73 ms·
Man found guilty of child porn because he ran a Tor exit node
- berlincount 3y agoYeah I've had police ring with a search warrant for the same reason. Yay. Fun.
- phyzome 3y agoMods, please add "(2012)" to title...
- neilv 3y agoOr insert something like "[in 2012]". It's a new article about a case a decade ago. IMHO, this happening today would be more alarming, since Tor today is a bit more mainstream. The first thought that came to mind when I saw the title is that perhaps there's some new push against Tor.
- bendbro 3y agoI'm so happy to read the glowies were unable to extradite him to the US. Hard working nice people Hard working mean people Local politicians ------------------------ Property criminals Violent criminals Government apparatchiks MAPS Federal politicians
- devwastaken 3y ago"I rented a server in Poland and someone uploaded CP to an Austrian image hoster. They reported it to the Austrian police, which contacted the ISP, which gave them my WHMCS login IP and then subpoenaed UPC Austria for my address, then queried the weapons registry." The FBI method of fabricating criminal charges. Criminals sleep comfortably knowing their governments are more interested in playing whack a mole for political image than effectively doing their job. Notice how in Austria they aren't charging Google, or Facebook, or any other entities where such data passes through every day.
- sedatk 3y ago> I was charged and convicted with the support, not the ownership. There is ownership, sale, distribution for no monetary gain, and support of general distribution. The last is what I got and the lowest of all. Did they also charge the ISP's involved in transferring those network packets?
- dang 3y agoRelated ongoing thread: Why Host in Kosovo? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36837690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36837690 - July 2023 (61 comments)
- Uptrenda 3y ago>Someone used the same exit to hack a NATO facility in Poland, which deals with chemical and biological weapons. Disarming, etc. COVID origin story confirmed! Joking, but that's like something from a movie. I think its really awesome that William was willing to stand for what he believed. TOR is so important for free speech and exit nodes are critical for scaling the system. It just sucks how much his life was disrupted from this. By the way: there's some very interesting activity happening on Tor at the moment where it seems that overwhelmingly people have decided that they are going to police their own speech to remove CP. In the early days hidden wiki had dedicated pages for that shit. But it's not a thing any more. Furthermore, it seems like hacktivists are actively making sure that the Tor ecosystem stays healthy. Really fascinating because in theory they could just do whatever they liked.
- VWWHFSfQ 3y agoMy company blocks all known Tor IP addresses. We simply don't have the capacity (or patience) to deal with the 99% burpsuite spam and abuse that originates from these servers.
- Cypher 3y agoSo what about those that own the cables between the nodes that served the files?
- treeman79 3y agoBunch of high level politicians were flying to Epstein’s island raping underage girls. Only person convicted is a woman. Amazing how there is a protected class of wealthy.
- 10g1k 3y agoOk, so if one is guilty of transmitting or carrying illegal content merely through providing the medium of transmission, wouldn't that mean the ISPs involved, and the owners of the telephone cables, are just as guilty? Wouldn't any postman, and for example the USPS, be guilty if a private individual posted something illegal?
- voakbasda 3y agoAbsolutely, if they applied the laws evenly. Which they don’t. Ever.
- KETpXDDzR 3y agoOne of the concerning problems with the current judicative system is that most judges have no idea about modern technology because of their age. My father asked me today if I'm also working on "AI"... I told him that artificial intelligence doesn't exist and that it's a hype about software that's really good at imitating intelligence.
- totetsu 3y agoIs this post from 10 years ago being promoted by Reddit bots and made its way here?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago> In Austria
- hackan 3y agoYup, had the same experience, also got raided, but unlike him, I got exonerated :) No conviction whatsoever. I had obviously nothing like files nor logs nor whatsoever, and like him the raid was not really related to that, but instead a fight against the government against e-voting. It was certainly quite a ride...
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoThis guy doesn’t sound innocent. It sounds like he just kept his shit offshore.
- Alfagun74 3y agoMoral of the Story: Run your Exit Node in your bathroom and you should be fine
- teddyh 3y ago“The law was changed a few weeks later to include private persons and sole traders as protected lsps, not just companies, but they had to convict me.”
- zer8k 3y ago> If convicted, this could land me in jail for 6 to 10 years. The 6 to 10 years is the least of his worries. The guy will be labeled a chomo and probably killed as a result. All for running a Tor exit node. What a time to be alive.
- pessimizer 3y ago> probably killed as a result This is a violent fantasy. I'd estimate that 99.9% of child molesters who go to prison walk out alive and relatively uninjured.
- cge 3y agoThis case was in Austria, not the US, and was quite some time ago (early 2010s). He was charged under a law criminalizing "support of general distribution", not possession. He was sentenced to probation, and left the country.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoI’ve never seen the term chomo before and I’m curious about its origin. Is it “homo” but with ‘c’ for child tacked on the front, or is it Spanish? Or something else, like a portmanteau of child molester?
- hotpotamus 3y agoI remember it because SNL had a skit where The Rock invented a "robo chomo"[0]. Given that SNL used it, I thought it was a pretty mainstream term. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4
- zer8k 3y agoThe way I learned it is that it is a portmanteau of child molester. The extra "o" in the middle is used because "chmo" is hard to pronounce.
- zgluck 3y agoI noticed they mentioned “logs” of you talking about hosting CP, can you elaborate? They took a bunch of IRC logs where I stated what I can and can’t host at a web hosting provider I owned. The logs do exist but are taken out of context. The "reporting" here is at the level of a 90s scene mag.
- superkuh 3y agoTrue enough. But even this level of detail and research is far beyond what the "authorities" displayed in this case.
- zgluck 3y agoHave you read the court's decision? If not, how would you be able to tell?
- hengheng 3y agoA lot of wink-wink edgyness on both sides. Almost as if there are no mature people sharing their views.
- cf100clunk 3y agoThe authorities in Styria, south Austria, charged him: https://web.archive.org/web/20141004142101/http://raided4tor.cryto.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20141004142101/http://raided4tor...
- rvnx 3y agoQuite logical, same in France and likely many countries; if you run a Tor exit node (or any type of open proxy), you get visited by the police if someone does something wrong on your exit node. Otherwise what could happen is that you run a Tor node and use it as an excuse for any crime you do.
- DennisP 3y agoI'm trying to imagine a plausible reason to (a) run a Tor exit node, but also (b) not actually use Tor for online nefariousness, and I'm coming up blank. I don't think running a Tor node as an excuse is a real scenario. (edit: emphasis) Edit2: Jeez guys. I support Tor. I'm saying anyone who runs an exit node is also going to use Tor for anything that might get them in trouble, not do those thing in the clear and "use Tor as an excuse" as suggested above. That's a silly scenario and a poor justification for criminalizing Tor exit nodes.
- cs02rm0 3y agoAny privacy advocate would do (a). There's lots of reasons to do (b) if you don't trust the government of the country you're in, which seems quite reasonable in a lot of countries around the world.
- DennisP 3y agoOf course, but who would do (a) without also using Tor for anything that could get them in trouble?
- monsieurbanana 3y agoThat's not how Tor works, you don't need to run a tor exit to use it. If you were actually doing something nefarious and using tor for anonymity, running an exit from the same ip doesn't sound extremely smart.
- swores 3y agoYou're misunderstanding the comment you're replying to. They're not saying you need an exit node to do bad stuff over Tor, they're saying that anybody with the technical ability and knowledge to run a tor exit mode would also choose to use Tor for any bad stuff, and that therefore it seems unlikely anyone who runs a tor exit node would also do bad stuff directly traceable to their own IP.
- schroeding 3y agoWow, the website of his hosting company[1] is, eh, extremly honest: > Further, as Kosovo is an extremely corrupt country, we are able to bribe both executive and judicative as well as getting information about court orders and raids before execution, enabling us to move servers out of the affected location, protecting our clients in any situation. Our excellent Serbian connections enable us to also move servers cross-border and play "ping pong" between both countries, essentially keeping content online forever. [1] https://basehost.eu/ https://basehost.eu/
- decremental 3y ago[dead]
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoWouldn't full disclosure make them, in some sense, honest? Also, you have just condemned entire nations of people, like those who lived under Soviet domination, where bribery became custom, because if you wanted to accomplish anything, you had to bribe the people involved. Just got married and want an apartment for your new family? You could submit a housing application, but it might bubble up to the top of the queue by the time you hit retirement. A bribe given to the woman in the office handling the paperwork can help grease the track. Have a totally curable disease that, without intervention, can kill you? Well, you could have your name added to a long wait list and have your treatment started next year, or you could "gift" your state-pensioned doctor a cognac, some luxury chocolates, and an envelop containing a "tip" to shorten the wait time. Need to travel abroad? Well, guess what. The passport stays with the government for "safe keeping". They might not be in a hurry to let you leave, just yet. However, with a few enticing arrangements and exchanges, you'll be on the next plane headed over the Iron Curtain. In other words, I'm not convinced bribes are a categorically wrong thing for someone to offer. To receive, on the other hand...
- barrysteve 3y agoHe condemned accurately. The soviet system sounds pointlessly overloaded with middle men. Why not abandon the "official system with middle men bribes" and descend all the way into mafia families and protection rackets? No matter the empathy I have for the suffering. What is the point of offering a bribe, to bully the system, in the same way the receiver intends to break the rules? Just tell the truth and say the system sucks. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours done en masse, hardens society for everyone and then you have to bribe, like the Soviets did.
- pstuart 3y agoIt's almost like they don't want us to run exit nodes... This man's plight is exactly the reason I won't.
- wkat4242 3y agoYep I'm sure setting an example contributed a lot here. This decision is not going to stop exit nodes (and the worst stuff on tor probably doesn't even use exit nodes but hidden services) but it keeps Austrian IPs off the map making them seem a country in control. The same way companies go crazy mitigating ratings on bitsight but don't care about fixing real root problems because they're not visible anywhere. Keeping your front yard clean is a big thing in IT. In our company our corporate network is not detected by bitsight but our guest wifi is. Meaning one bad apple in a handful of guests can give our entire multinational a bad rating. So what did they do? Make sure bitsight actually shows our real endpoints and makes an accurate result? Doing some rudimentary checks on the guest portal to make sure outdated systems can't connect? Only allowing VPN access on the guest wifi? Nope they just turned off the guest wifi so that contractors (who still need to do the work we pay them to do) plug in the corp network against policy, or use the coffee shop wifi next door. Bitsight rating fixed, problem hidden but not actually solved and in fact worsened by people connecting unmanaged gear to the corp network as guest. All the while gloating in the A rating which is completely meaningless.
- jaylittle 3y agoI stopped running a Tor non-exit node from home a few years back, because a lot of websites and platforms blacklist any IP associated with Tor. I couldn't actually watch anything on Hulu for years (though they were still happy to take my money, which I refused to give them) because of this. Running a tor node is a thankless thing one can choose to do. Nevertheless I did for years. I don't do it anymore.
- ilyt 3y agoI tried, after 2 months my VPS provider basically said "either you close it down or we close you down" as they were getting requests to take it down (IIRC DMCA or other bullshit like that)
- haakon 3y agoI still do it, and have been for over a decade, and I'm rarely bothered by it. I think I get a few more captchas because of it, and I can't load https://www.investopedia.com https://www.investopedia.com, which I would frequently like to, but that's it.
- sillysaurusx 3y agoThank you for operating it as long as you did.
- chrsig 3y ago> Running a tor node is a thankless thing one can choose to do. Nevertheless I did for years. I don't do it anymore. It's hard to determine tor's net-value to society, since it's such a double bladed sword. I'm not sure it's something deserving of thanks.
- Sterm 3y agoThis is the point where you need to check your privilege. I used tor when living in a dictatorship to find out things which would destroy the moral fabric of society, such as information about lgbtqia+ issues, what condoms are, pop music and news that the government didn't want to spread.
- peytoncasper 3y agoWhy don’t we put Tor nodes in space? Seems like a few hundred micro satellites could circumvent sovereignty this way.
- sunbum 3y agoHow would they get network? Ground stations would just blacklist them.
- wkat4242 3y agoGround stations aren't commodities. You'd need to build your own just like any existing sat network. I agree it's a pipe dream. Launch costs are too high and nobody will approve this.
- treyd 3y agoYou still need downlinks with this. You could have some base stations run by amateurs, but that paints a target on their backs in a similar way running a Tor node already does.
- ghaff 3y agoAs with Sealand/HavenCo and international waters/micronations more broadly. Even if no country with guns chooses to take direct action, it takes very little--if they care enough--to cut off supplies and any meaningful communications.
- mikae1 3y agoDoes anyone remember https://wired.com/2007/01/the-pirate-bay-2/ https://wired.com/2007/01/the-pirate-bay-2/ ?
- nickstinemates 3y agoYes, until recently I worked for one of the principals of Sealand. Small world.
- luvthis 3y ago[dead]
- chad1n 3y agoI'd avoid hosting a tor exit node at all costs, considering that they are a lot of bad actors on tor. Even some 3 letter agents can host cp on your tor sites and then accuse you.
- lucasap 3y agoIf you become an ISP (with your AS) then it is less of a concern (in the US) since ISP have some protections. Emerald Onion [0] is an example of doing this. Actually in their faq [1], they state: "Digital Millennium Copyright Act Safe Harbor The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) offers four safe harbors to protect ISPs from copyright liability for the acts of their users, provided that certain requirements are met (17 U.S.C. § 512). Emerald Onion is a section 512(a) “conduit” provider." If you want to read the section it is here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 (it is generally about "Limitations on liability relating to material online" not just copyright) [0] https://emeraldonion.org/ https://emeraldonion.org/ [1] https://emeraldonion.org/faq/ https://emeraldonion.org/faq/
- palata 3y ago> Even some 3 letter agents can host cp on your tor sites and then accuse you. Well they can probably put illegal material in your apartment and then accuse you.
- wkat4242 3y agoYes but you're unlikely to be on their radar, a lot more likely though when you're running exit nodes and your IP comes up in investigations.
- palata 3y agoSorry, but I don't think it's quite how it works. Because you show up in an investigation doesn't mean that the police will frame you.
- rolph 3y agoits also possible to mail it to you under a "controlled delivery" investigation
- thallavajhula 3y agoThis is similar to the first Episode of the "Mr. Robot" tv show. wow.
- wkat4242 3y agoNot really. That person in the show didn't run an exit node but an entire commercial content network. The person in this case has no involvement in creating or hosting content, he's just involved in transporting traffic (any kind) because he believes in anonimity. His only motive is a principle, not money and he certainly doesn't agree with the content. I loved that scene by the way, where he disregards the changes of emotional state in his target and then just explains he's doing this in person because his shrink wants him to interact more with people. A really super strong first 10 minutes of a truly excellent show. Well except season 2 IMO, that was too drawn out for me.
- sillysaurusx 3y agoThe eternal struggle. Information wants to be free, and then people use those freedoms to do the most screwed up things imaginable, and people like this pay the price. It’s a damn shame how the original cyberpunk dream played out. We could’ve had a world where companies couldn’t do anything about people using their ideas. Instead we get one where you can’t even be anonymous without rubbing elbows with child predators. It’s surprising how much anonymity and the subject at hand are correlated. In my 20s I liked to explore, as I’m sure many of you do too. I once met someone in the Whonix community who wanted to nix google maps entirely; he spent a lot of time downloading maps and trying to make a way to view them locally, which I think is going to be prescient one day. It already is in many parts of the world — you don’t have cell service, so you can’t just pull up google maps. Nowadays starlink solves that problem, but back then it wasn’t clear that we’d ever be able to have maps at our fingertips regardless of internet access. This was back in the era of that poor CNET reporter that got lost with his family in the mountains precisely because of no maps, and ended up dying to exposure when he went to get help. Never leave your car. I found all of this fascinating. What a project! Make all of google maps accessible right from your phone, with no internet. I briefly fell in love with that community. Ultimately what drove me away was the literal flood of child porn that was always right next to anything to do with tor, whonix, or anonymity in general. I have a pretty high tolerance for “operating in gray areas,” like this guy. But one of the tragedies of the cyberpunk dream is that the entire scene has been coopted by cp. In some sense cp is the ultimate test of anonymity, since you’ll be thrown in prison pretty much instantly if caught. So perhaps it’s no surprise that it’s the most common and pervasive result of anonymity, but it sure is a shame.
- throwaway914 3y agoThere are many, many pedophiles out there. I'm also convinced of a conspiracy theory that a lot of dark web traffic and hosts are created/operated by secret parts of the gov to de-legitimize the need for anonymity. I believe this because it would be too easy with the access to that material and no oversight. Just muddy the waters so nothing in there looks worth protecting. </tinfoil-hat>
- ip26 3y ago
- rolph 3y agoi think this was more than CP. "What do you do now? I left Austria and now work for a German company in IT, and have a data center in Kosovo… hosting grey area things there. Warez primarily. Also, I do want to add that I have more backstory. The CP was not the only reason for the raid. What do you mean? Someone used the same exit to hack a NATO facility in Poland, which deals with chemical and biological weapons. Disarming, etc. The US tried to extradite me from Croatia in 2017, with not much more info than national security. They lost their case as I am married to a local and cannot be extradited outside the EU."
- praptak 3y agoCommon knowledge from when Tor just started was to limit your exit traffic to countries which cannot extradite you. And definitely block your own country.
- burtekd 3y agoCan someone explain the unrevokable legacy IP addresses?
- techsupporter 3y agoBefore the current regional Internet registry system (ARIN, RIPE, LACNIC, AfriNIC, APNIC) began, organizations (and some individuals) were "given" IP addresses by emailing IANA or Jon Postel directly. Assignments that predate the RIRs are called "legacy" assignments and are, theoretically, not subject to the RIR system because those who received those addresses only agreed to the terms as they existed at the time. Those terms were usually "you asked, here you go." In practice, legacy assignments are left alone because no one wants to go to the trouble of arguing with big entities about it. (Most of the /8 assignments people gripe about as being wasteful are assigned to entities with lawyers, guns, or both.) People who have a handful of small legacy assignments get the protection of this because it's especially not worth the effort to say "well, if all you have is a /22 legacy, yours is now part of the RIR system, deal with it". Especially since the only recourse would be to allocate it to someone else and wouldn't that be fun. But no IP address is actually "unrevokable." All you have to do is piss off a handful of the Tier 1s or a slightly larger number of Tier 2s and you'll quickly find your "bulletproof" addresses quite useless.
- burtekd 3y agoThanks. The "unrevokable" part sounded fishy, but I get it now.
- croes 3y agoBack then in Germany they charged the people who reported CP.
- jeroenhd 3y agoLooks like there's more going on than what the title implies about the Tor exit node: > What do you do now? >§I left Austria and now work for a German company in IT, and have a data center in Kosovo… hosting grey area things there. Warez primarily. > Also, I do want to add that I have more backstory. The CP was not the only reason for the raid. He goes on to mention someone using the exit node to try to hack a NATO facility. That said, the "confiscate first, come up with a fitting crime later" approach countries take on a whim are deeply troubling. It sounds like they have had their suspicions against this man for a while (not without reason, it seems) and saw the child porn report as a chance to pounce on him, but later found out they didn't have as strong a case as they might have wished.
- colechristensen 3y agoIt’s often more like “this dude is responsible for dozens of things, three of them are really serious, but this one is a really easy conviction” Same reason why you saw organized crime figures convicted for tax evasion, that wasn’t really the big concern but it got the job done.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago> That said, the "confiscate first, come up with a fitting crime later" approach countries take on a whim are deeply troubling. Nah. It's not like it was a legitimate homebrew forum or something and someone backdoored it to hack NATO -- it was a warez organization that might have had CP on it too. It managed to stay under the radar until someone did something to get the attention of the authorities.
- tamimio 3y ago>By law they were right as the law only protected registered companies, So basically to protect yourself running an exit node, register a company, preferably offshore or not within X jurisdiction.
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoThe more I learn the more I realise that this has been the case for a long time. Protections for companies are greater, and create more hurdles for law enforcement, than protections for individuals.
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoCorporations have more human rights than humans do!
- onetimeusename 3y agoSomeone used the same exit to hack a NATO facility in Poland, which deals with chemical and biological weapons. Disarming, etc. The US tried to extradite me from Croatia in 2017, with not much more info than national security. They lost their case as I am married to a local and cannot be extradited outside the EU. So once again the "think of the children" motive is used to cover for intelligence interests.
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoAlways, and in all ways
- whimsicalism 3y ago*not in the US
- linsomniac 3y agoMy BIL used to work CP with the DHS, a tech going in heavy with the first wave to secure devices. I asked him if he had ever run into Tor exits, he said no, but they did sometimes run into people with unsecured wireless that had been used by third parties and once it was clear that was what happened it was pretty much dropped. I'm sure they would have ways to deal with people leaving their WiFi open as a way of camouflaging their activities... He also said that one thing they're usually do if there are multiple people in the house is sit them all down on the couch and say "We are here because someone has been downloading CP", and often everyone would turn and look at one person.
- insickness 3y ago>everyone would turn and look at one person So the person everyone thinks would do it is pronounced guilty. I don't see any way that could go horribly wrong.
- toby- 3y agoIt at least gives you an idea of where might be fruitful to begin your investigation...
- linsomniac 3y agoThat's likely the starting place for the investigation, not the end.
- adastra22 3y ago[flagged]
- colechristensen 3y agoI don’t know how you think the courts work but your roommates looking at you does not end up convicting anybody. Used as perhaps part of justifying probable cause or convincing people to say enough to do a more thorough search, sure.
- Sporktacular 3y agoSo he as guns in his bedroom and 3 more guns in his safe along with a machete (all apparently legal). Not in Mollenbeek or northeastern Paris, but near Graz. Just your typical guy then. Running TOR exits are a noble thing to do but people like this damage TOR's reputation. And while there doesn't seem to be proof he intentionally got involved in CP, a smart pedophile probably would set up an exit node just for plausible deniability.
- hackinthebochs 3y agoAnyone actually viewing CP would likely have traces of it on their computer. Just running an exit node isn't going to save you.
- Sporktacular 3y agoI'd imagine someone that savvy is familiar with encrypted VMs etc. or maybe just hiding their computer.
- woodpanel 3y agoI‘m still amazed how the security agencies pulled it off, to have the ultimate honeypot, a digitized crime scene masquerading as a market place auto-incriminating endless amounts of people. A Kompromat-Miner. Speaking of miners, it‘s not like they are at the same risk as tor node operators. Not. At. All… https://gizmodo.com/child-pornography-that-researchers-found-in-the-blockch-1823927566 https://gizmodo.com/child-pornography-that-researchers-found...
- jstummbillig 3y agoNo, that is not why he was found guilty. He was found guilty, because running a Tor exit node is not sufficient defense against potential child porn violations. That's good. Because if not every child porn offender could do just that.
- jeroenhd 3y agoThat actually sounds like a pretty smart plan for pedos. They'll just need to make sure not to keep any of their trash on their own computers, which means they'd need to remember some pretty long onion addresses, but it would probably work as well. Luckily most pedos are not smart enough to do more than basic disk encryption.
- kristopolous 3y agoThis kind of stuff has happened many times before. I did a video about "the dark web" a couple years ago where I talked about people on zeronet and freenet getting snagged because of potentially the contents of their cache store. It's made for a non technical audience https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMJlQU9TDQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMJlQU9TDQ
- anigbrowl 3y agoMight be worth adding (in 2012/Austria) to the title. Few people understood what Tor was back then.
- puffyengineer 3y agoGood.
- npteljes 3y agoHow?
- DoItToMe81 3y agoWhat are the aforementioned "taken out of context" IRC logs? Very curious to see if they were painting the bullseye around the arrow here, or if he actually said he'd host CP.
- RyanAdamas 3y agoI was always standoffish of Freenet for this kind of reason.