If I am a network guy and I sent up a heavily encrypted VPN for use by worldwide drug cartels, I am pretty sure I am committing a crime. If I have knowledge that what I am doing is going to further the commission of a crime, I am probably committing a crime. The service provider that sold me the connection is not at fault here because they have no way of knowing what I am up to in the normal course of their business. I don't know where anyone got the idea that communications is private from law enforcement with the proper authorizations. Your phone can be traced or tapped under the laws of most countries, the only difference is the level of control. Even though we may all view some groups in China, Syria, Sudan, or wherever as dissidents, their own governments may view them as terrorists and you will probably get in trouble for helping them. I would guess (but don't know) that it is illegal to communicate covertly inside of China. It is probably also some sort of crime to circumvent their firewall protections. I am not making the right vs wrong case here but be advised that what might be philanthropic in one country could very well be a crime in another. A lot of the law (and moral decision making in general ) is about intent. If the guy was trying to help people protect themselves from totalitarian regimes and such then he is probably morally and legally innocent of a crime. If the guy was building a covert network for what the police allege, he is guilty. If he was pirating movies and someone else was using it for child crimes then he is partial responsible in my moral opinion. I am not familiar enough with German law to tell you if he is legally guilty or not. Steven Naslund -----Original Message----- From: Brian Johnson [mailto:bjohnson@drtel.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2012 11:32 AM To: Jordan Michaels; nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: William was raided for running a Tor exit node. Please help if I know I'm going to get flamed and excoriated, but here goes.... <snip>
case evolves in and out of court. Are Tor exit-node operators going to
be given the same rights as ISP's who's networks are used for illegal purposes? I would hope so, but it doesn't seem like that has happened in this case, so I am very interested to hear how the situation pans out.
This is a misleading statement. ISP's (Common carriers) do not provide a knowingly illegal offering, AND they do provide the PHYSICAL infrastructure for packets to be passed and interconnected to other PHYSICAL networks. TOR exit/entrance nodes provide only the former. The lack of providing a physical infrastructure is crucial. Also, most ISP's (US specifically) are required by Law (under subpoena) to provide details to law enforcement. I really hate this idea of privacy on the Internet. If you really think you have the "right" to use the public infrastructure (to whatever extent you want to label the Internet as such) and be completely anonymous, I have a bridge to sell you. Network operators may treat your packets to whatever level of scrutiny that they may find necessary to determine if they want to pass your packets, keeping in mind that good operators want the Internet to work. I'm waiting for the next hot "application" to use a widely known "bad" port and see what happens. :)
It is extremely relevant to the Internet community and to free speech in general.
I'm actually in agreement that law enforcement may have overstepped here if the only reason was the TOR exit point, but having a TOR exit point to me, seems to be condoning the actions/statements/packets used through the exit point. You are knowingly hiding information that your local government may require you to disclose. Short answer... don't use TOR. It's not a bad thing, but it's not a good thing either. - Brian