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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.
Germany declares Tor illegal?
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
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.
That's because an IP address is not a human being when it comes to matters of law.
The decisions of a US district court can't be expected to carry much weight in Germany.
On 12 May 2010, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) granted an injunction to a music rights marketing company against the private operator of a WLAN under contributory negligence rules.
The BGH agreed that the plaintiff had no civil law entitlement to damages for breach of copyright by the defendant, either as perpetrator or participant, since it had not been proved that the defendant had shared the music himself or deliberately helped a third party to do so. There was every reason to assume that the person to whom an IP address had been allocated would be responsible for an infringement committed from that address. However, in this case, this assumption had been credibly refuted by the defendant's claim that he had been on holiday when the offence was committed. Neither had he intentionally participated in an infringement by a third party.
However, under contributory negligence rules, the BGH found the WLAN owner liable for failing to prevent a protected work from being made available to the public (Art. 19a of the Urheberrechtsgesetz - Copyright Act). By operating a WLAN that was not sufficiently secure, the defendant had wilfully and, with sufficient causality, contributed to this infringement and failed to meet his duty of due diligence in this respect. Even private individuals - if only in their own interest to protect their data - could be expected to verify whether their WLAN was sufficiently secure to prevent its misuse by third parties standing outside.
BGH Finds WLAN Operator Liable
[2010]
TorrentFreak, to, to its credit, posted this link as an Update to its original story.
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
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 : )
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.
Did you just call the country that banned "hacking tools" intelligent? Really?
Everyone I know uses exit nodes located on Sandy Island.
Have gnu, will travel.
The last thing anyone in the EU wants is a legal system similar to the USA. We'd have to build ten times as many prisons. We have NO money.
The "Prisoner Defence", ie "I am not a number, I am a free man" is a grand idea but it's hard to avoid contributory negligence. So, if you had a car and you let anyone borrow it regardless of whether they had insurance or even a driving license then you'd be committing a crime. If you pay for an internet connection and you are equally lax about how it's used then you should also be held responsible. I don't understand how anyone has a problem with this. Say you have a legally held firearm and just leave it on your lawn. That's okay, is it?
It's possible to spoof IP addresses, but currently EU law requires for a record to be kept of what you're doing with your Internet connection at the ISP level. This is as much a tool to prove innocence as it is a hammer to smite the sinner.
I don't understand how anyone has a problem with this.
Anyone who cares about privacy, freedom, and anonymity has a problem with this. Equating the desire for anonymity to letting random people drive your car or leaving a gun out in your yard is just ridiculous.
But darknets aren't illegal in the US anyway. We are talking about Germany here.
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.
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.
Might want to try Greasemonkey + Moderatrix .... works for me!
Or, as the AC said, you can use NoScript to block JS.