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Japanese Police Urge ISPs To Block Tor
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."
If only that was enough to stop illegal activities....
Julio Henrique Morimoto juliohm@gmail.com
Japanese ISPs seem like the kind that would accept such a request without batting an eyelid.
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...
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.
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
- I can see what they mean, he probably promised to hack somebody with an axe. Somebody should suggest the police ban axes, not onions.
You can't handle the truth.
Thank you for reminding us about TEPCO as well as posting that specific link.
After Fukushima, the Japanese government lied about the radiation until a hacker space started building GPS radiation sensor devices. They gave an excellent talk from 29c3 :
Safecast: DIY and citizen-sensing of radiation [29c3]
Did I mention they used Open Street Map? Open Street Map rocks! It's basically the wikipedia of maps, blows away google maps.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
So what's their problem? Can't they just torture and frame people as usual?
That was the Canadian Conservative party's stand on their internet surveillance bill. If you didn't support their attempt to pass unwarranted internet surveillance in Canada then you must be a child pornographer. That didn't go well at all for poor old Vic Toews.
Of course, I do wonder sometimes if these guys trying to pass these laws now realize what a tyranny they are setting up for their own children or grandchildren in the future. I imagine that they think that their families will be exempt from any such surveillance. If they somehow are then everyone else is well justified in their vigourous protests of such laws.
"Remember that in a police state, policies are implemented to make things easier on police"
I assume these infringements include ridiculous infringements like the power to arrest people and... well pretty much any power any police agent or government has over that of a common citizen.
Now personally I have all manner of issues with powers granted by states, to states, and their enforcers - but I accept that in the main part they're trying to protect us, and have some perspective.
You can't "block tor." It's just 100% encrypted SSL web traffic. You'd have to block all SSL web traffic. Good luck with that.
Is Japan going the way of Iran, blocking the flow of information, for the sake of the ruling elites ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
If violent and repressive regimes, willing to kill without trial or mercy, cannot stop Tor then how much less will a western style constitution democracy be able to stop it? Unless the Japanese are prepared to cut off all electronic communications with the outside world, which would be tantamount to economic suicide, they will fail. Blocking known relay nodes will slow Tor down, it won't stop it because people will still be able to use bridges to get onto the network.
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.
Looking forward to when there is a better way to undo accidental mods . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
9/11 gave you a bloody-nose, and the TSA is what you take away as your 'problem' You (we) went into Iraq - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-iraq-fresh-wmd-claims I'm not even aware of any allegations on Afghan involvement - but hey, see what we did there - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21547542 And even before all of that kicked off, the US had managed to bugger up most of South/Central America - and defended funding of organizations like NORAID. Still, having to show papers to get on a plane, and not being allowed to fap with your gun must have been really hard for you.
In Japan, don't they have separation of powers?
... is that this is supporting a group of people that are unable to distinguish between real crimes and abuses by governments.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Here we go again... and cars are used for getaways from bank robberies. So get rid of cars. Knives are used to stab people. Bats are used to bludgeon people. You can't just go around banning everything that someone uses to commit a crime.
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.
I suppose you think our only two choices after capturing alleged Al Queda operatives was to either torture the shit out of them for months on end or just let them go.
Well one of them was shot dead in a gun fight, the other shot himself in the neck before being captured and may yet die. I don't think there will be much of anything going on. There is also no evidence that links them to Al Qaeda either.
I bet that devilish hacker ate rice sometimes and probably used toilet paper on a regular basis, so why not push to ban those things, too? Surely no one uses those things, or Tor, for legitimate reasons. We have got to stop allowing comfort for the wicked.
Would perceptions be different if this hacker when by the name Kitten Lover rather than Demon Killer? Should we encourage people who apparently kill Demons?
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
The good thing about TOR is that anyone can use it, and your traffic can come from the same node as someone else, so you can't identify people based on IP
The bad thing about TOR is that anyone can use it, and your traffic can come from the same node as someone else, so when someone else does something stupid, you pay the price of the ban...
Of course it's interesting that you see "BANNED" where as my work IP just get's an error saying that I'm "not allowed to use this resource" when I try to post a comment... I had always figured that what I saw at work was Slashdot's ban method, apparently it's something completely different.
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.
The solution to this problem is to setup an group of I2P outproxies inside of Japan's networks. It will take some time for Japan to catch up to current technologies, if they're only getting around to targeting Tor as late as now.
Also, is Japan trying to copy China, or something?
Dear Japanese police,
Instead of asking ISPs to block TOR because of just one hacker, I'd like to ask you to look where thousands of them are and have been working for years: Internet.
Would you mind to ask ISPs to block Internet instead?
Yours sincerelly,
HUMAN STUPIDITY
During the year I lived in China, I ran into several people whose only means of free and open Internet access was through Tor. While everyone I met only used it for Facebook and Youtube, if there ever is a democratic revolution in Iran or China, Tor will be there to help to make it possible.
If you want to help people in China, Iran, and possibility Japan, where Tor is being blocked, you can run a obfsproxy bridge to circumvent the block. There is currently a shortage of these bridges,
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/tor-calls-for-help-as-its-supply-of-bridges-falters/
so every little bit helps now. The quickest and easiest way is to setup your free Amazon EC2 account with the Instructions at the Tor Cloud Project page
https://cloud.torproject.org/
Or for a general Linux setup, [detailed instructions can be found at:
https://www.torproject.org/projects/obfsproxy-debian-instructions.html.en
NOTE: A bridge is NOT the same as an exit node. If you are just running a bridge, you are only helping people join the Tor network and are only routing a small amount of internal encrypted tor traffic, so there is no risk of getting into trouble with the authorities.
If guns don't kill people, I don't see how Tor hacks. Also, last week somebody almost killed my wife with his car, so clearly we should ban all cars.
Except on Soviet Russia exit nodes where APK impersonates YOU.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.