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From page 46: > However, the Court FINDS that any such subjective expectation of privacy - if one even existed in this case - is not objectively reasonable. SA
by pera 10y ago
From page 46:
> However, the Court FINDS that any such subjective expectation of privacy - if one even existed in this case - is not objectively reasonable. SA Alfin testified that when a user connects to the Tor network, he or she must disclose his or her real IP address to the first Tor node with which he or she connects. This fact, coupled with the Tor Project's own warning that the first server can see "[t]his IP address is using Tor," destroys any expectation of privacy in a Tor user's IP address.
I strongly disagree with this conclusion: the only logical conclusion one can make is that the defendant didn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy of he or she participating in the Tor network. But Tor doesn't anonymize users by magically hiding IP addresses but by making the actual origin of a request unknowable. Tor users do have a reasonable expectation of privacy of their IP addresses not being disclosed as the actual origin of some communication.
So no, in my opinion the court decision is not reasonable at all. And by the way, I find the analogy of Tor anonymizing users by "masking" IP addresses, problematic, at least.
- rayiner 10y agoTor doesn't make your IP address unknowable. There is still a node out there that knows your public IP address and can send packets to you. That's what removes the 4th amendment protection.
- ScottBurson 10y agoSuch a node exists, that's true, but this is what the mathematicians would call a non-constructive existence proof: you know it exists but you have no idea how to find it.
- colejohnson66 10y agoWhich is plain ridiculous. If I were to move away from everyone and let only one person know my new address so they could forward my mail, I'd have no expectation of privacy because /someone/ knows my real address? If we were to extend it so I changed my name and had a network of people forward my mail to someone else with a different name, then that last person still knows my address and real name. That's exactly what Tor does. It's explicit purpose is for privacy!
- rayiner 10y agoPrivacy under the 4th amendment is "underwear drawer" privacy. It doesn't just mean "stuff I don't want the government to know." Tor exposes your IP address to multiple totally random nodes on the public Internet. That's not "underwear drawer private."
- MichaelBurge 10y agoIt wouldn't count unless maybe that person were your spouse or attorney. Your legal protections sometimes extend to those(though I don't know know this to be true in this example). At least in Oregon, you're required to have your current address on your state id card or driver's license. You need those to get a bank account or for many other services. You also need it to be updated for voter registration. And if you own a business, often your address will be on the record. So your current address would likely not be protected even if you took all those steps.
- pera 10y agoI think you misunderstood what I wrote ("making the actual origin of a request unknowable"): of course there is a node that knows your IP address, but no node knows both the actual origin and destination (not even the user who generated the request in the case of hidden services) in any communication inside the network. The objectively reasonable expectation of privacy is in who, from all the IP addresses that are part of the network, is initiating a communication. Who is entering into a polling place is also "public", yet nobody knows who made certain vote.