7 ms·

>Yesterday i got raided for someone sharing child pornography over one of my Tor exits. Reason #1 why I will never run a tor exit node. I don't want to make it

>Yesterday i got raided for someone sharing child pornography over one of my Tor exits. Reason #1 why I will never run a tor exit node. I don't want to make it easier for child predators to get off nor do I want the legal issues they bring.

shocks 14y ago
There are plenty of legitimate uses for Tor.
- jcromartie 14y ago
  I wonder what proportion of Tor is used for legal purposes? I personally hold an extremely low estimate for that figure.
  - geoka9 14y ago
    What about email encryption? Should it be banned, too?
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    Really, you can't imagine anything? You can't imagine a good thing someone might want to do over a network that is (well, is meant to be anyway) completely anonymous? Seriously, right now with Arab Spring going on, Syria shutting off the internet, China having the biggest firewall, other countries fiddling around with censorship, people going to jail for tweets or clicking "like" on facebook and you can't think of a valid reason one might want to be able to hide their online activities from prying eyes?
- shocks 14y ago
  Here is a good link, with more information. https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq-abuse.html.en#WhatAboutCriminals https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq-abuse.html.en#WhatAboutC...
- kevindication 14y ago
  You don't find yourself in litigation for the legitimate uses of Tor.
  - shocks 14y ago
    This is not a valid argument. Anything can be used for evil, but that doesn't mean we should avoid or outlaw everything. A knife can be used to cut a chicken, it can also be used to kill someone. You would not deny your neighbour when he asks to borrow a knife because "you could kill someone with it".
    - kevindication 14y ago
      The OP doesn't want to enable the bad uses of Tor, nor do they want to get into legal trouble for it. It's demonstrated that by running a Tor exit node, you are at a high risk of the former and at least some risk for the latter. Both carry significant costs. By not running a Tor exit node, you eliminate these risks to yourself. The risk that your neighbor will use your knife to kill someone is far lower by comparison. Additionally, the risk that there is a legal threat should they choose to do so is also quite low.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    Depends on your location and your definition of "legitimate". If you define "legitimate" by what your particular government says is OK, then no, you won't find yourself in court for those uses. Unless you get extradited to a government that has different opinions.
contingencies 14y ago
Jacob Applebaum: "The Four Horsemen of the Info-pocalypse: child pornography, terrorism, money laundering, and The War on Some Drugs." - Cypherpunks, p43. O/R Books. http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/cypherpunks/ http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/cypherpunks/ The book (and The World Tomorrow interviews at http://assange.rt.com/ http://assange.rt.com/ from whence it spawned) go on to explain why these arguments are extremely bad for the internet. We have to protect the freedom of speech for everyone, or there is no freedom of speech.
- drzaiusapelord 14y ago
  Media made from victimizing children is not "free speech" in my book.
  - Xylakant 14y ago
    No, certainly not. However, in Germany "child porn" was extended to encompass any (fictional) written narrative [1] as well as paintings or renderings - including manga - or any video involving adult actors that look like minors. So there's a case to be made that not all material that might seem interesting to a child porn consumer produces victims. I'm not an expert in that field, but constantly extending the covered topics is certainly not helpful. [1] Kubricks Lolita could be illegal in germany now http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/
  - gambiting 14y ago
    No, but a possession of any kind of media should not be a crime by itself. Nobody is harmed by a video/picture sitting on your hard drive. If you say that it might encourage anyone to do anything - then why is it perfectly legal to have videos of murders and gore?
    - aes256 14y ago
      This. Punish those who cause harm. Possessing a certain sequence of 0s and 1s does not cause harm.
    - 14y ago
mistercow 14y ago
I always find it odd that people often tend to focus on pedophiles "getting off" rather than pedophiles hurting children. If we really want to protect children, we'd do well to find harmless ways for pedophiles to get off. It's pretty well established that giving people benign sexual outlets is an effective way to prevent them from seeking harmful ones. I mean, yeah, don't run a TOR exit node because of the legal risk - that makes sense. Or because you're afraid it makes it easier to hurt kids... well, I don't know if it really does, but at least your heart is in the right place. But what business is it of anyone else who gets off?
- rprasad 14y ago
  I say this as someone who has been in the unfortunate position of defending a pedophile in court, please stop defending child pornography and pedophiles. Child pornagraphy is not an abstract concept. Child pornography isn't outlawed simply because it's obscene. Child pornography is outlawed because it is depraved, frequently violent imagery or videos of real children actually being violated. This is not speech. This is one of the most horrific, most sadistic acts that a human being is capable of perpetuating against another. It is worse than murder; these victims usually survive what happens to them. (There are a few situations where images are faked, i.e., by photoshopping children's faces on adult bodies, but this represents a drop in the bucket.) This idiot was dumb enough to run a anonymizing network that he knew could be involved in illegal activities. He ran several nodes despite this, knowing and accepting that the Tor network would shield the identities (for the most part) of the actual criminals using his systems as through-ways, leaving behind his IP address as the sole traceable link. Will he be convicted of possessing and/or distributing child pornography? Probably not. Tor is not as anonymous as people think it is; an FBI forensics team will probably be able to track down the real criminal. In such case, this idiot will probably be off the hook. But if they are unsuccessful in backtracing to the real criminal, he will be the sacrificial lamb offered up by the prosecutors for this crime. His conviction (and trust me, there will be a conviction if this goes to trial) will serve as a warning to others: if you want to use Tor, make damn well sure you aren't a pass-through for child porn.
  - theon144 14y ago

shocks 14y ago

There are plenty of legitimate uses for Tor.

jcromartie 14y ago
I wonder what proportion of Tor is used for legal purposes? I personally hold an extremely low estimate for that figure.
- geoka9 14y ago
  What about email encryption? Should it be banned, too?
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  Really, you can't imagine anything? You can't imagine a good thing someone might want to do over a network that is (well, is meant to be anyway) completely anonymous? Seriously, right now with Arab Spring going on, Syria shutting off the internet, China having the biggest firewall, other countries fiddling around with censorship, people going to jail for tweets or clicking "like" on facebook and you can't think of a valid reason one might want to be able to hide their online activities from prying eyes?
shocks 14y ago
Here is a good link, with more information. https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq-abuse.html.en#WhatAboutCriminals https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq-abuse.html.en#WhatAboutC...
kevindication 14y ago
You don't find yourself in litigation for the legitimate uses of Tor.
- shocks 14y ago
  This is not a valid argument. Anything can be used for evil, but that doesn't mean we should avoid or outlaw everything. A knife can be used to cut a chicken, it can also be used to kill someone. You would not deny your neighbour when he asks to borrow a knife because "you could kill someone with it".
  - kevindication 14y ago
    The OP doesn't want to enable the bad uses of Tor, nor do they want to get into legal trouble for it. It's demonstrated that by running a Tor exit node, you are at a high risk of the former and at least some risk for the latter. Both carry significant costs. By not running a Tor exit node, you eliminate these risks to yourself. The risk that your neighbor will use your knife to kill someone is far lower by comparison. Additionally, the risk that there is a legal threat should they choose to do so is also quite low.
- mistercow 14y ago
  Depends on your location and your definition of "legitimate". If you define "legitimate" by what your particular government says is OK, then no, you won't find yourself in court for those uses. Unless you get extradited to a government that has different opinions.

contingencies 14y ago

Jacob Applebaum: "The Four Horsemen of the Info-pocalypse: child pornography, terrorism, money laundering, and The War on Some Drugs." - Cypherpunks, p43. O/R Books. http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/cypherpunks/ http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/cypherpunks/ The book (and The World Tomorrow interviews at http://assange.rt.com/ http://assange.rt.com/ from whence it spawned) go on to explain why these arguments are extremely bad for the internet. We have to protect the freedom of speech for everyone, or there is no freedom of speech.

drzaiusapelord 14y ago
Media made from victimizing children is not "free speech" in my book.
- Xylakant 14y ago
  No, certainly not. However, in Germany "child porn" was extended to encompass any (fictional) written narrative [1] as well as paintings or renderings - including manga - or any video involving adult actors that look like minors. So there's a case to be made that not all material that might seem interesting to a child porn consumer produces victims. I'm not an expert in that field, but constantly extending the covered topics is certainly not helpful. [1] Kubricks Lolita could be illegal in germany now http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/
- gambiting 14y ago
  No, but a possession of any kind of media should not be a crime by itself. Nobody is harmed by a video/picture sitting on your hard drive. If you say that it might encourage anyone to do anything - then why is it perfectly legal to have videos of murders and gore?
  - aes256 14y ago
    This. Punish those who cause harm. Possessing a certain sequence of 0s and 1s does not cause harm.
  - 14y ago

mistercow 14y ago

I always find it odd that people often tend to focus on pedophiles "getting off" rather than pedophiles hurting children. If we really want to protect children, we'd do well to find harmless ways for pedophiles to get off. It's pretty well established that giving people benign sexual outlets is an effective way to prevent them from seeking harmful ones. I mean, yeah, don't run a TOR exit node because of the legal risk - that makes sense. Or because you're afraid it makes it easier to hurt kids... well, I don't know if it really does, but at least your heart is in the right place. But what business is it of anyone else who gets off?

rprasad 14y ago
I say this as someone who has been in the unfortunate position of defending a pedophile in court, please stop defending child pornography and pedophiles. Child pornagraphy is not an abstract concept. Child pornography isn't outlawed simply because it's obscene. Child pornography is outlawed because it is depraved, frequently violent imagery or videos of real children actually being violated. This is not speech. This is one of the most horrific, most sadistic acts that a human being is capable of perpetuating against another. It is worse than murder; these victims usually survive what happens to them. (There are a few situations where images are faked, i.e., by photoshopping children's faces on adult bodies, but this represents a drop in the bucket.) This idiot was dumb enough to run a anonymizing network that he knew could be involved in illegal activities. He ran several nodes despite this, knowing and accepting that the Tor network would shield the identities (for the most part) of the actual criminals using his systems as through-ways, leaving behind his IP address as the sole traceable link. Will he be convicted of possessing and/or distributing child pornography? Probably not. Tor is not as anonymous as people think it is; an FBI forensics team will probably be able to track down the real criminal. In such case, this idiot will probably be off the hook. But if they are unsuccessful in backtracing to the real criminal, he will be the sacrificial lamb offered up by the prosecutors for this crime. His conviction (and trust me, there will be a conviction if this goes to trial) will serve as a warning to others: if you want to use Tor, make damn well sure you aren't a pass-through for child porn.
- theon144 14y ago