2 ms·

Should it be illegal for a private person to do so? If it's legal to run a single relay, what changes when you spin up more?

by ikeboy 11y ago

nitrogen 11y ago
Yes, it should. It's illegal for a private person to steal unencrypted cable, it's illegal for a private person to spin up a bunch of servers to siphon information from a corporation's computers, it's illegal for a private person to tap into someone else's unencrypted phone calls, etc.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  All of those are illegal under the CFAA, because they accessed a computer without authorization. In this case, every use of a computer was authorized. If someone's calling up random numbers and talking into them, my predicting which number they'll call and buying it, then listening to it doesn't violate any laws (although you can argue it should).
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    The CFAA has nothing to do with stealing cable or tapping phones, both of which existed (and were almost certainly illegal) before the CFAA and before digital cable or digital phone systems. Regarding buying random phone numbers, I'd say again, analogies are only useful to demonstrate the existence of an area of law in which something is legal or illegal, but not useful for designing in detail the laws governing digital/networked activities. There's not a sufficient parallel to make any decisions based on any analogy to a previous situation or technology; there's only enough parallel to prevent closing off the discussion of making privacy violations illegal by saying "it's not".
    - ikeboy 11y ago
      I think the argument I summarized in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11171344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11171344 is reasonable. In a nutshell, they say that we should apply the third party doctrine as if we're in a world without third parties. So in the tor case, if they would need to manually transfer information, then the identity of both people would be known. The basic intuition is that technology shouldn't allow more hiding. (This is a simplification, read the sources to understand the point being made.)

Should it be illegal for a private person to do so? If it's legal to run a single relay, what changes when you spin up more?

by ikeboy 11y ago

Should it be illegal for a private person to do so? If it's legal to run a single relay, what changes when you spin up more?

nitrogen 11y ago

Yes, it should. It's illegal for a private person to steal unencrypted cable, it's illegal for a private person to spin up a bunch of servers to siphon information from a corporation's computers, it's illegal for a private person to tap into someone else's unencrypted phone calls, etc.

ikeboy 11y ago
All of those are illegal under the CFAA, because they accessed a computer without authorization. In this case, every use of a computer was authorized. If someone's calling up random numbers and talking into them, my predicting which number they'll call and buying it, then listening to it doesn't violate any laws (although you can argue it should).
- nitrogen 11y ago
  The CFAA has nothing to do with stealing cable or tapping phones, both of which existed (and were almost certainly illegal) before the CFAA and before digital cable or digital phone systems. Regarding buying random phone numbers, I'd say again, analogies are only useful to demonstrate the existence of an area of law in which something is legal or illegal, but not useful for designing in detail the laws governing digital/networked activities. There's not a sufficient parallel to make any decisions based on any analogy to a previous situation or technology; there's only enough parallel to prevent closing off the discussion of making privacy violations illegal by saying "it's not".
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    I think the argument I summarized in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11171344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11171344 is reasonable. In a nutshell, they say that we should apply the third party doctrine as if we're in a world without third parties. So in the tor case, if they would need to manually transfer information, then the identity of both people would be known. The basic intuition is that technology shouldn't allow more hiding. (This is a simplification, read the sources to understand the point being made.)