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The EFF Reflects On ICE Seizing a Tor Exit Node
An anonymous reader writes "Marcia Hofmann, senior staff attorney at the EFF, gives more information on the first known seizure of equipment in the U.S. due to a warrant executed against a private individual running a Tor exit node. 'This spring, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed a search warrant at the home of Nolan King and seized six computer hard drives in connection with a criminal investigation. The warrant was issued on the basis of an Internet Protocol (IP) address that traced back to an account connected to Mr. King's home, where he was operating a Tor exit relay.' The EFF was able to get Mr King's equipment returned, and Marcia points out that 'While we think it's important to let the public know about this unfortunate event, it doesn't change our belief that running a Tor exit relay is legal.' She also links to the EFF's Tor Legal FAQ. This brings up an interesting dichotomy in my mind, concerning protecting yourself from the Big digital Brother: Running an open Wi-Fi hotspot, or Tor exit node, would make you both more likely to be investigated, and less likely to be convicted, of any cyber crimes."
seizing anything that is suspected of being used for criminal activity has been perfectly legal for hundreds of years. and there is no excuse that you were running some service or other and didn't know what other people were doing. if the cops get a hunch they will seize your stuff to look for evidence and impound it if there is evidence of a crime
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If you are downloading child pornography across US borders, it falls under the jurisdiction of ICE. Of course, harassing Tor exit node operators should not fall under the jurisdiction of any agency, but in Soviet America, harassing service operators who are not registered corporations is what we do.
Palm trees and 8
While I decry ICE's decision-making process and think it's reaching beyond its authority, I think it's silly to say that TOR investigation is entirely outside of ICE's domain. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We still live in a USA where some software and data imports and exports are considered unlawful, whether it's controlled technology (cryptology, espionage, classified data) or the more pedestrian types like child pornography.
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Unfortunately there is a lot the authorities can do under the name of "investigation" to harass, abuse, intimidate, and even detain you. Seizing computers is bad enough but if they really want to play hardball they can haul you in "for questioning" ... on a daily basis ... and pick you up at inconvenient times like when you're at the office or in the middle of the night. So really being investigated is the thing you don't want, because it can make your life hell and in the end the cops can just smile and say "No charges. Have a nice day, citizen."
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
For example if the traffic in question really came from someone else through the TOR exit node as claimed. After all, he could well have downloaded the file himself but then claimed "oh, it was coming through TOR, I'm not guilty!" If the file is on his hard drive, he'll have a hard time to explain it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
'Mere' investigation can be made rather unpleasant, depending on the crime in question, the enthusiasm of the cops running after it, and your access to legal representation...
There are the practical difficulties: Having everything vaguely resembling a computer siezed and held for who-knows-how-long, potentially quite signifcant legal costs, etc.
And there are the ones arising from the common, but troublesome, opinion that investigation is a sort of lesser degree of guilt. The taint by mere association is worst with kiddie-porn related matters; but the touchier types seem to consider "Police Record: Checked, found absolutely nothing." to simply be a subspecies of "Police Record" and act accordingly. Fan-tastic.
Not at all - just because it's a TOR endpoint and any traffic there is a dead end doesn't invalidate checking all the other forensic options like browser cache etc, running TOR could just be a way of hiding in data volume. It's probably not the case, but if they don't follow a piece of evidence then that's bad.
Straight from today to communism? That's an unlikely sequence.
As long as you have a capitalist welfare state supporting by a local labour aristocracy, you won't have a local exploited proletariat in which to raise united consciousness. The anarchists a century ago were already arguing this and it's come true. You would be better campaigning for better conditions abroad or for the sort of trade protectionism against abusive states which caused South Africa to be shunned in the '80s.
No, ICE (which was renamed during the reorganization of INS that took place under the Bush II administration, you partisan hack) stands for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Sovereign states have the right to control what passes over their borders. It's part of the definition of statehood. Immigration is about who, Customs is about what.
Back on topic, EFF's "Tor is Legal" sounds an awful lot like the arguments made to justify Freenet back in the day. Ultimately, they all rely on notions like "in any sane legal system", or "in any free country". Problem is, by those sorts of definitions of "free" or "sane", the country hasn't been free since Patriot I, and its legal system has never been sane.
With the end of the Cold War and the demise of the USSR, we lost any motivation for claiming the moral high ground. From printers that identify their owners (like the Romanian archives of individual keystrokes from every manual typewriter), to widespread and omnipresent surveillance (decades before it became a meme, "In Soviet Russia, television watches YOU" was a joke about how much more free we were than the Russians), we ended up becoming what we fought against.
An employee at an ISP could download child pornography and disguise it as traffic from a customer. Why, then, does ICE not seize the ISP's equipment as part of their investigation, just to see whether or not that is the case?
The way you know that this has nothing to do with legitimate investigatory techniques is that ICE threatened the guy when they returned his equipment, telling him that he have to deal with more law enforcement harassment in future should he continue operating a Tor exit. This is a straightforward case of harassing the exit node operator because ICE was unable to defeat Tor. Aside from the minority of law enforcement officers who understand that law enforcement agencies benefit from Tor, law enforcement officers in general disdain Tor and think that it is a tool for criminals.
Palm trees and 8
So why not treat corporate ISPs the same way -- after all, one of the ISP's employees might be using the ISP's equipment to download child pornography, and attempting to disguise that as if it were one of the ISP's customers. Why is ICE not seizing routers and other equipment from ISPs as part of its investigation?
Right, because individual citizens are not supposed to be providing communication services, only registered corporations are supposed to be doing that sort of thing.
Palm trees and 8
Does anyone know what was ICE investigating? Search warrants aren't granted just because someone is using TOR.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
Maybe paying for a business line will frame the cops expectations correctly before they roll up on your residence. Make them more willing to listen to your network setup and only take the publicly accessible _half of your kit.
Does anyone know what the legal issues about TOR are in Europe?
European law makes the last 'named' user of an internet connection responsible for any transmissions via it. So, if running a TOR exit node from your home, your name would be the last name on the list (after your ISP, etc.). As a result, if a offence is committed via your connection, then you as the last named party are the person responsible for it.
The only defences are:
1. That you can provide proof of identity of the person who did commit the offence, or other strong evidence that you were not responsible.
2. You can prove that the use of your connection was unauthorized (and that you were not negligent in securing access to your equipment).
You are acting like the fact this guy was running a Tor exit node somehow means it was impossible for him to commit the crime. That is a ridiculous line of thought and if things operated that way, every criminal could simply operate a Tor exit node and be out of reach of investigation.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Between letting a criminal get away and harming an innocent, I'd rather let the criminal get away, to be honest.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Good points.
Just as food for thought. Imagine (hypothetically) that the NSA had a way to defeat TOR (not that they do, but who knows...). They may have turned this over to the NSA who found what they needed, but determined that making it public that they know how to defeat TOR was not worth it for this case.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
That is not at all the same thing. Why would police want to go poking at the ISP in your example if there was no reason to believe the ISP had done anything? And even if they DID want to, how would they get a warrant to do so with no probable cause? As much as people would like to believe that running a TOR exit node makes them an ISP, the technical and practical realities mean that at least at the start, YOU are going to be suspected of any wrongdoing going through your node. The legal system will protect you eventually (as it did in this case), but you're running a service that, by design, makes it look like a bunch of strangers' Internet traffic is coming from your computer. If police want to investigate that traffic and you tell them "sorry, I'm just running TOR" and they just take your word for it and go away...that would be some pretty incompetent police work. Running and exit node is legally protected, but expecting it to be totally hassle free is just silly.
If police want to investigate that traffic and you tell them "sorry, I'm just running TOR" and they just take your word for it and go away...that would be some pretty incompetent police work.
If the police had received more than 3 hours of "computer training," they would know that they can get a list of Tor exit node IP addresses at no cost from the Tor project itself. They can verify any claim that a person is running a Tor exit by checking that list, just like they can verify a claim that a particular server is owned by an ISP or that there are millions of websites hosted on that server.
As I have said, what makes it clear that this was a case of harassment is that they threatened the exit node operator when they returned his equipment.
Palm trees and 8
It's because individual citizens are not expected to be providing communication services, but ISPs are supposed to be doing that sort of thing.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
A router is not a TOR exit node. If illegal activities take place through a router, it doesn't look like the router is the origin of that traffic. TOR exit nodes, on the other hand, intentionally make it look like they ARE the origin of the illegal activity. In fact, that's the whole purpose of TOR. ISPs mostly just forward traffic from their customers, individual citizens mostly originate traffic. If an individual citizen is "providing communication services" through an intentionally obfuscated channel, they will be cleared of wrongdoing. But surely you don't expect them to be cleared with absolutely no investigation, do you?
harassing Tor exit node operators should not fall under the jurisdiction of any agency, but in Soviet America,
In Soviet America, ICE melts you?
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Given a search warrant the ISP will provide all the logs and so on without needing the machine to be seized, they have clear procedures in place for it. They should also have secure backups to reduce the likelihood of tampering. Like any company they also have procedures in place to audit their kit to stop this sort of thing, and having multiple admins with access makes it harder to hide, but if the cops think it's inadequate they'll still seize kit to check. Citizens (in most countries) can do whatever a company can, but don't always get the same protection that's offered by doing it commercially with the corresponding requirements for regular checking. There's nothing stopping an individual getting their access mechanisms and machine audited, so if something illegal shows up through hacking or a virus then they'd have a defense in court, it just doesn't happen because it's expensive and not worthwhile.
Could you elaborate on that a bit? I'm not being confrontational, I'm curious. It's not obvious to me how law enforcement agencies benefit from TOR.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
They can run their own exit nodes, and do traffic analysis to determine what type of traffic certain people are receiving, then use that to get warrants (since all it seems to take any more is a vague notion.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
An employee at an ISP could download child pornography and disguise it as traffic from a customer. Why, then, does ICE not seize the ISP's equipment as part of their investigation, just to see whether or not that is the case?
Because very few police organizations would have the forensic skills to even determine that (outside of the FBI, most police agencies are lucky to have a copy of EnCase and maybe one or two guys on staff who know a little about computers). And a prosecutor would have an almost impossible time proving the case because of the nature of it being an ISP. So they don't waste their time.
Real life law enforcement isn't about being fair. Most of the time they're just going after the low-hanging fruit and the shit they can't ignore.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
every criminal could simply operate a Tor exit node and be out of reach of investigation.
Or they could just use Tor, and avoid being investigated in the first place. Which is what happened in this case.
The "every criminal will use this excuse" theory is baseless. If an IP address is the only evidence that someone committed a crime, then that person should not be convicted -- and we should be examining what sort of laws led to a situation where IP addresses are the only evidence needed for a search or arrest warrant. I share an Internet connection with several other people; should we all be arrested if the IP address happened to be an endpoint of illegal data? There are dozens of people who have SSH access to my research group's server, and it is possible that any of them could use that server as a proxy -- should the server and all of our computers be confiscated, and all of us arrested, if the IP address shows up during an investigation?
IP addresses are not a form of identification, and even less so when a Tor exit node has that IP address. Anyone could be a criminal, but we should have higher standards for evidence when it comes to issuing warrants and confiscating equipment.
Palm trees and 8
Suppose that law enforcement is investigating a child pornography forum. The forum operator may have an IQ larger than his shoe size, and when law enforcement IP addresses show up, he is going to destroy all the evidence and possibly send a warning out to the forum's members. The police use Tor to avoid that problem -- it is even more effective since the members of those sorts of forums are often Tor users themselves.
Palm trees and 8
IP addresses don't definitively identify individuals (and I'm not aware of any case where that alone was used to convict someone), but disallowing their use as probable cause for a search warrant would seem to set an unreasonably high legal bar.
I share an Internet connection with several other people; should we all be arrested if the IP address happened to be an endpoint of illegal data?
Don't be silly, only the men would be arrested.
Getting that list of addresses and comparing it takes time,
Really, a comment like this on /. of all places? You are talking about search a list of strings for a particular string, and not even a very long list. The bottleneck is in the amount of time it takes the police to enter the query into their computer.
what's supposed to happen between when the suspect says "I'm running Tor" and when they come back saying "no you're not?"
Then you have someone who lied to the police (which is evidence that can be used against them), and if they destroyed the incriminating evidence, they are guilty of another crime -- destruction of evidence.
Can law enforcement even get historical lists, to show that the guy wasn't actually running the node at the time the crime was committed?
They could maintain their own up-to-date list of Tor exits, or just download the list before they go ahead and get a search warrant. It is really not that hard, and given how many years Tor has been around and how widespread its use is, this sort of thing should be automatic during computer crime investigations.
warning that "this could happen again" is simply honest
I view it as a threat -- they are telling the guy that he will have to go through this entire situation again if he continues to run a Tor exit.
Mr. King should take this opportunity to set up logging, so he can quickly show what connections came through the node
Why? He was never committing a crime to begin with, so why should his behavior change? ICE did shoddy investigative work by relying on only an IP address; the fault lies with ICE, not with the exit node operator.
Next time ICE shows up,
Palm trees and 8
I don't think he's disallowing their use, he's disallowing their use as the ONLY basis for probable cause. If your investigation leads to a specific IP address which multiple people could possibly have used to commit the crime, an arrest warrant should not be given for EVERYONE. A search warrant should be given for the end point, but only if the operator will not respond to a subpeona for the logs.
IP Addresses alone are used to definitively identify copyright infringement all the time, frequently it is wrong but has been allowed to go through.
disallowing their use as probable cause for a search warrant would seem to set an unreasonably high legal bar.
No, it would set the legal bar exactly where it should be: requiring the police to actually identify a person as a suspect. If the police are unable to do so, then they should not be granted a warrant -- this is not a country where we grant the police general search warrants, and it is better to let some criminals walk free than to harass innocent people.
Palm trees and 8
But surely you don't expect them to be cleared with absolutely no investigation, do you?
Yes, I do, because IP addresses do not identify people and the only thing that links a Tor exit node to the illegal activity is the IP address. An IP address is an unacceptably low standard of evidence for granting a search warrant. IP addresses are frequently shared, computers may be taken over by malware, your neighbors might guess your WPA passphrase, etc. The police should gather more evidence before they are granted a search warrant; this would avoid the problem of harassing innocent exit node operators.
It is better that a couple of pedophiles are not arrested for downloading child pornography than that innocent people are embarrassed and harassed by law enforcement.
Palm trees and 8
There's nothing stopping an individual getting their access mechanisms and machine audited,
The police never asked for Mr. King's logs, they just busted in and seized his equipment. They simply assumed that because his home address was listed on the account that the IP address was assigned to, he was the person they were looking for. The most optimistic view is that this was bad police work.
Palm trees and 8
I'd say the truly sad part is all this Gestapo crap is a complete waste of time because the cops know that isn't where the target is. I have a friend that works state crime lab and according to him after those big busts around 5 years ago actual predators simply stopped using the Internet for CP. he said the only ones you catch that way now are social retards that touch nobody but themselves and are whacking off to the same shit that has been floating around since the 80s.
So what do the real child molesters use? USPS of all things. They only use the net long enough to set up a trade on a back alley board which according to my friend there is ZERO chance of a cop infiltrating because the entrance fee is video of you molesting a kid with an object of their choosing and they don't give enough time to fake the video.
After that it is all encrypted DVDs and mail dumps. So many DVDs go through media mail nobody is ever gonna notice and if they don't get a response within x amount of time they consider that link dead and move on. According to my friend they are quite worried that terrorist types are taking notes from the CP scum as their system is damned near foolproof. the only reason they even know of it is every once in a while a kid that one of them was abusing will tell and they'll find the discs, not that they can read them of course. And with guys looking at 500+ years for all the abuse and no prosecutor EVER gonna make a deal with a serial child rapist good luck on getting one to flip.
So in the end all you get is what my friend calls the "Social retards" that are completely harmless. One they busted had been so isolated from humans, even going so far as to have all his food delivered, that they had to tranc him like an animal to get him out of the building. According to him the ones they get now are a complete waste of money as you are throwing guys that if you threw them in a room with a kid would go hide in a corner into a cell for 60 years at taxpayer expense while the ones who actually rape children are nowhere near there. but the politicos want the "catch a predator" style headlines so they waste the cash.
So just as in TFA we piss money down a rathole all in the cause of "doing something" even if that something is completely fucking pointless and doesn't actually solve anything. Welcome to Amerika, where your rights can be shot to shit as long as its "for teh childrenz!"
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The police never asked for Mr. King's logs, they just busted in and seized his equipment.
[citation needed]
It appears to me that they simply assumed the guy responsible for the Internet connection was... you know... responsible.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I run an exit node on a VPS. Apparently it'd been used by some guy to try to get a teenaged girl to send him naked pics. They subpoenaed everything back to my business cable connection at home and then called up my company (i.e. me) about it citing a scary amount of information about me. I explained to the detective what TOR was (I already have the standard exit node info page up as recommended on the web server), and he'd already heard it from someone else (a civil lib organization running TOR exits used by the same guy). They dropped it there. Scared me a little and I contacted the EFF, who did not hesitate to offer support should something worse happen in the future. EFF is one of the only organizations I donate to, ever, and I donate a decent chunk of change every month. I'm a proud supporter and it's good to know they're there to support me too.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
Would you please become a judge or a police chief? If you do let me know what city you work in.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Wow, if that's true, it's crazy, and interesting. Especially the part about submitting a video of yourself committing molestation. Talk about self-incrimination. Must be a really compelling vice/urge to go to such lengths.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
I hope you're kidding/ironic with the communism schtick.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
So the investigation would have to be finished before it could begin... great plan!
Police have had to have probable cause, including identifying what they want, before getting a warrant well before the internet even existed.
I guess because of OMGHACKERS and OMGKIDDIEPORN those sorts of principles get the boot.
More Twoson than Cupertino
No, it would have to be far enough along that the police have more to go on than an IP address before they harass and embarrass someone by seizing his equipment and accusing him of downloading child pornography.
Palm trees and 8
Unfortunately, for both police and prosecutors, they don't get any pay raise, recognition, or good points on their record for letting innocent people get away.
You are talking about search a list of strings for a particular string
I've parsed the Tor list before myself. I'm fully aware of how little effort it takes, and I'm also aware that it's far beyond the capacity of most police departments. Remember, these folks are funded by taxes, and nobody ever wants tax increases. If it's a choice between getting a programmer to parse the Tor list and getting an extra set of body armor, no sane police department is going to pick the programmer.
Then you have someone who lied to the police (which is evidence that can be used against them), and if they destroyed the incriminating evidence, they are guilty of another crime -- destruction of evidence.
Lying to the police is useless without more evidence of wrongdoing, and destruction of evidence is trivial compared to child pornography. The suspect could just be an ass to police for the fun of it.
They could maintain their own up-to-date list of Tor exits, or just download the list before they go ahead and get a search warrant. It is really not that hard.
Maintaining an accurate list is hard. My purpose was to identify incoming Tor connections on my web server. In testing, I found that the list of exit nodes changes significantly within a span of 10 minutes, and the list I was using had update delays of up to 30 minutes. That's enough variation to cast doubt on any list. Linked in TFA is the ExoneraTor, which strives to do exactly what you suggest, but apparently its results can only show that a given exit node was likely to be running or not.
I view it as a threat -- they are telling the guy that he will have to go through this entire situation again if he continues to run a Tor exit.
That's not so much a threat as a statement of fact. It's not a threat for me to tell you that you're likely to be injured if you start throwing punches at random people on the street.
He was never committing a crime to begin with, so why should his behavior change?
He wasn't convicted of a crime or even accused of one. His behavior should change because he's making life more difficult for himself. If he likes making trouble for investigators and himself, fine. It's his choice. He can go through the hassle again.
ICE has no business showing up at an exit node operator's home.
So if a trail of bloody footprints leads from a murder scene to your front door, the police have no business talking to you about it, because those footprints could have been anybody's, and somebody could have used your porch to change shoes, and it's totally not your problem at all, right? Getting a warrant to check for bloody shoes in your closet is unreasonable, and they should have asked you first! Once you tell them that that guy down the street wears shoes sometimes, they should leave you for a while, and ignore the bonfire in your backyard, because you could be innocent, so they should respect your rights at all costs.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I thought you were a nutjob single-issue poster who was just overly zealous; now I think you are just trolling, like a less-clever Dr. Bob.
They never accused him of anything. He was a part of an investigation. Heck, I was part of an investigation into a 3-car motor vehicle crash. I had been walking down the sidewalk at the time. I certainly didn't do anything criminal, but I was able to provide evidence.
What more evidence than an IP address is possible, given the architecture of the Internet at this point? By your standards, the Internet is place where any crime can go unpunished, because you can't know for certain who was pressing the keys, and you can't ask without already knowing.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
They wanted any computer equipment that may have had evidence relating to the investigation. The probable cause was that the IP address used was assigned to Mr. King's Internet connection, and Mr. King had entered into a legal agreement taking responsibility for the use of that connection, so it's probable that he knows what happened.
I guess because of OMGPRIVACY and OMGFUCKTHEPOLICE those sorts of facts get the boot.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If you had access to a child to molest yourself.. why would you need access to the porn?
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
You are acting like the fact this guy was running a Tor exit node somehow means it was impossible for him to commit the crime.
No, he is acting like the fact that this guy's IP address appeared in somebody's log is not probable cause for search and seizure. He is acting like running a Tor node is not probable cause for search and seizure. He is acting like common carriage of Tor traffic does not imply responsibility for the content of the packets -- something that was found to be critical to the protection of First Amendment rights when the telephone companies were treading this very ground.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
What more evidence than an IP address is possible, given the architecture of the Internet at this point?
Serious? If you don't know the answer to that question then you have absolutely zero business posting on a tech site like this one. Just another pro-jackboot shill willing to sell civil liberties for the illusion of security.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Because look how free the Russians were!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Then please educate me.
Assuming law enforcement has taken down a server with evidence of a crime, they'd have access to logs. Web server access logs usually store only IP addresses. There may be a session identifier, but that's not much use after 30 minutes. If the log were ridiculously detailed, it might have a cookie in it - but that's no good without something to match it to, which would require searching a suspect's computer.
If the investigators are monitoring packet data, they could get the MAC address of the user's computer. That's no more identifying than an IP address, can be changed at will by the user, and is often duplicated across cheap NICs.
If the investigators spent time on the child porn forums or hacking sites or whatever they were investigating, they could infiltrate the community and try to get an actual identity, but that's a ridiculous long shot, and utterly unreliable.
If packets were all encrypted, or otherwise cryptographically authenticated, a person's identity could be changed whenever the keys changed. Yet again, it's an unreliable identification.
Then there's the IP address... for bidirectional communication, it usually cannot be spoofed, and it's usually assigned by someone other than the end user. No, it's not perfect, but it's better than any alternative.
If there's something I'm missing here, please feel free to point it out. The intricacies of network architecture are not my strongest suit, and I'd love to learn more.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
what the fuck is TOR
If you had access to a wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/dog yourself.. why would you need access to porn? Same reason.
If your car is used in a drive-by shooting, your car will get impounded by investigators. It's not "harassment" to seize computer hardware used in a criminal act.
If the investigators spent time on the child porn forums or hacking sites or whatever they were investigating, they could infiltrate the community and try to get an actual identity, but that's a ridiculous long shot, and utterly unreliable.
Not such an unreliable longshot, as it turns out. I cannot remember the exact name, but there was a case where IP address logs would not have been terribly useful because an organized and very dangerous child pornography ring -- not just people downloading it, but people who were actually producing it -- was using a combination of the remailers network and Usenet (it would have required a global surveillance program to actually catch them without infiltrating the group). The FBI did wind up infiltrating the group when one of the members became an informant (he may have been caught by other means), and eventually members of the group were indicted.
If packets were all encrypted, or otherwise cryptographically authenticated, a person's identity could be changed whenever the keys changed. Yet again, it's an unreliable identification.
Not really -- the members of the group still need to be able to identify each other, and so you will be able to reestablish someone's identity as a member of the group (and charge them as part of a criminal conspiracy). Changing master keys is a fairly expensive thing to do, since all your contacts need to reauthenticate your new master key, so it is unlikely that a master signing key will change frequently. I would say that a cryptographic key is more reliable as a way to identify a person than an IP address, given that keys are generally passphrase protected and rarely shared (at least signing keys are rarely shared).
Then there's the IP address... for bidirectional communication, it usually cannot be spoofed, and it's usually assigned by someone other than the end user. No, it's not perfect, but it's better than any alternative.
In the real world, however, IP addresses are frequently shared among several people -- think NAT, wardriving, etc. Computers may also be shared among several people, making IP addresses even less reliable as a form of identification. People may have guests in their home, neighbors who use their Internet connection, they may grant SSH access to friends (like I did in high school), or they may be a victim of malware. A computer is not an extension of a person's body, and an IP address is not an extension of a person's computer.
If there's something I'm missing here, please feel free to point it out
There is something missing from this entire conversation: what sort of crimes are we prosecuting where IP addresses are the only method the police can use to identify someone? Are the police really unable to use things like the thermal noise in an image (e.g. in a child pornography case), physical evidence from a package (e.g. for drug cases), serial numbers on money, or any of the other forms of evidence collection? If we are talking about "crimes" in which there is no physical evidence, no money trail, and in which no evidence except an IP address and data on a hard drive are used to incriminate someone, we have a problem (and since that is exactly the situation we are currently facing, I would say that we certainly do have a problem).
Palm trees and 8
I do not think it means what you think it means
Specifically, a dichotomy is a separation, usually a splitting of one thing into two separate and distinct parts. It usually requires that there be a choice, A or B.
It does not mean "hey, that's interesting."
They only use the net long enough to set up a trade on a back alley board which according to my friend there is ZERO chance of a cop infiltrating because the entrance fee is video of you molesting a kid with an object of their choosing and they don't give enough time to fake the video.
Is telling someone to molest a kid and send the video to you not illegal? Seems like there are so many laws justified as protecting the kids that you'd think legislators would have made that massively illegal long ago. Or is it that even if cops saw the request and it was illegal, they'd be unable to track the requester down to arrest them?
They never accused him of anything. He was a part of an investigation.
No, he was a suspect. If he was merely a source of information for the investigation, they would have asked him for the information, or possibly used a subpoena. Warrants are only used when it is likely that the entity in possession of the evidence would have reason not to hand it over because it would incriminate them. As an example, you don't need a warrant for security camera footage if you are not accusing the owner of the security camera of a crime that the security camera footage could be used as evidence against them. It's probably TV shows that have created this belief, as cops often threaten unrelated people with a "warrant", when in reality a subpoena would be the appropriate document.
Heck, I was part of an investigation into a 3-car motor vehicle crash. I had been walking down the sidewalk at the time. I certainly didn't do anything criminal, but I was able to provide evidence.
What would your reaction have been if the police had physically detained you as their first action, instead of asking if you had seen anything? This is the difference in this case. Instead of just asking, they immediately treated the man as a suspect. If you had been treated as a suspect (i.e., possibly at fault for the crash), instead of a witness, how would you feel about it?
It shouldn't, but if I'm tracking CP downloaders, say from a honeypot, I'm going to investigate the IPs that show up, be they Tor exit node or not.
From the TOR site...
An exit relay is the final relay that Tor traffic passes through before it reaches its destination. Exit relays advertise their presence to the entire Tor network, so they can be used by any Tor users. Because Tor traffic exits through these relays, the IP address of the exit relay is interpreted as the source of the traffic. If a malicious user employs the Tor network to do something that might be objectionable or illegal, the exit relay may take the blame. People who run exit relays should be prepared to deal with complaints, copyright takedown notices, and the possibility that their servers may attract the attention of law enforcement agencies. If you aren't prepared to deal with potential issues like this, you might want to run a middle relay instead. We recommend that an exit relay should be operated on a dedicated machine in a hosting facility that is aware that the server is running an exit node. The Tor Project blog has these excellent tips for running an exit relay. See our legal FAQ on Tor for more info.
I applaud those who do this but sadly they will be taken advantage of for illegal purposes and therefor the operators are at risk.
In other posts people suggest that ISP's should suffer the same fate but don't are reminded of the "Common Carrier" law. If these individuals were to set them selves up as a common carrier I wonder if they would realize the same protections. Given that those with CC protection do in fact cooperate with LE would that then make them obliged to do so?
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
No, it's not. I agree that if the only evidence is an IP address, then they shouldn't be convicted. However, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be investigated, and other evidence possibly brought up.
No, that is a completely unreasonably high bar to attain. An IP address might not identify a person, but given an IP address, a time, and logs from the ISP, it can definitely identify a residence. Which is plenty enough for a warrant.
I like how you go off on him, and don't provide any sort of answer to his question. It totally makes you seem bad ass.
Nobody should be arrested just on the basis of an IP address, or, for that matter, sued. But I think a search may be reasonable. What we need, however, is better definitions of what a 'search' is in the case of a computer. When someone is searching my physical property, they can only search for specific things, and when they find it they have to leave (excepting plain sight), we need an equivalent for data.
So in order to identify the person they serve the warrant on, they go to the ISP, get who was *legally responsible* for that connection at whatever time, and then serve the warrant on them for searching the premises. That accounts for multiple roommates sharing the IP, and if it is someone freeloading on their wifi, it will be found out that the persons at the residence don't have any more evidence.
No, but I would imagine someone's IP showing up in the logs of a kiddie porn server might.
And read the fucking article. The guy was not accused of anything; he was not charged with anything. He had a search warrant served on him, and he got his stuff back after it was shown that his computers had no evidence. There is no violation of anyone's rights going on here.
I know you like to toe the Republican line and all, but you realize that Obama has overseen more deportations and raids on plants and businesses that employ illegal immigrants than any other President, right?
Often child and other illegal pornography production is found when ICE is going after human trafficking, indentured servitude, sex slavery and all of the other unsavory elements in the economy of illegal immigration.
What information regarding their case can ICE hope to get from the seized computer?
Kiddie porn? Remember, they were probably going off some server logs, and this guy's IP showed up. It's pretty reasonable to think that he might have had something to do with it, so you investigate. Note that he was NOT arrested, and did get his stuff back.
The police never asked for Mr. King's logs, they just busted in and seized his equipment.
[citation needed]
It appears to me that they simply assumed the guy responsible for the Internet connection was... you know... responsible.
They assumed and therein lies the problem, but hey don't let the facts get in the way because that's inconvenient. ;^P
Windows Haiku Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent, and reboot. Order shall return.
You've made this argument several times, and it still doesn't hold water. You're saying that there is no reason to investigate, when that is blatantly false. His computer was used in the transmission of kiddie porn. His IP was in the logs. It's completely reasonable to want to investigate whoever had that IP at that time.
Note that I said INVESTIGATE; I'm not saying he should have been accused or arrested. They should have gotten a warrant, investigated the machines he had, and when no evidence came up, returned the equipment, and sent him on his way.
The way you know that this has nothing to do with legitimate investigatory techniques is that ICE threatened the guy when they returned his equipment, telling him that he have to deal with more law enforcement harassment in future should he continue operating a Tor exit.
That doesn't sound like threats; that sounds like reality. Operating an exit, your IP is going to show up in a lot of places where you probably don't want it to. Which means it's going to get investigated. A lot.
The point here is that an IP address does not identify a person
No, but it identifies a household, and a person responsible for that connection. It's a start to an investigation. While an IP alone should not be used to charge someone, having an IP means that you probably have the location of a number of computers that probably have evidence. So it's worth it to investigate.
You still have not answered the question: Why should operating a Tor exit node absolve you of any wrongdoing you might have done? Because that's what you're advocating. You're saying that someone who's running Tor should be immune from any investigation involving their internet connection.
As would I. However, that doesn't mean that law enforcement shouldn't investigate when they have a probable cause to.
It doesn't identify a specific person, but it does identify a household and a person responsible for the connection. It's not enough for charging someone, but it is enough for the start of an investigation.
Bull Fucking Shit.
They had PROBABLE CAUSE to believe that computers connected to that IP were the source of illegal traffic. They got a warrant. They served it, and they investigated the machines he had.
There is absolutely no reason to believe this was bad police work.
Not when "investigated" means "take anything that might store any digital information," and not when the "investigation" does not include a check to see whether or not Mr. King is running an exit node, proxy server, remailer, etc. The police busted in, took his computers, storage media, etc., and then returned it all with a "we'll be back if you keep this up" message.
Palm trees and 8
His computer was used in the transmission of kiddie porn
So were dozens of computers operated by ISPs (we call these computers "routers").
His IP was in the logs
Which could just as easily have been:
The problem is that the IP address was the only evidence ICE had, and on that basis alone they busted into his home and took his property.
It's completely reasonable to want to investigate whoever had that IP at that time
A competent investigation would have quickly determine that he was running a Tor exit:
No equipment seizure needed, and Mr. King may have even been willing to cooperate with ICE to try to catch whoever it is that they were looking for (if ICE had any clue who exactly they were looking for).
They should have gotten a warrant, investigated the machines he had, and when no evidence came up, returned the equipment, and sent him on his way.
Meanwhile, he does not have a computer -- for some people, that means losing the ability to work. Will the government compensate him for the lost computer time, lost work hours, expired stock options, etc.? Will the government give him another computer to use, while they are examining the equipment they took from his home?
I suspect the answer to those questions is "no."
Palm trees and 8
I'm a bit perplexed. So, these actual child molesters will be told to mail CP to a specific location, and the cops can't infiltrate this system because they lack means, and the desire to make the porn? What stops law enforcement from promising to send the porn then simply watching the mailing address like a hawk until they get a suspect?
No, I am advocating that Tor exits be treated as what they are: communication services. You don't see the cops seizing routers and servers from ISPs, and you should not see them seizing an exit node operator's equipment either.
Palm trees and 8
Not such an unreliable longshot, as it turns out. I cannot remember the exact name, but there was a case...
So one case, that really had nothing to do with the Internet at all. The forum could be replaced by a poker table, and things would be the same. Infiltrations take a lot of time and money, and pose a significant risk to the investigation as well. After years of work, the investigators could come up with a few identities, or likely none at all. One case does not make a statistic.
you will be able to reestablish someone's identity
Why, exactly? If it's a forum, they have a username and password... but those might be shared, too! There's the same disconnect between "ID token" and "actual human" as IP addresses have.
Changing master keys is a fairly expensive thing to do, since all your contacts need to reauthenticate your new master key, so it is unlikely that a master signing key will change frequently.
All you need to do is have a promiscuous certificate authority, approved by your contacts (and others, for the sake of reputation). One based in Moscow, with lax paperwork standards.
I would say that a cryptographic key is more reliable as a way to identify a person than an IP address, given that keys are generally passphrase protected and rarely shared (at least signing keys are rarely shared).
And I would say that I can generate 500 new keys by the time you finish reading this comment. I can delete them just as fast, too. The "identity" of a key is disposable.
In the real world, however, IP addresses are frequently shared among several people -- think NAT, wardriving, etc. Computers may also be shared among several people, making IP addresses even less reliable as a form of identification.
And yet, it's no less reliable than any other form of identifying evidence. Nothing is as reliable as you want, which is why I say you're pushing for a world where all crime using a computer is nonpunishable.
A computer is not an extension of a person's body
That's the main disconnect. You can never identify someone 100% by anything they do with their computer.
and an IP address is not an extension of a person's computer.
Nor is anything else that gets sent over a network. Yet again, nothing is 100%.
There is something missing from this entire conversation: what sort of crimes are we prosecuting where IP addresses are the only method the police can use to identify someone?
Anything involving a computer where the user didn't outright say "My name is John Doe, and I live at 123 Main St., and my SSN is 000-00-0000."
Are the police really unable to use things like the thermal noise in an image (e.g. in a child pornography case),
Wait, what? There's been some research done into using CCD noise to identify cameras, but that only works on high-res images and is easily fooled by things like rotating & cropping, and using a digital zoom. To my knowledge, no such technique is in use in courts today, and even if it were, it requires having the suspect camera to match. How is that supposed to happen to establish an identity?
If we are talking about "crimes" in which there is no physical evidence, no money trail, and in which no evidence except an IP address and data on a hard drive are used to incriminate someone, we have a problem (and since that is exactly the situation we are currently facing, I would say that we certainly do have a problem).
And again, I'll ask for an example of any criminal prosecution where that was the only evidence, where other factors could have come into play (like having a shared connection).
But we're not talking about prosecution. We're talking about an investigation, where there must only be
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Funny that. Wasn't it communism that gave east germans the STASI and a few hundred million dead, along with mass starvation now?
Yeah...
Om, nomnomnom...
But it is. If the IP address is in the chain of addresses in an unlawful act, *bingo*, there is reasonable suspiscion to search it in order to determine if it was the source, or to further locate the source.
GP didn't claim that.
Tor exit nodes are not common carriers. End of story. Common carrier immunity is a privilege granted to defined entities which, *bingo*, still need to cooperate with investigations of individuals who are abusing the communications system. What are the odds that AT&T is going to destroy logs that show that one of its employees was the responsible party, versus a Tor exit node operator destroying logs that would show that he or she was the responsible party? Exactly.
This is something that's bothered me for a long time, since I realized (mid-90's) that computers can hold a lot of stuff. From what I've seen, search warrants for data read much like other generic warrants, where the police are expecting to find a certain kind of evidence, and must ignore everything else. Now, this is getting into deep lawyer territory, and I'm not one, but my understanding is that if the cops are looking for evidence in a shooting case, and find a bloody knife in your home, they can't do much about it.
My understanding is that current data searches are similar. If they're looking for something relating to kiddy porn, and they find unsent threatening emails to your boss, they can't use those emails for anything.
I'd welcome a lawyer's input on that, if there's one around...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
DoD runs Tor nodes around the world. You know, to help "spread democracy through free speech."
Or at least, that's the official reason. It's not like running thousands of Tor nodes could help you spy on Tor users or anything, right?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Communism means one thing and one thing only: the workers own the means of production. Citing a failed state that did just about everything wrong that it's possible to do wrong within a system no more disproves the value of communism that doing the same with a similar capitalist state would for capitalism.
Yes, but the problem is that not everyone agrees on how much evidence they need before they can take action that may harm one or more individuals. For instance, not everyone thinks that merely having an ip address is enough to confiscate someone's equipment.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It takes time. And if you know any detective rank cops,you know that the one thing that kills an investigation is time. If it takes more than a few days, forget about it. There are other crimes to work. The boss will tell you that it's a numbers game.... The DA wants convictions. That's all. Work the easy cases.
Support SETI@home
Because they have to upload the CP video FIRST before they are given the address. According to my friend it is maddening because trying to catch these guys is like trying to catch ghosts. they use fake IDs for mail dumps, some even pay a flunky to simply pick up the DVD and stick it in another envelope and mail it somewhere completely different, it is really maddening.
As for why they would want more CP if they have a kid to molest? Because the sick fucks collect CP the way some collect baseball cards, and it lets them show off their latest fucktoys? Remember we aren't talking the social retards here, the one they caught that let them learn of this in the first place is accused of over 27 molestations over a 16 year period.
As for seeing their faces on the videos? not gonna happen because after the "Mr Swirly" case they all invested (or pirated) video editing software and screw the hell out of their voices and faces. That is why the cops often pass around pics of an abused kid and not the abuser, because while they obscure the fuck out of their faces seeing the face of the child is a turn on for those sick fucks so they never obscure that.
Anyway I get to hear all about it since we "talk shop" around 3 times a year when I'm in the state capital, I let him know I'm gonna be in town and we set up lunch somewhere. the bitch is he is trying like hell to recruit me because they are seriously short handed and he knows I've always been damned good at data recovery, but honestly? I don't think I could take it.
I mean i'm glad there are guys like him trying to bust the sick fuckers but I think having to look at raped kids all day would fuck my head seriously up. I know he sees a shrink 3 times a week paid for by the state to help him "data dump" as he calls it but I don't think that would help. I have always been very visually oriented and seeing kids getting raped day after day AFTER DAY? And how he stays so cool on the stand is beyond me. I have watched the man work and he is like ice, all facts, never rattled. Sitting there while some smarmy lawyer tries to cover for a guy I KNOW has fucked his 9 year old, because I saw the video? I couldn't be that cool. I'd end up saying something like "Well maybe if your client would quit raping his 9 year old we wouldn't be here huh?"
So while I give the man credit I don't think I could do his job. I have only seen that crap one time, when a computer I was working on was infected with a link slammer bug that would fill the screen with pop ups including to CP sites. Man that shit was sick. I did write down the addresses and send them to that place John Walsh always recommended on AMW, but even looking at the crap long enough to get an address made me want to hurl. How he can do that 5 days a week? I don't care how much money he makes, it ain't enough.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
No, it would set the legal bar exactly where it should be: requiring the police to actually identify a person as a suspect. If the police are unable to do so, then they should not be granted a warrant -- this is not a country where we grant the police general search warrants, and it is better to let some criminals walk free than to harass innocent people.
When requesting a warrant, all you really need to do is to persuade a judge that this is reasonable place to search for evidence of a crime.
It is lunatic to argue that the police must name a suspect before they can even begin to look for the evidence that may point them in the right direction.
The IP address takes you to a street address or to a particular machine.
It probably also gives you the name of the primary account holder, the head of household, for example.
But that for the moment is irrelevant.
_____
The constitutional prohibition is against "unreasonable" search and seizures.
When the purpose of a search is the solution of a crime, many things become more reasonable and more necessary. That the search is inconvenient and uncomfortable does not make it harassment.
They wanted any computer equipment that may have had evidence relating to the investigation. The probable cause was that the IP address used was assigned to Mr. King's Internet connection, and Mr. King had entered into a legal agreement taking responsibility for the use of that connection, so it's probable that he knows what happened.
I guess because of OMGPRIVACY and OMGFUCKTHEPOLICE those sorts of facts get the boot.
So, they trace back the traffic to a Tor exit node and conclude that the owner is, contrary to the Tor Exit Notice, actually secretly keeping logs about activity going through it? If they wanted data, they could have done to him what they do other private entities like ISPs and Telcos. But they can't because they know how Tor works, and that he's not going to have anything of benefit for them.
This is just a way to discourage the use of Tor and run an otherwise not-guilty person through The System, enabled by whatever today's criminal boogeyman is.
More Twoson than Cupertino
seizing anything that is suspected of being used for criminal activity has been perfectly legal for hundreds of years. and there is no excuse that you were running some service or other and didn't know what other people were doing. if the cops get a hunch they will seize your stuff to look for evidence and impound it if there is evidence of a crime
No, no, and no. Your notions about search and seizure don't work the way you think they do on the net, as I'm sure other people will point out to you in excruciating detail. I'll just stick to your obvious ignorance about anonymizers in general, and TOR in particular. Do you really understand what a TOR route is, and the function of entry and exit nodes? It's like a blind drop, to borrow a phrase from espionage. The traffic that exits TOR back onto the internet can't be associated reliably with the address that it entered TOR from. Law enforcement agencies like ICE understand this -- they know that evidence that leads them to TOR is a dead end. What is interesting here is that ICE decided to intimidate the TOR operator by seizing his equipment anyway, warning him explicitly when they gave him back his gear that they might take it away again. Fwiw, I think the TOR operator has a case that his fourth amendment rights to protection from unreasonable search and seizure were violated, and that ICE actually communicated a threat to him. I hope like hell EFF encourages him to pursue it.
Yeah. And people in positions of power in communist states never expand, consolidate, or take over said 'workers' who own production. In turn claiming that they're working, for the works, to strengthen them. How about the USSR, well I realize that's another failed state. Or Cambodia? China? Look at that, the blood of millions.
So here's a family story. My mothers father was a farmer in the Ukraine. The government decides to take all of the food and livestocks that's been produced in order to give it to the central state. They leave him with 2 cows, and tell him he needs to have an additional 187 cows the following year. Which is what they took from him. Of course being that he didn't have it, they tossed him in a gulag for 25 years.
I'm sure that the reality of those of us who had family suffer under the "justice" of communism, are just peachy with your idea. Right behind the mass starvation that the government caused. A communist state is a very nice wonderful utopian idea, that fails in reality because the communist system has no balances, or checks against the inherent greed of a person for power.
Om, nomnomnom...
The warrant was against the computers connected, not the people.
Look up "Mr Swirly" don't worry, it isn't a new Goatse, it is the name of a case. After the Mr Swirly case, where they caught a child rapist by unswirling his pic the CP scum switched to MUCH heavier video alteration methods. According to my friend it is pretty damned impossible to get their voice and image off the videos due to the amount of effects they use.
The only thing that works in the cops favor is the sick fucks like to see the kids face that is being raped so they never pixelate or alter that, the most they do is put a lone ranger or Mardi Gras style mask on them. that is how they caught another notorious one whose videos of him molesting this girl from the age of 8-12 were the CP scum's version of Jenna Jameson. I couldn't believe when he told me they actually "collect" videos by certain "stars" like a normal guy might collect Ginger Lynn.
But yeah, hearing his stories of what goes down really opened my eyes, as most cops would rather go after the ones making the crap and abusing the kids but because it would cost probably millions and take years worth of man hours and would most likely not end up in their jurisdiction they can't get the higher ups to go for it. that is why most of them are really bummed that America's Most Wanted is going off the air, they said that was a great way to track down the kids.
But as another poster wrote its a numbers game, and the higher ups would rather be able to say "We busted 60 CP pornographers" when they were just social retards passing the same old shit than announce they actually caught a real rapist that took 3 years and cost a couple of million. yet again for the higher ups it is better to do "something" even if that something is pointless and helps no one.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The plural of anecdote is not data, and repeating the exact same argument that was just refuted does not suddenly make it correct. Nice try though.
A competent investigation would have quickly determine that he was running a Tor exit:
No, a competent investigation would not assume that, just because he's running a Tor node, doesn't mean he couldn't have done it. A competent investigation would still investigate his equipment, but quickly come to the conclusion that it wasn't his traffic.
No equipment seizure needed, and Mr. King may have even been willing to cooperate with ICE to try to catch whoever it is that they were looking for (if ICE had any clue who exactly they were looking for).
Or, had Mr. King been the originator of the traffic, it would give him time to destroy evidence. But of course, you don't care about that. You just want to bitch and moan about "da gubbmit takin my stuff!"
Meanwhile, he does not have a computer -- for some people, that means losing the ability to work. Will the government compensate him for the lost computer time, lost work hours, expired stock options, etc.? Will the government give him another computer to use, while they are examining the equipment they took from his home?
You're acting like he can't get access to another computer. Besides, he knew the risks he was undergoing when operating a Tor node. That's like saying it's unfair that someone had their luggage taken for investigation because they agreed to take a package from a stranger, and now they have no spare clothes.
You are VASTLY overreacting about this entire thing. This was a legal, run of the mill search warrant. There was nothing different about this than about any other search warrant out there.
Why not? Because an exit node operator can't originate that traffic either? Also, ISPs keep logs. That's why they are given that leeway. Tor node operators usually don't.
I don't see the difference. Using the same situation, if your investigation leads to an IP address from which multiple people could possibly have used to commit the crime do you automatically get a search warrant for every possible computer that could have used that IP. It seems a bit excessive if you consider a university server which could have any number of students possibly using it. I'd be ok with a search warrant for the server itself but not individual students, or in the case of a domestic situation the router who owns the IP address, but not the other computers in the house.
Routers, unlike servers don't originate traffic of their own. Plus universities generally keep logs, whereas home routers dont, unless you happen to get there quick enough to pull the dhcp tables before they expire. In addition, when I was at uni, every computer connected was assigned an actual ip4 address rather than a subnet one) home routers don't. But anyways the standard of proof for a search warrant is different. It's not even a more probable than not standard, but just some sort of reasonable suspicion. In a uni with 2500+ students sharing a vpn or nat, it's probably not reasonable to believe any given computer was responsible, in a home enviroment of a dozen devices or less, it probably is reasonable.