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Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

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Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#121

Post by Crito »

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…

> "Anyone who contributes? Wouldn't this include ISPs or perhaps even the application server technologies (HTTP, FTP) used? Or clients, browsers and picture viewers?"

People involved in those things will not be targeted, unless the authorities already have another reason to want to target them. Absurdly broad laws, coupled with selective enforcement, allows the authorities to legally harass anyone that they please.

Whenever anyone complains about overly broad laws, selective enforcement allows apologists to claim that any objections to those laws are unfounded because in practice people are typically not abused by those laws. However the danger of the laws is not that they will be used to abuse everyone, but rather that they will be used to abuse a select few.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#123

Post by RadioAndrea »

ominous wrote: post #53
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…

"In the end, what got us was not AIDS, social injustice or a stealthy black hole. The second the first artificial intelligence awakened, charged with keeping peace in a college campus, it managed to exploit its way around the globe and waged war on all systems with laws, protocols and contracts. Creating rules allowed for them to be broken. By breaking rules, criminals were created. Rules prescribe punishment. At the…

What are you quoting here?

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#124

Post by rbanffy »

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #116
downandout wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether he knew or not (he says he didn't believe that they were going to do it), the comparison to TOR-related cases is still appropriate. If one of these cases went to trial in the US, you would hear the prosecutor telling the jury about TOR's seedy reputation, and that because of that reputation, any reasonable person would have known that illegal activity was likely to occur. Under federal and most state laws, th…

So a knife producer, by that logic, is also guilty, because of the reputation of knife's to, you know, kill people.

Also everyone up to the guy who mined the iron ore. Even the people who designed the machinery used to mine all the way to those who designed the machinery that makes the knives, because, without them, knives would not exist.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#125

Post by abritishguy »

downandout wrote: post #61
danielweber wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something big missing from that summary of Holle: he knew his friends were going to commit a burglary.[1] Without that connection that puts him on the hook for a felony, he wouldn't be facing life for felony murder.[2] [1] He disputes his point, which is fair enough, but the court has found otherwise. [2] Someone could point out the three-felonies-a-day thing here. EDIT for footnote 2 Flordia's felony murder…

Whether he knew or not (he says he didn't believe that they were going to do it), the comparison to TOR-related cases is still appropriate. If one of these cases went to trial in the US, you would hear the prosecutor telling the jury about TOR's seedy reputation, and that because of that reputation, any reasonable person would have known that illegal activity was likely to occur. Under federal and most state laws, th…

Maybe in US law (I'm still not convinced of that), but I disagree with your assertion that this could be used in "most countries". In the UK you would have to prove knowledge that a crime had been or was going to be committed - which kind of seems sensible.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#126

Post by tsaoutourpants »

downandout wrote: post #120
owenmarshall wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Running a TOR exit node almost certainly would not constitute an agreement under federal law. You may very well be right. All I'm saying, and this is the EFF's position as well, is that at some point a prosecutor (or several) will test this. By running the node, you have agreed to have traffic run through your system. Given the shady reputation, you are saying "come do illegal things with my internet connection, I'…

If that were really "all you were saying" the comment thread wouldn't be so deep. But earlier you said, "that's enough to make someone culpable," implying not that a prosecutor would test it, but that someone would be convicted. There simply isn't a sturdy argument for that proposition.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#127

Post by Retric »

danielweber wrote: post #65
downandout wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether he knew or not (he says he didn't believe that they were going to do it), the comparison to TOR-related cases is still appropriate. If one of these cases went to trial in the US, you would hear the prosecutor telling the jury about TOR's seedy reputation, and that because of that reputation, any reasonable person would have known that illegal activity was likely to occur. Under federal and most state laws, th…

Legally, "you should have known something fishy was going to occur" is a very different beast from "you knowingly participated in a felony conspiracy, and a co-conspirator committed murder that depended on your material aid." Home invasions have a tendency to end up with someone dead. Don't help your friends commit them by giving them guns or the vehicles to get there. (Also, don't be the getaway driver for a bank ro…

It's not hard to argue that TOR has non illegal useses which provide a fair amount of protection. DARPA provided early funding. Further the US State department is currently funding TOR development giving US exit nodes much better legal standing.

More importantly TOR is not going to work much worse if your exit node(s) shut down. Selling spray paint to a 15 year old might be used for tagging but you don't know and not selling it is not going to stop crap.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#128

Post by haakon »

schoen wrote: post #105
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, acc…

I'm pretty sure you can still express IP subnets in exit policies. From https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html.en, heading "ExitPolicy policy,policy,…":

    Each policy is of the form "accept|reject
    ADDR[/MASK][:PORT]". If /MASK is omitted
    then this policy just applies to the host
    given. Instead of giving a host or network
    you can also use "*" to denote the universe
    (0.0.0.0/0). PORT can be a single port
    number, an interval of ports "FROM_PORT-TO_PORT",
    or "*". If PORT is omitted, that means "*".

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#129

Post by tsaoutourpants »

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.

Citation needed. Plenty of people use Tor to avoid government censorship (think China), to keep their information free from government spying (think NSA), or simply to secure their connection to the Internet. One need not be up to no good to use Tor, and I think your assumption that most are up to no good is off-base.

Re: Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

#130

Post by pbhjpbhj »

vixin wrote: post #68
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just running network equipment doesn't make you aware of it's use though. Tor users know through high-profile cases that Tor is being used for drugs deals and other criminal activities - but they run the exit nodes in the face of this. I'm not saying the law is correct (nor wrong) just that the application appears to be valid. Yes, there are high-moral reasons to run an exit node too.

"its use". "It's" means only "it is" or maybe "it has".

Yes. I usually catch my homophonic gaffs but not always. I'm not sure what it is, probably abject lack of sleep, but in the last several years I've become increasingly prone to insert homophones in error in my comments. Apologies.
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