Hacker News Reader

Comment by AnthonyMouse | Hacker News Reader

Suppose I'm AT&T and one of my customers is running a Tor exit node. Do I now have "immunity from investigation, for illegal activities originating from any IP address associated with them"? I can certainly use a router spoof my customer's IP address for any connections I want to use for illegal activity. Then the IP address will trace back to that customer, which is a Tor exit node, and the police can't investigate me.

For that matter, every user of Tor is in the same situation.

But the premise is wrong. The police can investigate you as much as they like, they just can't assume that the traffic coming from that IP address has anything to do with anyone in particular.

You're still going to jail when you buy something with a stolen credit card and have it shipped to your house, regardless of whether you used Tor or operated a Tor exit node or are an ISP and used an IP address assigned to a customer.

View on HN

>Suppose I'm AT&T

ISPs have a specific set of statutes that grant them immunity as long as they comply with certain requirements [1]. Individual users do not.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258B

In practice some individuals do have immunity. If this case led the detectives to a local coffee shop do you really think they would have raided the owner's house at 6am and ransacked his home and business searching for something that they knew they were unlikely to find? It's not really that different from running a Tor exit node. The police knew that the traffic was likely coming from another source and that the most likely outcome was that the Tor node operator had no way of potentially knowing that anything illegal had even happened. How does that equate to probable cause to raid his house?

The coffee shop owner probably wouldn't be prosecuted, but he would likely still be investigated.

Then why shouldn't AT&T be investigated?

Yes, up until it comes to light that there is very little reason to believe that the owner is guilty. More importantly though they wouldn't handcuff him and trash his business when there's clearly no probable cause to do so.

How is it that Tor node operator is not "an electronic communication service provider [or] a remote computing service provider"?

> You're still going to jail when you buy something with a stolen credit card and have it shipped to your house

Imagine me as the friendly neighbourhood trickster living on the same floor as you.

I buy an illegal firearm with a credit card bought over a DNM using Tor and have it mailed to your house.

Enjoy your preordained jailtime.

(you are not your address, IP or postal)

That is what we have the jury system for - to decide what happens in cases like these. But this person would likely be charged with a crime.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com