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How Boing Boing Handled an FBI Subpoena Over Its Tor Exit Node
An anonymous reader writes: Cory Doctorow has posted an account of what happened when tech culture blog Boing Boing got a federal subpoena over the Tor exit node the site had been running for years. They received the subpoena in June, and the FBI demanded all logs relating to the exit node: specifically, "subscriber records" and "user information" for everybody associated with the exit node's IP address. They were also asked to testify before a federal grand jury. While they were nervous at first, the story has a happy ending. Their lawyer sent a note back to the FBI agent in charge, explaining that the IP address in question was an exit node. The agent actually looked into Tor, realized no logs were available, and cancelled the request. Doctorow considers this encouraging for anyone who's thinking about opening a new exit node: "I'm not saying that everyone who gets a federal subpoena for running a Tor exit node will have this outcome, but the only Tor legal stories that rise to the public's attention are the horrific ones. Here's a counterexample: Fed asks us for our records, we say we don't have any, fed goes away."
I'd vote you up if I had points. I got banned from BoingBoing for arguing against one of his stupid pro-piracy/anti-copyright rants. I love how "free speech" advocates become little dictators when there's a possibility that their readers might get exposed to an actual rebuttal of his dumb ideas. I've seen other people's comments censored away, as well.
I hope they crash and burn hard. I'm sure they're loving all the traffic they're getting from Slashdot now.
Hey Cory: if you're such a big free speech advocate, then why does your website censor people who argue against your pro-piracy ideas? Are you afraid that your readers will get exposed to ideas that actually contradict your poorly thought-out ones?