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German TOR Servers Seized

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sometimes-being-an-AC-is-abad dept.

mrogers writes "Servers participating in the TOR anonymizing network have been seized by public prosecutors during a child porn crackdown in Germany. TOR provides anonymity for clients and servers by redirecting traffic through a network of volunteer-operated relays; the German prosecutors may have been trying to locate an anonymous server by examining the logs of the captured relays."

3 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. Is the polica incompetent or harassing? by johanw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As far as I know and read the Tor documentation, Tor doesn't keep logs. So either the police is incompetent, doesn't know it and seizes the servers anyway (not unsurprising), or either they are irritated by an anonymous network they can't control and try to harrass as many people using it as they can, to try to break it down (also wouldn't surprise me). Or both options apply at the same time (most probable option IMO).

  2. Tor logs by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From Tor man page

    Log minSeverity[-maxSeverity] stderr|stdout|syslog
    Send all messages between minSeverity and maxSeverity to the standard output stream, the standard error stream, or to the system log. (The "syslog" value is only supported on Unix.) Recognized severity levels are debug, info, notice, warn, and err. We advise using "notice" in most cases, since anything more verbose may provide sensitive information to an attacker who obtains the logs. If only one severity level is given, all messages of that level or higher will be sent to the listed destination.

    SafeLogging 0|1
    If 1, Tor replaces potentially sensitive strings in the logs (e.g. addresses) with the string [scrubbed]. This way logs can still be useful, but they don't leave behind personally identifying information about what sites a user might have visited. (Default: 1)


    So one would have to deliberately change several defaults to get logs with any data the cops might be interested in. From their point of view, worth a try, but unlikely to be fruitful.
  3. give it up for authoritarianism by moxley · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These governments want total control and will do whatever is necessary to get it - including subverting their own laws, false flag attacks, manipulation of the public via mainstream corporate media distortions etc.

    BY the time their goals are achieved the internet will probably be like an interactive version of MSNBC crossed with the home shopping network.

    Anonymity and privacy online will be a thing of the past. All dissenting viewpoints will be monitored; no, wait, ALL viewpoints will be monitored.

    Things like TOR which promote freedom and privacy will not be tolerated by these fasicsts, and they will find a way to subvert or desrtoy them - if the child porn argument doesn't work then they'll use the oldest trick in the book: There are terra-ists out there, they're gonna get us! We must take away your freedom to keep you safe. Give it up for safety, trust us, we know what's best and we have your best interest in mind.