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Researchers Face Jail Risk For Tor Snooping Study

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the learning-is-dangerous-business dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A group of researchers from the University of Colorado and University of Washington could face both civil and criminal penalties for a research project (PDF) in which they snooped on users of the Tor anonymous proxy network. Should federal prosecutors take interest in the project, the researchers could also face up to 5 years in jail for violating the Wiretap Act. The researchers neither sought legal review of the project nor ran it past their Institutional Review Board. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has written a legal guide for Tor admins, strongly advises against any sort of network monitoring."

6 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Correct link to study by miraboo · · Score: 5, Informative

    The link to the study is borked. Correct link: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/yoshi/papers/Tor/PETS2008_37.pdf

  2. Yeah, who do those "researchers" think they are... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...music publishers?

  3. OT factoid... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Interestingly, I was once banned from /. for running a tor node. When I found out and emailed the admins they asked if I was running a tor server - I replied in the affirmative but had since taken the node down because my SOHO router wasn't up to the task.

    The /. admins were very nice and restored my access almost immediately but I found the whole process interesting.

    1. Re:OT factoid... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nope. Slashdot banned tor openly, as do most online discussion systems that don't want to be flooded by endless bots.

      You either ban all tor users or you allow all tor users, since any one user can just reconnect through every tor node to evade ip bans(allowing them to create new accounts if their old one was banned). Most places would rather be able to ban users, so they disallow tor exit nodes.

  4. Re:not to worry by AmonEzhno · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It does seem excruciatingly telling how scientists are threatened with prosecution whereas Illegal Domestic spies are treated with what almost seems like respect by the Federal Government. Kind of a reflection on the state of science vs military these days. Though in all honestly they should not have been doing this in the first place, but it's not easy to know 100% where the line is in research sometimes. So it would seem to me the best idea would be to reprimand them think some kind of appropriate fine, and set a precedent. That way it would be clear for later issues. I don't want to be monitored without my permission, I Don't know about you guys, even if it is for science.

  5. Re:You can't jail them@ by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Funny

    No problem, they just need to argue that, as operators of a Tor exit node, they are a telecoms company, then they get free retroactive immunity.

    --
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