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Is that the horseman we're giving up our rights for today?

lolinder 2y ago
Your right to knowingly run a service that is used by people to kill other people while never having to interact with the consequences of that decision? I'm not suggesting people shouldn't be able to run a Tor exit node. I'm suggesting that people who run Tor exit nodes should occasionally have to a deal with a subpoena that says "your exit node was used by a criminal to hurt people in ${these ways} and we require any information you have to help apprehend the attacker." I don't want to deprive anyone of the right to make a moral decision, but I do want them to feel the weight of the full import of that decision.
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  If it is moral for the US government to create Tor, it is moral to use it. Sure, it may be it’s a tragedy of the commons, but there’s no individual moral accountability or responsibility for those running Tor because of things other people do or don’t do on it. That’s outside anyone’s ability to control anyway.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Nursie 2y ago
    > there’s no individual moral accountability or responsibility Of course there is. If I am deciding whether to dedicate resources, money and time to running a service which - a) Helps dissidents in authoritarian regimes communicate freely and b) Enables bad actors to send threats and/or move CSAM around Then that is absolutely a moral choice I need to make. It's not outside your control, you get to decide whether or not to provide the service.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Your right to knowingly run a service that is used by people to kill other people while never having to interact with the consequences of that decision? Can you name a product or service for which this is not the case? Militaries use general purpose software to design weapons. Murderers use vehicles and transit systems. We don't expect the government to harass the makers of cutlery because they provided a product used in a mugging.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    I think that any creator of any tool should be faced on a regular basis with the harm that that tool causes and have to make the call on a regular basis if it's still worth it.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      So steel workers should get a subpoena they have no effective means to respond to on a regular basis because steel is used to make all manner of weapons and machinery that gets used by bad actors?
      - lolinder 2y ago
        This is a bad faith comparison and I'm not going to engage with it.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        I'm honestly not sure what distinction you're trying to draw between them. Clearly any ordinary product can be used for nefarious purposes. The distinction some people try to draw is when a higher proportion of a product's users are nefarious, but that doesn't really work either because who uses something can change over time. If you have a society where nobody has window blinds or locks on their doors because it's a rural area and there is no one around to invade your privacy then locks will be disproportionately used by neerdowells "with something to hide", and then busybodies will claim that anyone with nothing to hide shouldn't be concealing their private spaces and anyone selling or using any privacy technology should be pressured to stop. Which sustains the status quo through external pressure even if someone does start invading everyone's privacy. And that's what's been happening on the internet. Surveillance is the default, Cloudflare et al block Tor users as a matter of course and that drives normal people from Tor and similar technologies even though they would otherwise benefit from its use. People are told that it's the dark web where there are criminals and they shouldn't use it -- it being Tor Browser, the thing that keeps ad networks from tracking them across the internet. Then after dispersing the normal users who would otherwise benefit from using it, people say that it has a lot of nefarious users to justify the continued harassment of anyone who does. But that's just path dependence, and there are parties interested in leading us down the garden path to mass surveillance.

Your right to knowingly run a service that is used by people to kill other people while never having to interact with the consequences of that decision? I'm not suggesting people shouldn't be able to run a Tor exit node. I'm suggesting that people who run Tor exit nodes should occasionally have to a deal with a subpoena that says "your exit node was used by a criminal to hurt people in ${these ways} and we require any information you have to help apprehend the attacker." I don't want to deprive anyone of the right to make a moral decision, but I do want them to feel the weight of the full import of that decision.

aspenmayer 2y ago
If it is moral for the US government to create Tor, it is moral to use it. Sure, it may be it’s a tragedy of the commons, but there’s no individual moral accountability or responsibility for those running Tor because of things other people do or don’t do on it. That’s outside anyone’s ability to control anyway.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Nursie 2y ago
  > there’s no individual moral accountability or responsibility Of course there is. If I am deciding whether to dedicate resources, money and time to running a service which - a) Helps dissidents in authoritarian regimes communicate freely and b) Enables bad actors to send threats and/or move CSAM around Then that is absolutely a moral choice I need to make. It's not outside your control, you get to decide whether or not to provide the service.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Your right to knowingly run a service that is used by people to kill other people while never having to interact with the consequences of that decision? Can you name a product or service for which this is not the case? Militaries use general purpose software to design weapons. Murderers use vehicles and transit systems. We don't expect the government to harass the makers of cutlery because they provided a product used in a mugging.
- lolinder 2y ago
  I think that any creator of any tool should be faced on a regular basis with the harm that that tool causes and have to make the call on a regular basis if it's still worth it.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    So steel workers should get a subpoena they have no effective means to respond to on a regular basis because steel is used to make all manner of weapons and machinery that gets used by bad actors?
    - lolinder 2y ago
      This is a bad faith comparison and I'm not going to engage with it.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        I'm honestly not sure what distinction you're trying to draw between them. Clearly any ordinary product can be used for nefarious purposes. The distinction some people try to draw is when a higher proportion of a product's users are nefarious, but that doesn't really work either because who uses something can change over time. If you have a society where nobody has window blinds or locks on their doors because it's a rural area and there is no one around to invade your privacy then locks will be disproportionately used by neerdowells "with something to hide", and then busybodies will claim that anyone with nothing to hide shouldn't be concealing their private spaces and anyone selling or using any privacy technology should be pressured to stop. Which sustains the status quo through external pressure even if someone does start invading everyone's privacy. And that's what's been happening on the internet. Surveillance is the default, Cloudflare et al block Tor users as a matter of course and that drives normal people from Tor and similar technologies even though they would otherwise benefit from its use. People are told that it's the dark web where there are criminals and they shouldn't use it -- it being Tor Browser, the thing that keeps ad networks from tracking them across the internet. Then after dispersing the normal users who would otherwise benefit from using it, people say that it has a lot of nefarious users to justify the continued harassment of anyone who does. But that's just path dependence, and there are parties interested in leading us down the garden path to mass surveillance.