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Japanese Police Urge ISPs To Block Tor

Posted by timothy on from the with-a-name-like-demon-killer dept.

hypnosec writes "Authorities in Japan are presumably worried about their inability to tackle cybercrime and, in a bid to stem one of the sources of anonymous traffic, the National Police Agency (NPA) is asking ISPs to block Tor. The recommendation comes from the special panel formed by the NPA after a hacker going by the name Demon Killer was found to regularly use Tor to anonymize his online activities, like posting of death threats on public message boards."

32 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Sure, go ahead. by juliohm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If only that was enough to stop illegal activities....

    --
    Julio Henrique Morimoto juliohm@gmail.com
    1. Re:Sure, go ahead. by houstonbofh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Two problems here.

      (1) The article has nothing to do with Fukushima or TEPCO. It's about someone who sent anonymous death threats.

      While the rest of your comments may or may not be true; The reason and the excuse can be mutually exclusive.

    2. Re:Sure, go ahead. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      (1) The article has nothing to do with Fukushima or TEPCO. It's about someone who sent anonymous death threats.

      Death threats are already illegal.

      So no, it's not "about death threats". Someone can write a death threat on a piece of paper and send it in the mail, but paper, pen and mail are all still legal.

      (4) Sherman and Mangano's junk science didn't get blocked by evil governments or evil corporations. They put it on the internet and nobody interfered with them.

      Still has nothing to do with Tor.

      Blocking Tor is not going to stop death threats, nor will it stop junk science. Blocking Tor is about controlling the free flow of private information. Period.

      Yes, this is about protecting the elites. Blocking Tor is certainly not about keeping us safe, because blacking Tor does nothing to make any of us safer from threats that only exist because of Tor.

      Sometimes, figuring out right and wrong are really just about asking yourself: "Who benefits?"

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Sure, go ahead. by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Should we just outlaw politics?

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    4. Re:Sure, go ahead. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      What part of "anonymous death threats" didn't you understand? Oh, right. Anonymous.

      Death threats being illegal doesn't help if you can't track who sent them. Blocking Tor would, in principle, make it easier to track people who send death threats, so that the existing law can be applied.

      Not that I approve of blocking it, but you seem to have completely missed the point.

    5. Re:Sure, go ahead. by lightknight · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Indeed. I'm just going to do the usual (I'm in a hurry):

      1.) This assumes that there are no legitimate usages of Tor. Nice to see Western countries are still holding the torch for freedom, liberty, and all that jazz; the people in various countries with tighter freedom of speech laws thank you for making it easier for their Thought Police to track them down and kill them.

      2.) Common carrier / safe harbor clauses / legality fun. Start blocking traffic...legal issues. Plus your customers aren't paying you to monitor their shit, they're paying you to provide a pipe. If you're watching their data, reading their emails, taking note of the websites they're visiting...well, that's a new level of creepy. And unwelcome.

      3.) Will not stop / deter illegal activities and / or Tor. Give it a rest guys...you've been fighting and losing non-stop for years. ISPs start blocking Tor, Tor implements some slight changes, hey look, Tor is back! You've solved nothing. And with or without Tor, illegal stuff is going to go on...and the vast majority of it is being done without Tor. The reality is that this focus on Tor is simply a diversion, a chance to talk about something 'safe,' because you can't do anything about the stuff that actually needs changing.

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    6. Re:Sure, go ahead. by idontgno · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What part of "anonymous death threats" didn't you understand? Oh, right. Anonymous.

      Death threats being illegal doesn't help if you can't track who sent them. Blocking Tor would, in principle, make it easier to track people who send death threats, so that the existing law can be applied.

      And again. Death threats through the mail are anonymous. Since they're in an envelope in which source information is completely optional.

      So, while you're at it, ban envelopes. Everyone uses postcards.

      Not that I approve of blocking it, but you seem to have completely missed the point.

      Not that I approve of your last-moment and half-hearted disavowal of your obvious support for blocking TOR, but you seem to have completely missed the real point: outlawing encryption solves NO law enforcement problem but denies law-abiding citizens their rightful privacy.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  2. Freedom is a two edged sword... by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yep... We want all people to be free. Unless we don't like them, then we have to know who they are. But if someone else we don't like does not like them, then THEY NEED TO BE FREE! Being a part of the ruling class would be so much easier if it were not for all these darned peasants...

    1. Re:Freedom is a two edged sword... by buchner.johannes · · Score: 1, Insightful

      My freedom ends where yours begins. Full freedom means full responsibility for actions. No freedom means no responsibility.

      But you can not have full freedom and no responsibility.

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    2. Re:Freedom is a two edged sword... by fredprado · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure you can. The correlation between freedom and responsibility exists only in your head. In a world where it is impossible to restrict the freedom of others, like a completely anonymous Internet, everybody would be completely free and nobody would be responsible for anything.

    3. Re:Freedom is a two edged sword... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sure you can. The correlation between freedom and responsibility exists only in your head. In a world where it is impossible to restrict the freedom of others, like a completely anonymous Internet, everybody would be completely free and nobody would be responsible for anything.

      That only work in a system where there is no consequence, such as the Interwebs which is really a giant video game. Responsibility only begin once you take action base on information received from the web, at which point you become the responsible party. Anywhere else, it is inapplicable. This is why the Intertubes are so powerful and why states, nations and corporations are so afraid of it.

      INB4 Important stuff are on the internet. Such system are the responsibility of whoever hooked it to the internet. If a random cracker can take it down then, given enough time, random noise will take it down too. Just because you can't take your responsibility doesn't give you the right to take everyone else freedom. Such are the rules of the Internet, and if you don't like it, take your very important 'products' and 'services' back to a brick and mortar store where the state can taxes and protect you in exchange of your freedom.

  3. Japan by tmosley · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Looks like Japan is now cruising down the road to a police state. Remember that in a police state, policies are implemented to make things easier on police. This means freedoms are crushed in favor of eliminating crime, real or imagined. You know, like shutting down the third most populous city while searching for a single person/evil terrorist.

    Absolutely disgusting.

    1. Re:Japan by rskbrkr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ummm, Japan was always a police state...

    2. Re:Japan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Really? Having lived here for over a decade, you could have fooled me. It's not much different to any other country, and the authorities are arguably less intrusive in many areas than they are in the U.S.

      But let's be honest, throwing around this kind of ridiculous bullshit hyperbole has always been a popular sport for self-appointed internet experts who have no fucking idea or experience of what they're talking about.

    3. Re:Japan by Greyfox · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I submit for your consideration that over the same amount of time in Boston on an average day, more than that many people would have died to gun violence. If you think about it, by causing the lockdown, those two terrorists probably saved more lives than they took!

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    4. Re:Japan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd rather risk a terrorist bombing than allow the TSA to exist (and that hypothetical depends on a reality where the TSA is actually effective, and it is most certainly not). You, however, do not value your freedoms and would rather sacrifice everything to save some amount of people; foolish indeed.

    5. Re:Japan by flayzernax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The funny thing is in most tyrannies people can say the same thing. You don't know what you've lost until you lose it or have it used against you or become one of the oppressed.

      This is the hardest concept to get across to people who say "this is no big deal" "I never was stopped from watching my official youtube video". Thats right you never were. But when you are because you happen to be one of those "other people" you read about.

      When your looking for a reliable source of journalism and that source gets shut down, bought out, shoved 25 pages back on google and replaced with shit. When you have to spend 20 hours researching something instead of 5 minutes to find real sources citing real incidents that matter. You will understand. Information is becoming MUCH harder to get without peeling through layers of government and corporate propaganda and advertisement. The next step is to make it even harder to go outside of regular plain web google.

      The saddest things is TOR is used for a lot of crap and very little good stuff, there still is better information outside of tor pertaining to real world events. So tor gets little love from the people that SHOULD be supporting it and all the attention of the people that hate it.

      Don't be all excited about loosing it before you had a chance to need it.

    6. Re:Japan by Alex+Belits · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The funny thing is in most tyrannies people can say the same thing. You don't know what you've lost until you lose it or have it used against you or become one of the oppressed.

      It's the same in all countries. There are no "tyrannies" and "free countries", and never were. For most of the world/history (except some egregious things like Nazi and Somalia) it's just propaganda you grew up with vs. propaganda someone else grew up with. You just believe that whatever your own government considers unacceptable is something that no one would ever want to do.

      --
      Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
    7. Re:Japan by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The amount of money that was lost because of the lockdown could have fed all the starving people in the world for a week.

      But it wouldn't have. Just like my brussels sprouts when I was 5 wouldn't have fed starving children in China.

    8. Re:Japan by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think GP's point might have been that Google would be a valuable tool to a police state, or something like that. And, in fact, Google is resisting government's attempt to turn it into such a tool. Google cooperates with some government requests, and denies others. It seems they actually look at those requests, individually, trying to weed out overbearing bullshit - unlike some other corporations that honor every request, no matter how plainly overbearing.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  4. Japan, a new Iran ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Is Japan going the way of Iran, blocking the flow of information, for the sake of the ruling elites ?

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Japan, a new Iran ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, so is the US, UK and every other country.

      Hint: They're ALL ruled by the elites.

    2. Re:Japan, a new Iran ? by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, so is the US, UK and every other country.

      Not US, nor UK, nor most other countries, TOR are not officially blocked, at the ISP level

      At least, not yet

      Maybe not blocked, but people are being arrested or sued for what others do via their exit node. "Yeah, we know you didn't do it, but it came from your house. Guilty."

    3. Re:Japan, a new Iran ? by elashish14 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, but Japan makes the US copyright industry happy, so they're not terrists.

      --
      I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
    4. Re:Japan, a new Iran ? by silviuc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "How do they know they didn't do it?"

      It's the point of "innocent until proven guilty". The burden of providing proof of guilt rests on those that accuse not the ones that defend themselves against accusations.

    5. Re:Japan, a new Iran ? by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "innocent until proven guilty" is replaced by the "content industry" with "guilty even if proved innocent". For quite some time already.

      --
      Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
  5. a freedom that's also a problem by bcrowell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In the 18th century, privacy was a pretty straightforward thing. That's why, in the 18th-century US, it was straightforward to write the 4th amendment. As a result, the government can't open my snail mail without a warrant, and can't come into my house and search it without a warrant.

    The technological reality is very different in the 21st century. I support individuals' rights to use strong crypto and to control their own computer hardware and software. But it's undeniable that these rights carry collateral damage.

    In 2012, the University of Pittsburgh was basically shut down for several months by a series of 145 bomb threats that were sent by email, anonymized via Mixmaster. This is not a good outcome.

    If someone is using Tor to post death threats anonymously, that's not a good outcome.

    Despite these bad outcomes, I still support the individual freedoms that let them happen. But that doesn't mean that it's not a real problem. It's very much like gun violence in the US. I support the 2nd amendement, but I recognize that that comes at a cost.

    --
    Find free books.
    1. Re:a freedom that's also a problem by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > But it's undeniable that these rights carry collateral damage.

      In the 17th century, bad people could hide stolen stuff in houses, hide in houses, and send crime-oriented information by snail mail.

      The reason to forbid the government from peeking has nothing to do with legitimate crimes, nor misusing government power investigating legitimate crimes.

      The reason is to stop the slippery slope before it begins, when the government officials end up abusing power to maintain their power.

      That's why a lot of this Patriot Act stuff is disturbing -- it lacks even cursory oversight in hindsight. It could indeed be being misused to spy on political opponents. How would you know? You wouldn't, and that is the problem.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    2. Re:a freedom that's also a problem by starcraftsicko · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The technological reality is very different in the 21st century. I support individuals' rights to use strong crypto and to control their own computer hardware and software. But it's undeniable that these rights carry collateral damage.

      The approach of law enforcers in the 21st century is to assert that nothing a person might do with digital technologies is protected by the need for reasonable searches. We see this with dragnet monitoring of cellular networks, with casual roadside searches of personal electronics, with the FBI attaching a f***ing tracking device to a car and asserting that this should be allowed without oversight, and so much more.

      Law enforcers assert that theu need these powers to enforce the laws and to catch the law breakers... and they're right. Bad police behavior is simply more efficient. It allows the Bushes and the Obamas and Merkels (and Camerons and Blairs and Assads and Ahmadinejads too, but there's another place for that discussion.) to make more laws that would take more money to enforce reasonably and constitutionally. Since the money isn't there, the enforcers must get more efficient, which means rights and ethical behavior must go by the wayside.

      I've moved beyond which laws we need or don't need when considering civil rights. I firmly believe that every time Congress passes a law or Obama signs an order, no matter how well meaning, civil rights are violated. It's just like the kitten meme - http://static.portent.com/images/2007/08/God-kills-kitten.png . This applies to state legislatures, governors, mayors, HOAs...

      If we ban or regulate or protect less, our rights will be violated less. Think about it. Think of the children. Think of... the kittens. lol

  6. Freedom is not a free-for-all ... by MacTO · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure what kids are learning these days, but freedom and responsibility went hand-in-hand when I grew up. That is to say, you have freedom but you have to be responsible in your actions and take responsibility for your actions. Unfortunately, anonymity is frequently used to "exercise freedoms" while avoiding responsibility for your actions. I stuck exercise freedoms in quotes because some people are using that as an excuse to commit crimes or impinge upon the freedoms of others.

    Of course I realise that equating crime to anonymity is only sometimes true. I also realise that anonymity is necessary in a free society. On the other hand, I do see why law enforcement agencies are deeply concerned by anonymity and encryption. I understand why judicial systems and governments have similar concerns. I understand why many ordinary citizens are concerned.

    1. Re:Freedom is not a free-for-all ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On the other hand, I do see why law enforcement agencies are deeply concerned by anonymity and encryption. I understand why judicial systems and governments have similar concerns.

      Yes, I too understand why they have these concerns. But the propositions they make because of these concerns are ridiculous!

      To use an IMO appropriate analogy: I understand why police have concerns about criminals using gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints -- but I think we'd all agree it was ridiculous for police to try to dissuade stores from selling gloves!

  7. pay attention, this will happen here by davydagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Pay attention, right now the US tollerates tor because its used by dissidents in countries we don't like. If it wasn't for western intellegence agencies. Europe would have banned TOR a long time ago.

    In fact, if it wasn't for those agencies, the US would have shut down exit nodes, by simply arresting the owners for whatever illegal content poured through them.

    It doesn't take much for press/mainstream media to start attacking the internet and everyone on it, and especially the unmonied, unwashed, unconnected 99%

    If you think I am exageraterating.

    This is the TOR project's official blog:
    https://blog.torproject.org/

    some excerpts:
    https://blog.torproject.org/blog/trip-report-tor-trainings-dutch-and-belgian-police
    "In January I did Tor talks for the Dutch regional police, the Dutch national police, and the Belgian national police. Jake and I also did a brief inspirational talk at Bits of Freedom, as well as the closing keynote for the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre's yearly conference.

    You may recall that one of my side hobbies lately has been teaching law enforcement about Tor â€" see my previous entries about teaching the FBI about Tor in 2012 and visiting the Stuttgart detectives in 2008 back when we were discussing data retention in Germany. Before this blog started I also did several Tor talks for the US DoJ, and even one for the Norwegian Kripos."

    "One regional Dutch police woman told us that they know how to check if it's a Tor exit IP, but sometimes they do the raid anyway "to discourage people from helping Tor.""

    Its the only reason its not banned, and all users rounded up and thrown in jail on suspicion of hacking, child porn, and terrorism, or whatever other bad shit ever happened to float out one exit node.