German Police Arrest Admin of Tor Anonymity Server

An anonymous reader writes "In a recent blog posting, a German operator of a Tor anonymous proxy server revealed that he was arrested by German police officers at the end of July. Showing up at his house at midnight on a Sunday night, police cuffed and arrested him in front of his wife and seized his equipment. In a display of both bitter irony and incompetence, the police did not take or shut-down the Tor server responsible for the traffic they were interested in, which was located in a data center, over 500km away. In the last year, Germany has passed a draconian new anti-security research law and raided seven different data centers to seize Tor servers. While back in 2003, A German court ordered the developers of a different anonymity network to build a back-door into their system."

Comments

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[marcello_dl]

> Come on, Eurotrolls, what do you have to say now?

Four words:

No Software Patents (yet).

A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[patio11]

He was arrested. He will now go into extended negotiations with a prosecutor, during the entirety of which he will have a lawyer present. If the negotiations don't go favorably for him, he will have a fair trial. He will probably be convicted of it, which is an occupational hazard of doing things which the government has illegalized. After being convicted, he will be given a first-time-offender wrist-slap, probably a few months of probation and a stern warning not to do it again. Perhaps he will spend a few months of not-terribly-rigorous time in jail -- I'd bet against it but I'm not German. He'll lose quite a bit of money to attourney fees, less whatever the Tor community raises for his defense (I'm not optimistic), and probably have some equipment seized.

You know what doesn't happen?

He doesn't get summarily executed.
His wife doesn't get raped at gunpoint.
His child doesn't get burned in an oven.

People throw around the word fascist to describe any policy they don't like (that core observation is the heart of Godwin's law). Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case. If you want to convince people of the rightness of deploying a Tor network, keep a cool head and do not use any goose-stepping analogies, because they will brand you as a perspectiveless fanatic who is not to be taken seriously.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[hackus]

"He doesn't get summarily executed.
His wife doesn't get raped at gunpoint.
His child doesn't get burned in an oven."

Mmmm....mighty fine line there what you describe.

How many times in history can we define where governments take small steps up to the above, and each time citizens proclaim it fascism?

Right now in the USA, the constitution of our country is looked upon a merely a "historical" document, nothing really practical to base a government on.

I mean, right now you have people arguing that the right to bear arms is really not needed anymore, and that it causes too many problems for example. Even arguing that the only people who should have the right to arms is the military or police.

These people honestly believe that the USA government couldn't possibly turn on its citizens, or its systems of law and justice could not either.

I point this out because the government has already marginalized most of the population in this country as both the democratic and republican parties themselves are widely known to be corrupt and simply corporate fronts to tame the populace. (i.e. as long as the population THINKS voting is making a difference and they THINK they are choosing candidates, they will not interested in what is really going on.)

Small steps to fascism do not need to be compared against its extremes. History shows us they are all the same and have the same tragic results.

Almost all of it is due to human greed, and the lust for power.

The only sure thing we can count on, is that in the end all governments, with no exceptions, crumble to dust and the tyranny they leave behind form better lessons for us to begin again.

The USA will not be any different.

-Hack

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Original Replica]

Does anyone recall the French Revolution?

Our leaders, both in the EU and the US, paid careful attention to the lessons learned in the French Revolution, namely that as long as you keep your people well fed and entertained, you can do whatever you damn well please. In the French Revolution, the people storming the Bastille had nothing to lose. But our level of comfort is carefully maintained to keep actual violent revolt from ever happening. Even the poor in our countries have too much to lose (thanks to government programs)to risk anything angrier than waving a slogan on a posterboard sign.

you make it all sound so reasonable

[Scudsucker]

But I don't see any reasonableness in prosecuting an inherently reasonable law. Like that (black) high school student who had the book thrown at him for having sex with his (white) girlfriend because she was a couple years younger than him and broke an asinine law in Georgia.

People throw around the word fascist to describe any policy they don't like (that core observation is the heart of Godwin's law). Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case.

So what? Was Mussolini German?

Scare tactic.

[ScrewMaster]

People are making a big deal out of supposed incompetence of the German police in that they didn't even get the actual Tor server. Who cares? That's irrelevant. This is not about taking down a single Tor node. This is about sending a message ... run one of these and you are at risk, and when we decide to confiscate your property we're not going to be too careful about what we take. They probably figure that will be enough to keep a bunch of nerds in line.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

You are a brave man.
I gotta warn you, I know of localities where the cops break down doors. If that ever happens in your area, to your door, who are you gonna call? Or do you just plan to break out the ammo?

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[BillyBlaze]

Franklin is not placing limits on the types of liberty and security that it's acceptable to trade, but rather making a blanket statement that liberty is essential and security is temporary.

That said: anonymous speech is pretty darn essential. I hope we can agree that free speech is essential, and in the face of governments that happily restrict it, anonymity is a necessary tool to exercise that right without getting imprisoned or killed. And the security we would gain is temporary - if the ter'ists, pedophiles, Holocaust deniers, or pirates are using Tor, and we shut it down, they'll just switch to something else.

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[DaedalusHKX]

Yes, but in any free society, you can also pick on the fat guy.

Maybe if it happened, more fat guys would get in shape. I did it. Long story, but if a man wants to do something, nothing stops him. Same for the ladies.

On the other hand... who's the idiot who came up with the idea to teach our kids that seeing something will traumatize them? It is the fear of excelling that makes most people complacent. Afraid of blood? Take a class on first aid. Afraid of sharks? Go shark fishing. Afraid of guns? Take a rifle or pistol class. Afraid of freedom? Try it :) Challenging fears and beating them down is more liberating than all the fancy documents written by our ancestors. Hence why I love coming on here now and arguing in my free time.

Ill remember to avoid those groups

[unity100]

with that tradition :

There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.

nazis are one of the biggest lessons that have happened to mankind. if some bunch of idiots can not realize that there are places that this example should be recalled, then its not worth to waste words with them.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Dun Malg]

it's considered suspicious when someone refuses to answer the door to the police. if they know you are there, they will bust down the door and drag you down to the station and eventually release you a few hours later. There is nothing you can do to stop them because in that scenario nobody is going to be on your side. That's absurd. Nobody rational would consider failing to answer the door at midnight, even for peole claiming to be police, "suspicious".