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German TOR Servers Seized
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."
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).
They were siezed as evidence. The prosecutors monitored a forum where childporn was traded and basically siezed every computer whoose IP was in the logs. There is some controversity on this siezure, as there are rumors that the prosecutors knew that they won't find anything on a tor-node. It is important to note that none of the tor-nodes-owners has been charged with anything; running tor on a server is NOT the reason these people were targetted.
Child porn. Apparently, the IPs of some of those servers were found on the logs of child porn web sites.
The excuse to seize the servers relies on the cops wanting to find any data of those web site users, which they won't, because of the way Tor is built.
Sad day for annonymous Internet, as more of the crap side of humanity uses services like Tor, and people who do need it, like people in China, are the ones burned.
"On what legal basis?"
Actually, under the auspices of the Because Act, this is entirely legal. This little known piece of international legislation is, in fact, at the heart of many of the most prominent legal actions in the world today. Much loved by the RIAA, MPAA and the US due to it's implicit allowal for random search and seizure, legal 'fishing trips', non-judicially warranted wire taps, and it's espousal of 'guilty until proven guilty' legislature; the entire text of the Because Act has been reproduced below: -
Because Act
1. Because.
1.1. Just, because.
So if you aren't trading child porn, you are fine. Are you worried?
But the people who had their equipment seized WEREN'T trading child porn (or at least, they've not been arrested or charged with that). They were just running a Tor node, which is perfectly legal, and something I do. So yes, I am worried.
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.
I walk in my room to find my computer was stolen
Me: OMG My computer was stolen
My Friend: If there was no child porn on it you are ok
Me: What the fuck are you talking about? My COMPUTER IS GONE
running tor on a server is NOT the reason these people were targetted.
I disagree. Running TOR is exactly the reason they were targeted. There may be nothing illegal about running TOR, but there is no denying the chilling effect of the government seizing people's computers on the kiddie porn pretext. The fewer people running TOR, the fewer people who can freely criticize governments--any governments, not just those in China.
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.
Yet.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Is taking nude photos of a girl who is 17 years and 11 months old some of the most monsterous (sic) things mankind can do? According to Albert Gonzalez it is. Is it monstrous to take nude photos of a woman made up to look like a young girl? Maybe your age limit should be 21 years to be sure.
The current withchunt on pedophiles fails to make a distinction between act against a 5 year old, and those of a seventeen year old. A Seventeen year old can be accepted in the army and carry a gun, but is not mature enough to make decisions about their own bodies. Makes sense to me...
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I ran an anonymous service for 5 years providing anonymous browsing and anonymous e-mail. Looking at this article and calming that it is being abused and should be shut down (As one person has done) is nuts! When I ran my server I maintained a count on the number of transactions. This is the number of anonymous e-mails and the number of anonymous http connections. We averaged 500,000 e-mails a day (15,000,000 per month) and over 25,000,000 http tractions per month. This generated an average of 324 emails to abuse/complaints per month. Less than 10% of the complaints were abuses of the system. I would not considered the posting of KKK material to the alt.white.power group an abuse of the system but it would generate complaints. I may not agree with there views but they have a right to them.
What you are seeing is one abuse of the system. This abuse is not put into prospective. If it were we would have an idea of the amount of traffic the Tor network handles and compare that to the number of abuses we see. We can not condom the network or servers based on a soul abuse of the system!
Recently the president condemned Anonymous E-mail and pay as you go Cell phones and announced that we need to pass laws to stop it. This is just wrong! It is like saying that be for you can publish anything, you must ID your self. This is against everything that the founding Fathers stood for! The Federalist papers are a great example of that!
The Federalist Papers were a series of articles written under
the pen name of Publius by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison,
and John Jay. Madison, widely recognized as the Father of
the Constitution, would later go on to become President of
the United States. Jay would become the first Chief Justice
of the US Supreme Court. Hamilton would serve in the Cabinet
and become a major force in setting economic policy for the US.
Our founding Fathers hid there identity behind a pen name! So next time you condemn anonymity, remember that it is the way to have unwanted political views heard with out being persecuted for your ideas.