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ISPs cooperate with law enforcement and often happily give out the information for people doing illegal things on their networks. I realize that operators of To

by tensor 2y ago

ISPs cooperate with law enforcement and often happily give out the information for people doing illegal things on their networks. I realize that operators of Tor exit nodes likely can't help track people on the Tor exit nodes, but I doubt law enforcement cares, they just see it as "not helping" while they see ISPs as "helping."

Hizonner 2y ago
Courts, and even law enforcement, are actually smart enough to know that they have to enforce the laws as written and that they can't just act on their feels. At least most of the time. In many places.
- beaglesss 2y ago
  They can't say they're breaking the law but as long as they don't admit to wrongdoing they can accomplish the goal of picking up pretty much anyone for something.. It's best to assume the government is a hostile, rabid actor who will seize any reachable assets and your freedom at any point they wish and proceed accordingly.
- hnbad 2y ago
  FWIW this is more of a concern if you expect the case to go to court. In the US most "criminals" accept plea bargains without a court ever seeing the case. So statistically you can likely "act on your feels" as long as the suspect does not think they can prove you wrong in a court of law (whether it's because they're guilty, because they don't fully understand the law or because they can't afford the time and money involved in a court process).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
varenc 2y ago
The core question here is w whether law enforcement actually believes, incorrectly, that the exit node operators are being intentionally unhelpful, or if they understand that due to Tor’s design the exit node operators have no valuable information but the police continue to raid them anyway as a scare tactic.
- aniviacat 2y ago
  > The core question here is w whether law enforcement actually believes, incorrectly, that the exit node operators are being intentionally unhelpful They could keep logs, but they choose not to. They are intentionally unhelpful. The reason they aren't keeping logs is not for the privacy of others. If I run an exit node, I know I am not reading the logs to garner personal information of others. And unless someone hacks my server and goes through the logs, which is extremely unlikely, noone else will read the logs either. The only one reading the logs would be law enforcement. By not keeping logs, you are intentionally hindering law enforcement.
  - alasdair_ 2y ago
    >By not keeping logs, you are intentionally hindering law enforcement. This is why I keep a diary indicating every single person I've ever interacted with, along with the date, time and place. It's a pain to do so and it takes up a lot of storage space and it makes people wary about interacting with me but I'd certainly never want to hinder law enforcement.
    - aniviacat 2y ago
      Unless I'm misunderstanding your comment, you are arguing in bad faith. It is not a "pain" to set up logging. Most non-tor proxies implement logging. It would be a completely reasonable task for the tor project to implement logging by default. No one would be any more "wary" to interact with your tor node. Trusting your node not to log would be foolish anyway. So whether you make known that you are logging, or whether you claim not to log (but might secretly do anyway) doesn't make much of a difference. The storage space a log takes up is negligible (unless you keep logs for unreasonably long times) on anything but the smallest systems. And since running a tor node takes quite a bit of processing power, you won't be running your node on a system that can't handle a few megabytes of logs.
    - gretch 2y ago
      >It's a pain to do so and it takes up a lot of storage space The perspective is that in order for these actions to be ethical, you must log the traffic, or you should not bother setting up the node. It's irresponsible to setup the node (which takes some amount of effort) but not do the precautionary part which makes it ethical. You can believe otherwise if you'd like, but this is an ethical framework applied to many other parts of our society and it's the thing that sets you apart from the ISPs, and generally it's the thing accepted by the public at large.

by tensor 2y ago

Hizonner 2y ago

Courts, and even law enforcement, are actually smart enough to know that they have to enforce the laws as written and that they can't just act on their feels. At least most of the time. In many places.

beaglesss 2y ago
They can't say they're breaking the law but as long as they don't admit to wrongdoing they can accomplish the goal of picking up pretty much anyone for something.. It's best to assume the government is a hostile, rabid actor who will seize any reachable assets and your freedom at any point they wish and proceed accordingly.
hnbad 2y ago
FWIW this is more of a concern if you expect the case to go to court. In the US most "criminals" accept plea bargains without a court ever seeing the case. So statistically you can likely "act on your feels" as long as the suspect does not think they can prove you wrong in a court of law (whether it's because they're guilty, because they don't fully understand the law or because they can't afford the time and money involved in a court process).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

varenc 2y ago

The core question here is w whether law enforcement actually believes, incorrectly, that the exit node operators are being intentionally unhelpful, or if they understand that due to Tor’s design the exit node operators have no valuable information but the police continue to raid them anyway as a scare tactic.

aniviacat 2y ago
> The core question here is w whether law enforcement actually believes, incorrectly, that the exit node operators are being intentionally unhelpful They could keep logs, but they choose not to. They are intentionally unhelpful. The reason they aren't keeping logs is not for the privacy of others. If I run an exit node, I know I am not reading the logs to garner personal information of others. And unless someone hacks my server and goes through the logs, which is extremely unlikely, noone else will read the logs either. The only one reading the logs would be law enforcement. By not keeping logs, you are intentionally hindering law enforcement.
- alasdair_ 2y ago
  >By not keeping logs, you are intentionally hindering law enforcement. This is why I keep a diary indicating every single person I've ever interacted with, along with the date, time and place. It's a pain to do so and it takes up a lot of storage space and it makes people wary about interacting with me but I'd certainly never want to hinder law enforcement.
  - aniviacat 2y ago
    Unless I'm misunderstanding your comment, you are arguing in bad faith. It is not a "pain" to set up logging. Most non-tor proxies implement logging. It would be a completely reasonable task for the tor project to implement logging by default. No one would be any more "wary" to interact with your tor node. Trusting your node not to log would be foolish anyway. So whether you make known that you are logging, or whether you claim not to log (but might secretly do anyway) doesn't make much of a difference. The storage space a log takes up is negligible (unless you keep logs for unreasonably long times) on anything but the smallest systems. And since running a tor node takes quite a bit of processing power, you won't be running your node on a system that can't handle a few megabytes of logs.
  - gretch 2y ago
    >It's a pain to do so and it takes up a lot of storage space The perspective is that in order for these actions to be ethical, you must log the traffic, or you should not bother setting up the node. It's irresponsible to setup the node (which takes some amount of effort) but not do the precautionary part which makes it ethical. You can believe otherwise if you'd like, but this is an ethical framework applied to many other parts of our society and it's the thing that sets you apart from the ISPs, and generally it's the thing accepted by the public at large.