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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?
Do not run Tor exit nodes in Germany.
This is ridiculous. All common carriers then should be held liable for the network traffic that passes around.
...when the moron legal system and media of the world are happy to spread the word about how awesome RetroShare is
you can't buy this kind of publicity
Germany declares Tor illegal?
...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.
For what it's worth, this is a copyright case and Hamburg is the preferred location for ridiculous lawsuits by rights holders due to their excessively industry friendly media rights chamber.
The BGH overturns their verdicts with satisfying regularity and the defendant hopefully will appeal that one.
... This is no legal precedent, as in German law, there is no precedent. Another court can rule completely differently, and Hamburg has some fame for ruling quite strongly in favor of big media conglomerates and contrary to the interest of the internet users. Only if the highest court in Germany, either the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal High Court) or the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) rule, it sets legal precedent.
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
So is this some back handed prohibition against the use of any encryption without a license?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You know, that kind of sarcasm is really useless unless you also make a token attempt to educate us all.
I can see it happening already, someone will donate to the judge a cheap and crap computer (Raspberry Pi fits the bill perfectly) and run up a Tor exit node on it. Much hilarity ensues. :-)
It's academic anyway, because this is a ruling that will get overturned in the EU for being in conflict with basic freedom of speech. Encryption of communications is not illegal in EU.
What's more, Europeans tend to be strongly opposed to the excesses of the copyright lobby, and strongly supportive of freedom of file sharing. The politicians even listen to them on this subject, as the official political representation shows. So, that judge is out on a rather lonely limb, and a stupid limb if he'd thought about the implications for two seconds before running off to the golf club. It's unlikely to stand.
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...
US Postal Services are responsible what A sends to C? Great, I just think I found my way to the trillions. Ah, Germany, got to get there fast!
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
The term "stealing" refers to a felony. And yet the practice you are referencing is a civil offense. Ergo, you do not understand "stealing" or the law.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
TOR obfuscates the source and destination of traffic. Common carriers are required to allow police to have that info. Once they know what they're looking at they can force you to give them your encryption keys. There is no "we will take no for an answer" EVER with the authorities. If you're legit then you've agreed to play ball with them, it doesn't work any other way.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Two things you need to know:
One, this particular court (and I know it well, this is my home city) is being ridiculed throughout Germany and its judgement are routinely reversed by the higher courts. It does cause trouble, but it is an outlier, not the norm.
And that is important because Germany follows the CIVIL law system, not the common law system - courts do not set precedents, other courts will interpret the law, not whatever some court elsewhere decided. And the so-called "flying court", a system where you can choose which court to sue in if you can reason why the case falls into its jurisdiction - easy for Internet-related cases to do - has been dramatically culled back this year, with more and more courts not accepting the easy arguments anymore.
So, in essence, this is one court well-known for being crazy. Still unfortunate, but not half as consequential as the summary makes you believe.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
From The Wikipedia: "A darknet is a private, distributed P2P file sharing network where connections are made only between trusted peers — sometimes called "friends" (F2F)[1] — using non-standard protocols and ports."
What they're talking about in TFA is something like TOR.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The Internet started as a darknet.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Did you just call the country that banned "hacking tools" intelligent? Really?
Paging Admiral Ackbar...
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Then why aren't the communication stream providers also deemed to be just as liable and guilty for this infrinement/infringing activity?
... based on random source address in UDP datagrams. The payload is still fully encrypted, and the receiving app that decodes it with its own private key can discover the context of the datagram (e.g. which network session it belongs to, and which aspect of that session it means ... like which file and offset in the file). This way the party receiving the content can't see what exit node is involved.
ISPs could block forged source addresses. It's expensive. But if they do, then maybe DDoS attacks would go down.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
No, encryption is not a crime, and nobody cares what ports you receive encrypted data on. The crime is in doing an illegal thing from your computer. The law does not care what prompted your computer to access someone else's server and hack it. It could be the keyboard and your own hands; or it could be a remote computer and a hacker behind it. Normally you shouldn't be responsible for the latter scenario - but as matter of fact you are. The bottom line is simple: if you run an exit node then you accept responsibility for everything that all other nodes do through you. This is simply because you are the most convenient scapegoat - and, as matter of fact, the only one that the police can lay their hands on.
If I knowingly delivered packages from people who wanted to hide their identity, making it more expensive and slower due to the extra steps required to hide, I would expect to be held responsible for any bombs or drugs I delivered. How Is this different from.an ISP? An ISP delivers content as efficiently as possible - they don't take extra steps to hide the perpetrator of unlawful acts.
ISPs move packets as efficiently as possible, and they do follow laws that give them certain immunities as long as they adhere to accepted protocols, like responding to lawfully filed notices. ISPs do NOT work really hard to hide the source of an act, making it slower and more costly in the process. These "darknets" expend ten times as many resources specifically for the purpose of hiding people who don't want to be held accountable for their actions. The whole point of the proxy is "I'll do your dirty work for you so you don't get caught." If I volunteer to do something that people don't want to get caught doing, I would expect to be held responsible for my actions. "I was doing it for some stranger" is a weak excuse. Here's an analogy. If a stranger at an airport asks you "will you carry this bag on for me, but don't tell anyone because I don't want to get caught", that's not a good excuse when it turns out the bag is full of heroine. A willingly ignorant drug runner who doesn't look in the bag is still a drug runner. A thief or child porn distributor who willingly carries "I don't want to get caught" packets without looking at them is still a thief or a CP distributor.
He probably used "gay" in the original meaning of that word.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Why should a German ruling necessarily be consistent with US ruling? They are different countries for a reason.
I read TFA and see that the person charged made the mistake to friend someone he didn't know was a copyright holder. So yes he was the exit node, he was stabbed in the back by a "friend". I don't necessarily agree with the finding but if you use retroshare and only friend people that are oh.. friends.. then you should be fine.
Might want to try Greasemonkey + Moderatrix .... works for me!
Or, as the AC said, you can use NoScript to block JS.
To lazy to look it up but just a few days ago ANOTHER german court ruled that parents could NOT be held accountable for the file sharing of their children if they had a talk with the child that it shouldn't do it. The parents could NOT be expected to police their childs online activities all the time.
So... are you or are you NOT responsible for the actions of another on your system?
Lower court rulings ain't worth the paper they are written on unless you don't appeal.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Come on, it would be more a kind of "File Heil!" ;-) F2F is a file sharing Uboot wunderwaffe to sink Hollywood.
To be precise US law does not apply at all, well there are the Nuremberg exceptions, so we cannot pardon Admiral Doenitz who died in 1980.
If the prosecution can get a warrant to obtain information then you're obliged to provide the keys. This is long-established precedent in the US, 'testimony' does not include records, those are just evidence and you have no right to withhold physical evidence. Failure to provide a key will simply result in being jailed for contempt until you change your mind...
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Nobody is obliged to make business data public excepting where some regulation says otherwise. The regs (primarly Reg NMS, but also some others) in the US requires some degree of disclosure of trading activity for some entities. This is mostly needed for pricing purposes though, not to reveal who's doing what, just at what price they're doing it. FINRA also requires most equity trading (stocks) to be reported through OATS, but that is an after-the-fact offline system and the data isn't released (and probably these days in most cases isn't even examined). Its primary purpose is to make it hard for small brokerages to operate profitably, but IN THEORY the purpose is to monitor trading activity for questionable practices and evaluation of regulatory controls.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Who do you think makes the financial regulations and laws? lol.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Er... actually I was using both Bill Gates and Kanye West as examples of people that actually make me sick, was that not obvious enough? And indeed I do use software and music produced for free - I even enjoy the benefit of being able to modify it, even though it is not my profession (I am in catering). Do you have some kind of point to your rant or should I just feel beaten?
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
I'm sure they think it's crazy that there's a market for a $300 graphics card too, are you saying because it's crazy to them they should be allowed to just take it? If so I'd like to help myself to a penthouse apartment on Manhattan and a Ferrari. In every other market it's the seller's choice to set a price and the buyer's choice to walk away (excluding certain monopolies/oligopolies, but computer games aren't exactly one of those). In any other market "set the price as low as I want, or I'll take it and give you nothing" would be considered extortion. Honestly I wish it was the price it was about so I could call them cheapskates.
I recently tried Netflix that launched here in Norway, I left after the free trial month. Why? Because it was crap, crap quality, occasional stuttering if I had heavy network use in the background and many had subtitles I couldn't turn off. That the selection was poor was completely secondary to the fact that it was a much, much worse experience than viewing a BDrip of the same movie which meant I didn't even want to use the service when it did have something I want to watch. Recently I bought an album on iTunes, downloads as a plain M4A file (I don't care that it's not FLAC, it's plenty good enough) and plays everywhere. It does embed the purchase info in the container, but you can edit that out if you want.. it's not DRM, it's not a watermark, it's just text tags. It'll play under any OS and device that supports it, now give me a video service like that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The headline implies that the entire darknet is illegal, but the summary and article note that the judge simply ruled that you're liable for all traffic that travels through your exit node. Of course, it makes it difficult to be a legal exit node if people are using the darknet for illegal purposes, but not that you're automatically a criminal for using it.
Well, to be honest it sort of makes sense. Its your line, your account, and you chose to do it.
Not much different than loaning your car to someone you *know* will be transporting drugs or robbing a bank.
Running an exit node ( when did RetroShare get this anyway? ) is like a waving a huge red flag, 'hey, look at me', and everyone really should stick to remaining internal to the network, so its 'safe'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Someone was nice enough to post the original ruling. It seems that someone else used this exit node to illegally download some copyrighted work. The person running the exit node was found to be not the downloader, therefore no fine or anything, _but_ he was ordered to prevent further illegal downloading of copyrighted works by closing the node down.
Oh shut up, you are just trying to dodge my point. Everyone who has seen a tape deck knows that it is easer to cheaply make a copy of something than copy the tape deck itself. There is a slight difference between copying a tape from a friend, or waiting till he's asleep and walking off with his stereo [please update scenario as applicable]
Therefore, in 90% of the world, copies are made in back rooms and sold in market stalls, and everyone seems to be happy with this. Note that this always includes a tiny minority of foreign offerings next to a vast majority of local ones, because despite what people think, not everyone speaks English in China. Yet we in the west have to endure a state sponsored celebrity cult that makes a tiny minority of people punch-you-in-the-cunt-ingly rich, under the guise of supporting the livelyhood poor starving unknown artists. Which one is helping themselves to more ferraris, me, or these over privileged fucks? Do you understand?