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FBI Seizes Server Providing Anonymous Remailer Service

Posted by timothy on from the arrogance-of-power-button dept.

sunbird writes "At 16:00 ET on April 18, federal agents seized a server located in a New York colocation facility shared by May First / People Link and Riseup.net. The server was operated by the European Counter Network ("ECN"), the oldest independent internet service provider in Europe. The server was seized as a part of the investigation into bomb threats sent via the Mixmaster anonymous remailer received by the University of Pittsburgh that were previously discussed on Slashdot. As a result of the seizure, hundreds of unrelated people and organizations have been disrupted."

4 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What does this help? by Wowsers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a clear signal to people that if you run a business and your server is in the US, the US can kill your business stone dead in a raid which may have nothing to do with you other than being co-hosted at a server farm. And people wonder why less business is going to the US.

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    Take Nobody's Word For It.
  2. Re:What did you expect? by v1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If we dont let them send bomb threats, we're undermining free speech and the Internet"

    To which I reply "They need to find a different way to discourage or stop them from sending bomb threats. Inflicting me with collateral damage in the quest for better law enforcement is unacceptable, and so is removing my ability to speak with anonymity."

    Given the choice, I think I'd rather deal with the occasional bomb threat than not be able to speak anonymously.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  3. Re:nonsense by tibit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, they really need a whole big stinkin' server? If you're a professional, you'd switch the server to single user mode, dump the drive contents to a portable drive, reboot the server, and be on your merry way. If they have proper forensic data analysis tools, they should be able to deal with all popular raid arrays out there, so given those you shut the server down, use a portable disk imager to copy the drives, you then replace the drives, power the server back up, and are on your merry way. I just don't get what they need the server itself for. They are after the data, not the hardware.

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  4. Who will FBI the FBI ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Look, We're the FBI. That means your fucked, no matter what you do."

    The question that is begging to be asked is ---

    Who will FBI the FBI ?

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    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !