7 ms·

Tor Exit Node Operator Issued Subpoena

227 points by tshtf 11y ago

bri3d 11y ago
Title would be better as "Exit Node" and based on what I know, this isn't altogether uncommon. A relay-only node receiving a subpoena would be novel as far as I know. EDIT: Title was changed, thanks!
- p4bl0 11y ago
  Yes exactly, I was alarmed by the HN title, but then the link content was pretty usual. Tor is not broken, fiew :). That said I'm pretty curious to see the answer of the administration to the answer of the exit node admin explaining what is Tor and why he can't help them.
sporkenfang 11y ago
This is why individuals are generally less likely to operate an exit node than large bodies such as universities. It can happen, has happened, and will likely happen again.
mega1ton 11y ago
Probably from this: http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2014/04/09/cook-county-computers-hacked http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2014/04/09/cook-county-comput...
- mb0 11y ago
  Maybe. The IP address that is referenced in the subpoena (12.218.239.38) is the IP address of cookcountyboardofreview.com. Maybe that box got hacked and it had access to some big cook county DMZ?
  - mega1ton 11y ago
    Who knows. Sounds like some idiot logged into https://apps.cookcountyil.gov/oe/ https://apps.cookcountyil.gov/oe/ (same IP) and attempted to do something bad. These poor guys from this county are probably pretty distressed and using whatever means they have to find out whodunnit.
- julianj 11y ago
  Sounds like an inside job to me. Why would a 'hacker' file false unemployment claims for government employees? I bet one of these filings is the person who filed-- and the rest are just noise to cover their tracks.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
higherpurpose 11y ago
FBI's Comey (crypto backdoor promoter) has just visited Romania calling for data retention laws after several such recent laws were declared unconstitutional. The FBI basically gave an ultimatum saying that if such laws aren't passed, then it could hurt the US-Romanian relationship. So the US is actively threatening/bullying other countries into adopting mass surveillance laws right now - or else!. The ultimatum is also BS, because the US needs Romania more than ever in the Russian-Ukranian conflict (Romania is also one of the countries that has a missile shield against Russia, installed by the US). But I guess that's the level of diplomacy US enforces with most weaker countries (bullying). The Romanian NSA sees the US NSA as some sort of mentor and tries to do whatever it gets told to strengthen that relationship. It's also very likely the NSA subsidizes/gives away its spying tech to countries such as Romania to make spying on its own citizens easier. Surveillance oversight is even weaker than in the US/UK. Both Romania and Poland were accused of holding secret CIA prisons as well about a decade ago (likely true).
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Don't know about most of this stuff but. > Poland were accused of holding secret CIA prisons as well about a decade ago (likely true). I think that this is true and a matter of public record with regards Poland. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/poland-breach-human-rights-convention-al-qaida-suspects-cia http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/poland-breach-h...
- diminoten 11y ago
  So do you think federal subpoenas from the US to Romania would get honored, then? Like, if the FBI subpoenas for this same information, would the Romanian federal government enforce it? Or would they not even bother to subpoena, and just get the information through back channels (i.e. not documented, not official)?
- bigiain 11y ago
  > So the US is actively threatening/bullying other countries into adopting mass surveillance laws right now - or else!. A ploy which worked just fine against Australia (and our spineless luddite government). They probably didn't even need to threaten, just asked nicely and promised our Prime Minister a photo opportunity one day. </rant>
korethr 11y ago
Okay, reading the subpoena linked in the original article, it appears that Cook County, Illinois is trying to subpoena a company in Romania. IANAL, but I didn't think an entity in one country could compel anything of another entity in another country without getting the governments of both involved. So, what was the point of this subpoena? Did a clerk somewhere fail to realize that Romania isn't even on the same continent, much less in the same country? Or is there legal mechanisms involved that I'm not aware of?
- wongarsu 11y ago
  Maybe the receiver of the subpoena could be charged with contempt of court if he/she ever enters the US? Not sure if that's possible under US law.
  - korethr 11y ago
    If a specific person were named, I could see that possibly happening if said person were to ever set foot in the US (or maybe just Illinois). But a company? That brings in additional questions. Would not Cook County have to prove that the person to be held in contempt had been employed by the company in question at the time of the subpoena? Wouldn't they also have to prove that responding to the subpoena would have part of said persons duties at said company? For example, if I were employed by EuropeCo in 2014 as an engineer on their Foomatic line of widgets, and travelled to the US next month for a conference, I don't think it should be possible for me to be held in contempt of court because someone didn't respond to a subpoena regarding EuropeCo's Baritron service. Yes, it's a silly and contrived example, but hopefully you get the idea. But again, IANAL.
    - aroch 11y ago
      I'm pretty sure Cook County would need to show some sort of nexus in order to compel, eg that significant business is done by the Romanian company in Cook County. Otherwise, anyone could break any laws so long as they didn't live in the place where they're breaking the law. As is, providing an anonymous an non-specific service to anyone doesn't really satisfy that.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
yownie 11y ago
funny info request from the subpeona IP -> 176.126.252.11 -> 12.218.239.38
- dmix 11y ago
  Yes, it's similar to issuing a supeona to a VPN to find out which customer was using x ip at this time.
- sandworm 11y ago
  Give them some credit. By this they are acknowledging the concept of a proxy. Compared to most, this request does a reasonable job of describing what they have and what they want efficiently. They aren't asking for everyone connected at the time. They aren't asking for 'any and all' records. They are asking for one connection record and are providing reasonable information on their end to facilitate. The diagram is a reasonable and, considering the source, a novel means of conveying the vital data. The fact that the connection record doesn't exist, or if it does would be virtually useless, should not take away from the reasonableness of the request. "We don't have such records" is a legitimate response.
sandworm 11y ago
They know about Tor. Five years ago it was magic to most cops and all prosecutors. Today they have been educated, to some extent by people like me. They acknowledge that the exit node is a proxy. In years past they would have tried sending cops to the door to seize the server, or at least make some allegations. That's why I do not think that they expect any results here. They expect nothing. They need nothing. They need a non-response to take things to the next step. That step is probably political. They want the bullet point about why criminals are getting away due to VPNs, Tor and other online nasties.
- diafygi 11y ago
  Exactly. The actual subpoena is really short and reads like it was thrown together so that someone could tell their boss they tried.
- wiml 11y ago
  They may expect nothing, but that shouldn't keep them from asking. Lots of crimes that are solved are solved because of a random mistake or oversight. Maybe somebody used a 1-hop route, or something, who knows. They're just doing legwork.
peterkelly 11y ago
What next? Everyone who operates an IP router on the internet starts getting subpoenas?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
kyledrake 11y ago
I've received a subpoena from Cook County before regarding a site on Neocities. Related to Tor, actually. Easily the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. The person that signed the subpoena was in the news for allegations of corruption, and so was her husband (it's called Crook County for a reason). They spelled the name of my company wrong (noahcities.com or something like that), and when I sent a letter to the designated agents requesting they fix it (I control neocities.org, not noahcities, how can I respond to legal requests addressed to a different web site?), they never responded, and the subpoena basically just died. If they had followed up, they would have gotten a tor exit IP address somewhere outside of their jurisdiction (read: another country). I told them this before they filed it, and they told me "That decision is for someone above my pay grade, man". You can't spend 5 minutes to google for Tor because of your "pay grade"? Oh, and they also love to put unlawful (but unfortunately, not illegal) gag orders in their subpoenas. I chose not to waste our lawyer's time (and our money) on this piece of trash, so we didn't make too big of a deal about it. The take home lesson for me was that crooked regional governments abusing the subpoena system are just as big of a problem as the NSA, if not worse. So, now you know the story behind this commit http://github.com/neocities/neocities/commit/4983a9b24eac00b8d8bfd300a18cdcee0152a271 http://github.com/neocities/neocities/commit/4983a9b24eac00b... It's not good enough for the NSA, but it will prevent these idiots from ever figuring it out. And there's no US data retention laws for web sites, so it's completely legal. This is textbook Neocities business philosophy. Instead of raising money to hire more lawyers and take the legal risk individually fighting bad John Doe subpoenas, we changed our code to make the data they can actually get worthless to them, so we can just serve them (if they're valid) while still protecting our users' privacy. If we get dragged into court over it, our liability insurance kicks in, we pay a (relatively) small deductible, and then we can use the precedent we set there to throw out any new cases for everybody with this problem, not just us. Way more sustainable. Phase 2 is that I delete the hashes after a few months. I haven't gotten to it yet, but it's in the ticket tracker.
- diminoten 11y ago
  > You can't spend 5 minutes to google for Tor because of your "pay grade"? Do you think that kind of decision was up to the actual guy/gal you were interacting with? Genuine question, not rhetorical. I just ask because sometimes you get asked to do stuff at work that's silly, but it's easy and makes the guy/gal paying you happy, so you do it. If it was a lawyer, they probably charged for the whole hour, right? Heh.
nippoo 11y ago
I can't stop giggling at the red hand-circled bit in the subpoena. ( IP? ) <-- This is the one we need
cft 11y ago
Cook County waged a war against Craigslist back in the day: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/cook-county-sheriff-loses-case-against-craigslist https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/cook-county-sheriff-lo...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- shimshim 11y ago
  * Nicole Nelson
Aissen 11y ago
Isn't this an everyday thing for Exit Node operators ? Many ISPs simply forbade Tor because it wasn't worth the legal hassle/paperwork.
- benev 11y ago
  I ran a Tor exit node for about nine months and only ever had two complaints sent to me. Both were for people performing some form of hacking through my exit node. I responded to both with a form letter, and that was that. Granted it was a low bandwidth exit node. I hear US-based nodes get more legal attention because of the DMCA, but I can't comment on that as mine was based in Romania as well.

227 points by tshtf 11y ago

bri3d 11y ago

Title would be better as "Exit Node" and based on what I know, this isn't altogether uncommon. A relay-only node receiving a subpoena would be novel as far as I know. EDIT: Title was changed, thanks!

p4bl0 11y ago
Yes exactly, I was alarmed by the HN title, but then the link content was pretty usual. Tor is not broken, fiew :). That said I'm pretty curious to see the answer of the administration to the answer of the exit node admin explaining what is Tor and why he can't help them.

sporkenfang 11y ago

This is why individuals are generally less likely to operate an exit node than large bodies such as universities. It can happen, has happened, and will likely happen again.

mega1ton 11y ago

Probably from this: http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2014/04/09/cook-county-computers-hacked http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2014/04/09/cook-county-comput...

mb0 11y ago
Maybe. The IP address that is referenced in the subpoena (12.218.239.38) is the IP address of cookcountyboardofreview.com. Maybe that box got hacked and it had access to some big cook county DMZ?
- mega1ton 11y ago
  Who knows. Sounds like some idiot logged into https://apps.cookcountyil.gov/oe/ https://apps.cookcountyil.gov/oe/ (same IP) and attempted to do something bad. These poor guys from this county are probably pretty distressed and using whatever means they have to find out whodunnit.
julianj 11y ago
Sounds like an inside job to me. Why would a 'hacker' file false unemployment claims for government employees? I bet one of these filings is the person who filed-- and the rest are just noise to cover their tracks.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

higherpurpose 11y ago

FBI's Comey (crypto backdoor promoter) has just visited Romania calling for data retention laws after several such recent laws were declared unconstitutional. The FBI basically gave an ultimatum saying that if such laws aren't passed, then it could hurt the US-Romanian relationship. So the US is actively threatening/bullying other countries into adopting mass surveillance laws right now - or else!. The ultimatum is also BS, because the US needs Romania more than ever in the Russian-Ukranian conflict (Romania is also one of the countries that has a missile shield against Russia, installed by the US). But I guess that's the level of diplomacy US enforces with most weaker countries (bullying). The Romanian NSA sees the US NSA as some sort of mentor and tries to do whatever it gets told to strengthen that relationship. It's also very likely the NSA subsidizes/gives away its spying tech to countries such as Romania to make spying on its own citizens easier. Surveillance oversight is even weaker than in the US/UK. Both Romania and Poland were accused of holding secret CIA prisons as well about a decade ago (likely true).

JupiterMoon 11y ago
Don't know about most of this stuff but. > Poland were accused of holding secret CIA prisons as well about a decade ago (likely true). I think that this is true and a matter of public record with regards Poland. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/poland-breach-human-rights-convention-al-qaida-suspects-cia http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/poland-breach-h...
diminoten 11y ago
So do you think federal subpoenas from the US to Romania would get honored, then? Like, if the FBI subpoenas for this same information, would the Romanian federal government enforce it? Or would they not even bother to subpoena, and just get the information through back channels (i.e. not documented, not official)?
bigiain 11y ago
> So the US is actively threatening/bullying other countries into adopting mass surveillance laws right now - or else!. A ploy which worked just fine against Australia (and our spineless luddite government). They probably didn't even need to threaten, just asked nicely and promised our Prime Minister a photo opportunity one day. </rant>

korethr 11y ago

Okay, reading the subpoena linked in the original article, it appears that Cook County, Illinois is trying to subpoena a company in Romania. IANAL, but I didn't think an entity in one country could compel anything of another entity in another country without getting the governments of both involved. So, what was the point of this subpoena? Did a clerk somewhere fail to realize that Romania isn't even on the same continent, much less in the same country? Or is there legal mechanisms involved that I'm not aware of?

wongarsu 11y ago
Maybe the receiver of the subpoena could be charged with contempt of court if he/she ever enters the US? Not sure if that's possible under US law.
- korethr 11y ago
  If a specific person were named, I could see that possibly happening if said person were to ever set foot in the US (or maybe just Illinois). But a company? That brings in additional questions. Would not Cook County have to prove that the person to be held in contempt had been employed by the company in question at the time of the subpoena? Wouldn't they also have to prove that responding to the subpoena would have part of said persons duties at said company? For example, if I were employed by EuropeCo in 2014 as an engineer on their Foomatic line of widgets, and travelled to the US next month for a conference, I don't think it should be possible for me to be held in contempt of court because someone didn't respond to a subpoena regarding EuropeCo's Baritron service. Yes, it's a silly and contrived example, but hopefully you get the idea. But again, IANAL.
  - aroch 11y ago
    I'm pretty sure Cook County would need to show some sort of nexus in order to compel, eg that significant business is done by the Romanian company in Cook County. Otherwise, anyone could break any laws so long as they didn't live in the place where they're breaking the law. As is, providing an anonymous an non-specific service to anyone doesn't really satisfy that.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

yownie 11y ago

funny info request from the subpeona IP -> 176.126.252.11 -> 12.218.239.38

dmix 11y ago
Yes, it's similar to issuing a supeona to a VPN to find out which customer was using x ip at this time.
sandworm 11y ago
Give them some credit. By this they are acknowledging the concept of a proxy. Compared to most, this request does a reasonable job of describing what they have and what they want efficiently. They aren't asking for everyone connected at the time. They aren't asking for 'any and all' records. They are asking for one connection record and are providing reasonable information on their end to facilitate. The diagram is a reasonable and, considering the source, a novel means of conveying the vital data. The fact that the connection record doesn't exist, or if it does would be virtually useless, should not take away from the reasonableness of the request. "We don't have such records" is a legitimate response.

sandworm 11y ago

They know about Tor. Five years ago it was magic to most cops and all prosecutors. Today they have been educated, to some extent by people like me. They acknowledge that the exit node is a proxy. In years past they would have tried sending cops to the door to seize the server, or at least make some allegations. That's why I do not think that they expect any results here. They expect nothing. They need nothing. They need a non-response to take things to the next step. That step is probably political. They want the bullet point about why criminals are getting away due to VPNs, Tor and other online nasties.

diafygi 11y ago
Exactly. The actual subpoena is really short and reads like it was thrown together so that someone could tell their boss they tried.
wiml 11y ago
They may expect nothing, but that shouldn't keep them from asking. Lots of crimes that are solved are solved because of a random mistake or oversight. Maybe somebody used a 1-hop route, or something, who knows. They're just doing legwork.

peterkelly 11y ago

What next? Everyone who operates an IP router on the internet starts getting subpoenas?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

kyledrake 11y ago

I've received a subpoena from Cook County before regarding a site on Neocities. Related to Tor, actually. Easily the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. The person that signed the subpoena was in the news for allegations of corruption, and so was her husband (it's called Crook County for a reason). They spelled the name of my company wrong (noahcities.com or something like that), and when I sent a letter to the designated agents requesting they fix it (I control neocities.org, not noahcities, how can I respond to legal requests addressed to a different web site?), they never responded, and the subpoena basically just died. If they had followed up, they would have gotten a tor exit IP address somewhere outside of their jurisdiction (read: another country). I told them this before they filed it, and they told me "That decision is for someone above my pay grade, man". You can't spend 5 minutes to google for Tor because of your "pay grade"? Oh, and they also love to put unlawful (but unfortunately, not illegal) gag orders in their subpoenas. I chose not to waste our lawyer's time (and our money) on this piece of trash, so we didn't make too big of a deal about it. The take home lesson for me was that crooked regional governments abusing the subpoena system are just as big of a problem as the NSA, if not worse. So, now you know the story behind this commit http://github.com/neocities/neocities/commit/4983a9b24eac00b8d8bfd300a18cdcee0152a271 http://github.com/neocities/neocities/commit/4983a9b24eac00b... It's not good enough for the NSA, but it will prevent these idiots from ever figuring it out. And there's no US data retention laws for web sites, so it's completely legal. This is textbook Neocities business philosophy. Instead of raising money to hire more lawyers and take the legal risk individually fighting bad John Doe subpoenas, we changed our code to make the data they can actually get worthless to them, so we can just serve them (if they're valid) while still protecting our users' privacy. If we get dragged into court over it, our liability insurance kicks in, we pay a (relatively) small deductible, and then we can use the precedent we set there to throw out any new cases for everybody with this problem, not just us. Way more sustainable. Phase 2 is that I delete the hashes after a few months. I haven't gotten to it yet, but it's in the ticket tracker.

diminoten 11y ago
> You can't spend 5 minutes to google for Tor because of your "pay grade"? Do you think that kind of decision was up to the actual guy/gal you were interacting with? Genuine question, not rhetorical. I just ask because sometimes you get asked to do stuff at work that's silly, but it's easy and makes the guy/gal paying you happy, so you do it. If it was a lawyer, they probably charged for the whole hour, right? Heh.

nippoo 11y ago

I can't stop giggling at the red hand-circled bit in the subpoena. ( IP? ) <-- This is the one we need

cft 11y ago

Cook County waged a war against Craigslist back in the day: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/cook-county-sheriff-loses-case-against-craigslist https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/cook-county-sheriff-lo...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

shimshim 11y ago
* Nicole Nelson

Aissen 11y ago

Isn't this an everyday thing for Exit Node operators ? Many ISPs simply forbade Tor because it wasn't worth the legal hassle/paperwork.

benev 11y ago
I ran a Tor exit node for about nine months and only ever had two complaints sent to me. Both were for people performing some form of hacking through my exit node. I responded to both with a form letter, and that was that. Granted it was a low bandwidth exit node. I hear US-based nodes get more legal attention because of the DMCA, but I can't comment on that as mine was based in Romania as well.