge requires an agreement between two parties to commit a crime.

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41223.pdf

Running a TOR exit node almost certainly would not constitute an agreement under federal law.

Indeed, see the following jury instructions: http://www3.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury-instructions/node/475

> On the other hand, one who has no knowledge of a conspiracy, but happens to act in a way which furthers some object or purpose of the conspiracy, does not thereby become a conspirator. Similarly, a person does not become a conspirator merely by associating with one or more persons who are conspirators, nor merely by knowing that a conspiracy exists.

There's your defense. An individual running a TOR exit node with the purpose of passing news to people behind the great firewall of China does not become a conspirator because an anonymous individual uses that node to commit wire fraud. They had no knowledge that a conspiracy was being committed - they may have furthered it (by simply running the node) but that is insufficient for a conspiracy charge.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#110

Post by acqq »

gioele wrote: post #78

If the convicted will appeal, and if the appeal will arrive up to the EU Court of justice, this would be the first care in which it is debated whether TOR operators are protected by the "mere conduit" doctrine that is base on which ISPs are not held responsible. [1] Too bad that it may take up to 10 years for this case to be appealed up to EU court of justice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Commerce_Dir…

And that the accused considers him already destroyed and definitely not healthy and wealthy enough anymore to appeal, see dewey's post here.
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