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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
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.
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
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.
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.
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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."
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.
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!