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Why would running a Tor exit node ever imply that the people exiting at that node are speaking on your behalf? Is a coffee shop "vouching" for you by letting y

by x1798DE 10y ago

Why would running a Tor exit node ever imply that the people exiting at that node are speaking on your behalf? Is a coffee shop "vouching" for you by letting you use its wifi? Is your ISP? And if you're a cop, why would you dispatch a SWAT team to a Tor exit node at all? You can see if the IP is on the list and if so you'll have a hell of a time proving that the traffic came from the person running it even if they did (after all, why would they even use their own IP address when you could have used Tor?). At that point, you're basically punishing a random, innocent person for the (legal) act of running an exit node.

Dolores12 10y ago
> Why would running a Tor exit node ever imply that the people exiting at that node are speaking on your behalf? If we imply that TOR exit-node owners are innocent by default, what stops me from installing TOR node, posts threatening messages and when police comes say "hey i am humble TOR node owner, look somewhere else"? > why would you dispatch a SWAT team SWAT was just an example. Whatever law enforcement agency that investigate your case. >You can see if the IP is on the list You have to know there is such thing as TOR exists & see first part of the comment.
- comex 10y ago
  > If we imply that TOR exit-node owners are innocent by default, what stops me from installing TOR node, posts threatening messages and when police comes say "hey i am humble TOR node owner, look somewhere else"? If you're savvy enough to run a Tor exit node and want to post threatening messages, why wouldn't you use Tor yourself?… But anyway, at least in the United States, everyone is "innocent by default" - that is, until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If the presence of a Tor exit node, or an open proxy, or an open Wi-Fi network, or any number of other things makes an IP address insufficient evidence by itself, well, that's too bad. It may still be sufficient evidence to launch an investigation into the owner of the Internet connection, to gather more evidence - but even then, the standard is based on the likelihood that they committed the crime, not something about incentives to run exit nodes.
  - boomboomsubban 10y ago
    >But anyway, at least in the United States, everyone is "innocent by default" The presumption of innocence only applies to the jury. Even with it, you can be arrested and the prosecutor will make the best possible case against you. It does not apply to anything that has happened in this story so far.
- x1798DE 10y ago
  > You have to know there is such thing as TOR exists & see first part of the comment. I would suggest that anyone who is in the business of identifying people based on their IP, especially for criminal matters, should be aware of Tor. Doesn't have to be every beat cop, but whatever process allows a police officer to turn "this is the IP address the suspect used" into "this is an address/person associated with that IP address" should have "Be Aware - this IP address is the endpoint of an anonymizing service and so there's really no way to associate it to a single person." Kinda like how if you are given a physical address and it turns out to be a public park or something, you think, "Oh, this is different in kind than a private house" rather than just finding whoever happens to be standing in the park and taking them down to the station for questioning.
alerighi 10y ago
Unfortunately in most countries yes, you are responsible for the traffic that exits from you IP, even if you have a public WiFi for example. Then you have to prove in a court that the traffic wasn't effectively generated by you, and good luck to explain to a judge what is a TOR exit node is, and even that, how you can identify the traffic that exits from TOR from the one generated by you on purpose ? So the best thing is, don't run a TOR exit node with a network connection registered with your name.
user5994461 10y ago
> Why would running a Tor exit node ever imply that the people exiting at that node are speaking on your behalf? Because you are allowing them to speak on your behalf by running a tor exit nodes. It's that simple.

by x1798DE 10y ago

Dolores12 10y ago

> Why would running a Tor exit node ever imply that the people exiting at that node are speaking on your behalf? If we imply that TOR exit-node owners are innocent by default, what stops me from installing TOR node, posts threatening messages and when police comes say "hey i am humble TOR node owner, look somewhere else"? > why would you dispatch a SWAT team SWAT was just an example. Whatever law enforcement agency that investigate your case. >You can see if the IP is on the list You have to know there is such thing as TOR exists & see first part of the comment.

comex 10y ago
> If we imply that TOR exit-node owners are innocent by default, what stops me from installing TOR node, posts threatening messages and when police comes say "hey i am humble TOR node owner, look somewhere else"? If you're savvy enough to run a Tor exit node and want to post threatening messages, why wouldn't you use Tor yourself?… But anyway, at least in the United States, everyone is "innocent by default" - that is, until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If the presence of a Tor exit node, or an open proxy, or an open Wi-Fi network, or any number of other things makes an IP address insufficient evidence by itself, well, that's too bad. It may still be sufficient evidence to launch an investigation into the owner of the Internet connection, to gather more evidence - but even then, the standard is based on the likelihood that they committed the crime, not something about incentives to run exit nodes.
- boomboomsubban 10y ago
  >But anyway, at least in the United States, everyone is "innocent by default" The presumption of innocence only applies to the jury. Even with it, you can be arrested and the prosecutor will make the best possible case against you. It does not apply to anything that has happened in this story so far.
x1798DE 10y ago
> You have to know there is such thing as TOR exists & see first part of the comment. I would suggest that anyone who is in the business of identifying people based on their IP, especially for criminal matters, should be aware of Tor. Doesn't have to be every beat cop, but whatever process allows a police officer to turn "this is the IP address the suspect used" into "this is an address/person associated with that IP address" should have "Be Aware - this IP address is the endpoint of an anonymizing service and so there's really no way to associate it to a single person." Kinda like how if you are given a physical address and it turns out to be a public park or something, you think, "Oh, this is different in kind than a private house" rather than just finding whoever happens to be standing in the park and taking them down to the station for questioning.

alerighi 10y ago

Unfortunately in most countries yes, you are responsible for the traffic that exits from you IP, even if you have a public WiFi for example. Then you have to prove in a court that the traffic wasn't effectively generated by you, and good luck to explain to a judge what is a TOR exit node is, and even that, how you can identify the traffic that exits from TOR from the one generated by you on purpose ? So the best thing is, don't run a TOR exit node with a network connection registered with your name.

user5994461 10y ago

> Why would running a Tor exit node ever imply that the people exiting at that node are speaking on your behalf? Because you are allowing them to speak on your behalf by running a tor exit nodes. It's that simple.