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Raided for running a Tor exit - Accepting donations for legal expenses
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@maounique Where can we read what the exit node owner responded? Or even if he/she did? Would love to see the detail as that's a very relevant example.
Donation in via @bamn auction
When a site is blocked by some filter on or in front of the node, it will reply with 403.
It may happen a few times for various reasons, if it happens too often it will raise a red flag and someone will look into it.
@joepie91 just trying to make a point, if you want TOR to be as noble as possible (if they use it for poitical reasons). it is very difficult to run an exit node because the authorities will go after the exit node
The problem with anonymity is that it will be used for illegal things. We must get over it, everything can be used for illegal purposes, yet I didnt see anyone advocating the closure of internet except religious freaks and dictatorships.
Nobody was thinking to outlaw cash either. Or open wifis, for that matter.
Instead of this mobilization against Tor, they should mobilize against open anonymous proxies. Or botnets, all providers hate them.
But, guess what, Tor can be used for political activism and other "enemies" might use it, such as minorities (ethnical, religious, sexual) to organize and publicize their cause, therefore we should start with it and leave criminals for later.
The main danger for the state, even democratic one, is the free speech, each government has shady things it deals in, from those protected by diplomatic immunity to those shady dealings on the personal level such as traffic of influence or conflict of interests. Not CP, not terrorism, not even money laundering poses such a big threat on the guys running the church and the state as free speech and open criticism.
Think of how much better would have been able the catholic church to hide it's policy on child molestation if there was no free speech !
So I went and asked on the tor IRC channel about blocking a list of hosts (cp context). 2 approaches: one to put the IPs in the ExitPolicy. In short, the "proper way" is to put the IPs in an ExitPolicy for the node. This avoids breaking any connectivity (but only for those visiting sites in that list). Downside is the ExitPolicy can be discovered without much technical effort. The less tor friendly way to do it is by firewalling that list and not putting them in your ExitPolicy. If you get reported its likely be someone visiting cp sites (and thus less likely to report). Either way if you do get reported, there is a manual review process where you could explain (no guarantee its accepted but it's not just an instant automated status). Food for thought..l
Is there really a list of known CP sites? One would think that the law enforcement should go and raid these, instead of the TOR network.
@rds100 not that I'm aware of. Possible to build an incomplete list though...
There is also a great resource for those freaks, lookie-lookie, another site blocked, yummy !
Oldie but goodie:
http://www.cleanternet.org/
I think it's shocking how they can just trample all over you. Hope everything turns out OK in the end
@maounique not sure who your freak comment was aimed at but the link you shared is about measures .gov would like to take in response to cp. the context here is what we as citizens can do to support free speech via running tor exit nodes (edit: without getting raided). You're not conflating the two are you?
Not sure if you had the patience to watch it to the end, probably not.
That is a pretext to stifle free speech.
Being raided should not be the concern of ppl running nodes, if it happens, someone will have to pay for it, otherwise these raids will be enough to make ppl afraid, and that seems to be the intention because they have been unsurprisingly very effective.
If the police can use these kind of methods to make ppl afraid, then something is wrong.
I hope William will fight to the end and demand the right compensation for this after he has been cleared by showing that:
1. Police knew it was a Tor exit node. If they didnt Know, it is a gross negligence since those lists are public, including for the past.
2. Police should NOT raid anyone's home and particulary NOT seize equipment and LIMIT the search to what is the object of the search (computers, maybe prints or tapes/disks) WITHOUT first having EVIDENCE that justifies that. A random IP and a VPS owner is not that evidence, after all, it could have been hacked, be a friend of his which had access, should we accept to be raided in our homes and our computers stolen because our VPS has been hacked or we inadvertedly set up an open proxy ? I think not and this abuse must stop.
We cant just let police do whatever they please in hope they will find something to justify the raid afterwards, some cops might fear the consequences and even plant evidence if absolutely nothing is found (for example in the case of William they managed to find those few grams of drugs, maybe they will get next time a bag of half a kilo to lock up "the molester" and do their job properly, even if the justice is stupid and cant convict properly otherwise...)
This is a problem of fundamental human rights and stopping abuse.
Whatever the community can do is not really very relevant, it is also not community's job to do it, after all, we do pay the police to find the abusers and we cant accept they are incompetent at our expense, bei it literal (tax money) and metaphorical (spying on us, raiding our homes, putting pressure on us, etc).
In order to properly run an exit node, you need to contact the guys in those organizations and donate the hardware/pay the rent and they will do the rest. Or even pay them directly and let them make the best choice.
/donated. Viel Glück, @william!
Keep us updated on the Lawyer in the morning William!
I love useless posts. I stand by my reason for getting angry, you can deal with it, Nancy.
Strength in numbers. Plenty of governments have stood as a minority against the majority. Plenty of governments have fallen. Stand for what is right, die without regrets! TOR is a unique battleground. I won't say it's the last, because I couldn't have predicted it's creation to begin with, but it is a very important one.
No they did not.
@william wow
. I can't remember if you already mentioned this but did the node have a website stating its a tor node...where to send abuse complaints etc?
Do most exit nodes ?
A lot of large ones do.
What can they do? Do the Tor network have some way of tracking who contributed to said abuse? Seems more like a deterrent to "cover your ass".
In general the developers of Tor claim no responsibility and pretty much say they can't track/stop/monitor abuse due to the way it's designed and that it'll happen, but their justification is, criminals/etc already have "better" ways to do it before Tor came about so basically even if there was abuse There's not much anyone could do even if they reported it to the person who runs the exit node, except maybe block a known target site for the abuse from exiting their node, but that's not going to help since usually the complaint from say law enforcement isn't going to be an email telling you to stop it.
https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq-abuse.html.en
https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html.en
@kbeezie so the tor project recommends you put a notice like the following on port 80 on your tor exit node: https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/contrib/tor-exit-notice.html.
Yep, but as I said, it's basically a cover-your-ass move that might not actually cover your ass depending on the country/law that has jurisdiction over you.
I mean lets speak hypothetically for a moment, since even I would find it highly implausible, but what if some child porn got routed thru your exit node (maybe in like a peer-2-peer fashion, not really attributed to any website), and you get an abuse report about it... it happens again... and again... what responsibilities do you have to it?
It's not as if you can block the source person, since it's unknown to you as an exit node, and if it's being traded peer to peer the destination target is going to vary, and might not even be feasible to block, like posting images to 4chan who eventually removes/reports it but still shows your exit node amongst others as the originator of the traffic. What responsibilities do you have for allowing anyone/anything out the faucet?
But on the flip side, what if we replaced "Child Porn" with "Political Dissent Propaganda".
@kbreezie I'll leave others do the hypothetical debate with you. My interest at this point is to get a handle on what opportunities LE had to identify the IP as a tor exit node (hence the direct question to @william). And before you or anyone else jumps on this: this is less about william and more about LE, but the specifics are relevant. /me snoozes
@craigb LE being?
@kbeezie Law Enforcement
This email confirms that you have donated €43.75 EUR to william weber ([email protected]) using PayPal.
The exchange rate for this purchase is 1 U.S. Dollar = 0.747735 Euros.
Donation Details
Confirmation number: 2BN93210B81219152
Donation amount: €43.75 EUR
Total: €43.75 EUR
Purpose: Williams Tor Legal fund
Want to thank those that participated in the domain auction.
Enough PayPal for now - All PayPal donaters get a mail in the next days asking if they want their donation returned afterwards or not.
Thanks all!
I am sure from these raid news alot of Tor servers are going to close down because they will be afraid to run them anymore.
@William any news? Got anything as to any status's? How much was donated to your "Free Willy Fund"