+1 - Brian J.
> -----Original Message----- > From: Naslund, Steve [mailto:snasl...@medline.com] > Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2012 3:44 PM > To: nanog@nanog.org > Subject: RE: William was raided for running a Tor exit node. Please help if > > Here is something else to consider : > > Why will just about any ISP shut down a customer with an open mail > relay? It allows anonymous access to anyone trying to send an email, > right. So why would this not be considered just as "free speech" as the > Tor server. The reason I believe is because we as an industry decided > that spam was a "bad thing" before it even became illegal. In the case > of Tor, it largely enables anonymous transfer of data (like copyrighted > bit torrent traffic) including some content that is blatently illegal to > even possess. As a community we have been a lot less decisive about > that subject. > > Before we chastise the legal process being used by the government just > consider everything we do as service providers under the guise of > "acceptable use" which has just about no basis in the law. Most > "acceptable use" violations are basically doing stuff we don't like. > > As far as the Internet just being a tool, I agree but there are and > always have been laws to govern the use of tools whether we are talking > about telephones, guns, postal system, or any other tool. Conducting > the alleged business over the telephone would be a crime just as sending > it through the postal system. If you were encrypting voice calls for > the sole purpose of avoiding a legal wiretap I think the law might have > a problem with that. If you were to provide that service to someone > like a kidnapper or the mafia, I bet you are going to have some tough > questions thrown at you. > > As I see it, here are the possible reasons this individual set up this > Tor network : > > 1. This man is truly the saint of the Internet privacy community and he > spent his own hard earned money to set up a bunch of off shore Tor > servers for the benefit of mankind. Why he needs exit nodes in the > United States and Poland I am not sure about. Is the German government > cracking down a lot on dissident traffic coming out of servers in his > own country? He must not be able to pay his own legal expenses because > he is too busy building servers for the good of humanity. > > 2. This guy was using Tor for whatever personal reasons. Could be that > there were not enough exit nodes to get the kind of performance he > wanted. Maybe he was downloading / uploading various content, legal or > illegal and was serious enough about it that he set up exit nodes in > multiple countries. That might explain the ton of storage he had at his > residence. Maybe he has a big recipe collection, pirated movie > collection, or unspeakable content the police are looking at now. The > content will say if he is innocent or guilty. Maybe he was using it for > one thing and others were using it for something else. In that case, my > thoughts are if you swim with sharks you might get bit. > > 3. Maybe this guy was running a Tor network as a paid service for > others not wanting to get caught doing whatever they were doing. Could > be a lucrative business for an enterprising system admin I suppose. You > would not want to set up these servers at your own workplace right, and > maybe you have customers in multiple countries. Who might want a covert > communications network? Drug cartels, media pirates, intelligence > agencies, terrorists, illegal child porn producers, whoever does not > want to get caught communicating. Maybe even downtrodden dissidents > but > they likely don't have a lot of money. He is going to need your money > to defend himself because the government will gets suspicious if he > shows up with another safe deposit box of cash and his customer > certainly can't be contacted to help. > > > I see these possible outcomes : > > 1. The guy has nothing on his home computers or the Tor server that > point to a crime and he gets his stuff back. Inconvenient no doubt but > he won't need that legal defense fund. > > 2. Maybe this guy is as serious about his home gear as his network > privacy. Maybe everything at home is deep encrypted. Unlikely it will > be secure enough but maybe the government has its suspicions but cannot > make the case and they drop it. > > 2. The guy has tons of illegal content on his home storage stuff and > gets nailed for it. That legal defense fund is going to be paying the > SPA, RIAA, or whoever else is going to sue him. If it what the police > allege then he is going away for quite awhile. > > 3. The guy is innocent but gets found guilty because "the man" just does > not like Tor. Your legal defense fund probably won't help much because > if "the man" wants him locked up with no evidence then your defense > probably won't help a lot. You will be better off selling "Free Mother > Tor-esa" T-shirt to try to get him sprung. > > > I might be a cynic but I am just not thinking it is #1 on these lists. > > Steven Naslund > > -----Original Message----- > From: valdis.kletni...@vt.edu [mailto:valdis.kletni...@vt.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2012 1:36 PM > To: Brian Johnson > Cc: nanog@nanog.org > Subject: Re: William was raided for running a Tor exit node. Please help > if > > On Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:32:01 +0000, Brian Johnson said: > > > This is a misleading statement. ISP's (Common carriers) do not provide > > > a knowingly illegal offering, ... TOR exit/entrance nodes provide > only the former. > > This is also a misleading statement. Explain the difference between a > consumer ISP selling you a cable Internet plan knowing that NN% of the > traffic will be data with questionable copyright status, and > 1 of of 5 or so will be a botted box doing other illegal stuff, and a > TOR node providing transit knowing that NN% will be similarly > questionable etc etc etc. > > In other words, if TOR exit nodes provide a "knowingly illegal > offering", then Comcast is doing exactly the same thing... > > (Also, feel free to cite actual statute or case law that says TOR is by > *definition* or finding of fact, a "knowingly illegal offering" in and > of itself - distinct from what uses the user thereof may do with it. > Absent that, it's not a "knowingly illegal offering" the same way that > some sites have ended up in court for contributory copyright > infringement.)
