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"Anonymous" File-Sharing Darknet Ruled Illegal By German Court
An anonymous reader writes "A court in Hamburg, Germany, has granted an injunction against a user of the anonymous and encrypted file-sharing network RetroShare. RetroShare users exchange data through encrypted transfers and the network setup ensures that the true sender of the file is always obfuscated. The court, however, has now ruled that RetroShare users who act as an exit node are liable for the encrypted traffic that's sent by others."
Who thinks it will take long for the hackers to create malware that sets OTHERS up as unwitting exit nodes?
This is ridiculous. All common carriers then should be held liable for the network traffic that passes around.
...You might wonder why:
That's because an IP address is not a human being when it comes to matters of law.
This is what our friendly folks in Germany will find out sooner or later. The trouble is that they'll have wasted so much time. Sad indeed.
The problem is not whether it is "legally" "legal." You cannot afford a lawyer that can argue that part. If the traffic came from your computer you are guilty, and that's it - this is how most judges will interpret the act. There is no way to prove otherwise - your incoming traffic is encrypted. Even if the judge understands the technology he may slap you with being an accessory to the crime.
Some mention public telecommunications services. I'm sure those services have an entirely different legal environment - starting with their corporate charter that is signed by the Secretary of their State. A peasant in his hovel does not have even a shred of paper to point at; he is not a corporation, nobody with the government had a chance to audit his intentions... not that it should be required, but as things are it is required.
Let's be honest: If you're doing something that someone with significantly more money than you is upset by, you will be punished. Most of what you were taught as a kid was a lie; The law isn't here to protect you, but control you. Every law advantages one group by disadvantaging another. And the idea of morality, ethics, punishment proportional to the harm, any judicial concept you care to toss out I can show numerous and significant examples where it has been thrown out because of the money issue I mention at the start of this.
Money isn't power per-se, but in this society, the value of a person is the balance in their accounts. If you're a valuable person, you get special treatment -- police will investigate crimes for you more readily, favors are easier to get, and everybody wants to be your friend. But if you don't have money, then the only real power you have is that people like you greatly outnumber people like them. But unless that potential is actualized, forget it.
Laws like this will continue to punish file sharers because file sharers are poor. You're being punished, not because what you're doing is unethical or immoral, but because you make less money than the people who say it should be illegal. Whether it's the german courts, the european courts, the american courts... it doesn't really matter. All countries are the same: With enough gold, anything is possible. And when you have enough gold, the first thing you do is punish and inflict harm on anyone who has less than you do... or else. Or else they could some day have enough gold too.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I have to laugh at the copyright fundamentalist viewpoint, having seen with my own eyes that outside of western Europe and north America, it is taken about as seriously as a Lada full of Clowns trying to qualify for a formula one race... In some places even the idea that you could have 60 quid to waste on a computer game to begin with! But carry on living in your bubble, it is obviously our god given duty to ensure that imaginary property remains obscenely over valued, so that we can continue to produce the Bill Gates'es and Kanye Wests we all so heavily depend upon in society. It must be fun to imagine how much richer you would be if everyone just played fair...
ARM boards are so cheap and light on power that I bet people will be installing them out of sight wherever a trickle of current won't be detected.
The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
We expected this to happen in some 3rd world countries, not in our own, but it seems that we were wrong.
if they don't provide law inforcement with the ability to tap into the traffic and identify its source and destination, and content too modulo user encryption. If you want to REGISTER your TOR network as a common carrier and be subjected to (in the US) CALEA then be my guest!
This whole thing is the UTTERLY predictable response to the whole TOR thing. When you join a conspiracy to hide what everyone is doing then don't be surprised when you're held responsible for the actions of the whole group (network). When are hackers going to learn that you can't route around the law? You might fool it or avoid it for a while, but in the West at least public order will ALWAYS dictate that the authorities WILL be able to drop a hammer on you. That's what power IS.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
But in the U.S. the 5th amendment would protect you from having to reveal the encryption keys.
That's cute that you believe your "rights" have any meaning if US police and/or any TLAs want your encryption keys bad enough, especially if it's something like the encrypted data in question being such that it may expose/prove massive wrongdoing/corruption/treasonous acts on the government's behalf. This is especially true these days with expanded-PATRIOT act, NDAA, etc etc.
Refusal to reveal encryption keys in such cases is likely to cost one an expanding list of bodily parts...kneecaps...fingers...teeth...eyes...genitalia...you get the idea.
The US has become a police state. It just hasn't gone all full goose-stepping-thugs-and-open-trench-mass-graves.
Yet.
If government size, power, and control aren't reined-in sharply and quickly, it will.
We're only one convenient crisis away.
DHS and FEMA are ready with millions and millions of rounds of hollow-point ammo requisitioned over the past couple of years, and "temporary" holding facilities "in case of emergency". DHS also recently requisitioned tens of thousands of prefabricated, bulletproof, roadside checkpoint shelters.
Of course that's all just conspiracy-nut stuff. It couldn't happen here. All emergency/disaster refugee centers are built like prisons with razor-wire fences, guard towers, and barred holding cells. Move along, nothing to see here.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Yeah, of course. Disregard all of the abusive governments throughout history; ours is magically immune to corruption! We didn't see the government take advantage of the events of 9/11 at all!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Might want to try Greasemonkey + Moderatrix .... works for me!
Or, as the AC said, you can use NoScript to block JS.