Man Found Guilty of Child Porn, Because He Ran a Tor Exit Node::undefined
Props to all the volunteers who have the balls to run an exit node. It is so much more to deal with than running a middle node
Man Found Guilty of Child Porn, Because He Ran a Tor Exit Node
Submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
PrivateOnions@lemmy.world 1 year ago
housepanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com 1 year ago
This is why I won’t do anything of the sort. With the increasingly authoritarian state that Amurica is turning into, I will tread very carefully. Including using VPN. I don’t know much about Tor and perhaps I should learn more but my understanding is the traffic is largely plain text and not encrypted. Please correct me if I am wrong.
BadRS@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s encrypted, encrypted many times over, it’s completely anonymous… as long as you’re staying inside the network. An exit node connects to the regular internet and that’s what’s going to start showing up on logs. This was completely secure for the people actually dealing in cp.
I can’t believe this stuck, it’s the equivalent of arresting a business owner because someone distributed cp while connected to their Wi-Fi.
wackster_fapster@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
CP laws (in the US and probably other places) fall under a doctrine called strict liability, which basically means that you’re guilty regardless of intent or even knowledge of an offense.
Jamie@jamie.moe 1 year ago
The high majority of websites are HTTPS, which means that the contents of requests are end to end encrypted. Technically if it’s just HTTP, it’s plaintext, but basically no sites operate outside of HTTPS anymore.
All that stuff about everything you do being in the clear is outdated, and basically just VPN propaganda. The only parts of typical web browsing that aren’t encrypted are DNS resolutions, but DoH and encrypted DNS are starting to be a thing. In which case, your ISP/gov will know you’re accessing your bank’s site, but not what you’re doing on there because everything else is encrypted.
Tl;Dr: Everything being plaintext is really outdated and is basically VPN propaganda. The majority of network traffic for most users is end to end encrypted already.
housepanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com 1 year ago
That is not completely true. Often the payload is encrypted but not the metadata. It is the metadata that usually is the cause of privacy issues.
astral_avocado@programming.dev 1 year ago
For is largely plain text
Lol maybe do the barest amount of researching before commenting on something you know nothing about?
Blamemeta@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It was Australia
nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I don’t care if he was guilty or if the government whatever, the post title makes me sick already.
dunestorm@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This is insane! It’s like prosecuting a postman for delivering child porn content to a customer.
tvbusy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I read in one of VPS rental service Discord that someone rented a VPS to run tor exit node and HDDs of the server were confiscated without prior notice.
Raisin8659@monyet.cc 1 year ago
They convicted him on “supporting the transfer of underage pornography”, i.e. he ran an exit node that “allowed” the upload of CP to an Austrian image hoster. Apparently, he wasn’t protected because he ran the exit as an individual, not a registered company. Most likely, they checked who uploaded the images, and found his IP address, which became the basis for convicting him. He obviously didn’t have any of the materials because all those stuffs were encrypted on transit.
He mentioned that law that was used to prosecute him was changed a few weeks later to protect individuals as well. He apparently now ran Tor under an offshore company.
In summary, from what he said, he just happened to run an unrestricted exit node that some people used to upload CP.
Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I mean… that is the big issue with things like tor and the decentralized youtube alternative everyone wants.
You either need INCREDIBLY strict moderation, or you actually think it is sane to say things like “he just happened to run an unrestricted exit node that some people used to upload CP”
Tools like tor are INCREDIBLY useful for avoiding government suppression (even if there are quite a few questions regarding how private things actually are and how easy it is to compromise…). But I personally can’t support anything where “Oh well, I guess I accidentally supported the proliferation of CSAM”.
Like, the joke back in the day was always that if you ran an unsecured FTP server, russian porn would magically appear. And I knew a few people in undergrad who did that because of “the lolz”. And then they actually saw what was on their server and pretty much burned those drives and never went back. And while there are theoretical benefits to having public usable drop sites with minimal tracking… I am gonna more than side eye anyone who knowingly does that.
Quacksalber@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This is an issue on Lemmy as well, one that very few so far seem to have wisened up to. If you host a server and federate it, your server will pull, store and display the content your users are watching for all to see. So you could be on the hook for distributing illegal material if you don’t preemptively defederate from instances potentially hosting content that is illegal for you to possess.
MaxVoltage@lemmy.world 1 year ago
dude is innocent man.
AgentCorgi@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Does he/people get paid for running the exit node?
Raisin8659@monyet.cc 1 year ago
There are 7,000+ Tor relays, and 2,000+ bridges being run by entities including individuals, orgs, corporations, and most likely governments. (metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html) So, the answer is yes, no, and something in between. He himself didn’t say, but the article portrayed him of being an individual who believed in free speech, an activity which Tor does help support.