“Anonymous” File-Sharing Darknet Ruled Illegal | Hacker News Reader

“Anonymous” File-Sharing Darknet Ruled Illegal

torrentfreak.com

83 pointsSami_Lehtinen28 comments

I have to say, it's interesting to see where this is going to lead to. I thought this wouldn't be possible in Europe, but tide seems to be turning here too.

They could have mentioned it's not just "darknet" it's F2F - Friend 2 Friend network. So there aren't public exit nodes as there is with Tor network. There are only relays, between network nodes.

I just wonder when Freenet, GNUnet ja Tor will be banned on same basis? As well as other tools like it.

Based on this policy any "cyber locker" could be taken down. It doesn't matter if they knew what the file content was or if they didn't. Maybe this comment has something illegal embedded using stEganogRaphy? Maybe Hacker News will be taken down too, due spreading illegal content?

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This is how Facebook should work: http://secushare.org/

Germany is pretty weird about IP laws. They always seem to apply them in the strictest sense, without any consideration for common sense. I think this would be pretty easily appealed and overturned.

The Hamburg court is notorious for applying the law in the strictest sense, other courts in germany are not. But since for any internet related issue the plaintiff (aka copyright industry) usually use the Hamburg court for their cases.

sigh. this sucks. and hard.

>Update: Contrary to the U.S. and elsewhere, a previous ruling in Germany already makes wireless network operators liable for copyright infringements of others.

Germany has an interesting history of computer misuse. I'm surprised that CCC hasn't hacked wifi of German politicians (at their homes and offices) and transferred a variety of files.

More accurately:

Users of “Anonymous” File-Sharing Darknet Ruled Liable

The software has not been ruled illegal, but users were held liable for files passing through their computer - even if they are not involved in the transfer or aware of the contents.

Which in a way makes it illegal to use the software - if you happen to be in a F2F network where someone shares some copyrighted material.

Yes, just like it's illegal to walk out of a store (with stolen merchandise.)

I doubt it is illegal to walk out of a store with stolen merchandise that someone else put in your pocket (without your knowledge).

Of course it might be hard to prove that that was what happened in the store case.

I still don't understand how cases like this are brought up. It seems to me like random people are targeted at random times. I see stories like this every day, not about Darknet specifically but about rulings against file sharers and pirates. Could anyone shed light on how a select few people are singled out of the masses of people who fileshare.

In this case, the defendant added the anti-piracy monitoring company as a friend.

I don't understand how these company's are legal. It just seems to me that in order to get a list of illegal sharers they "must" at least attempt to download or share the copyrighted material. So why aren't they are just as guilty as they people they report?

In most cases they are authorized (and paid by) the legal copyright holders to find violators. At least in US most cases are brought by industry organizations.

I heard (and believe it's true) that in Germany, lawyers are given the right to bring cases against law breakers (maybe only civil) with no client, without support or even knowledge of the "victim". Paid on a bounty system. Idea being all these lawyers are incentivized to go out and deter crime.

The whole point of Retroshare is that you only connect to your trusted friends and route your teh warez requestz to other nodes through them. Retroshare is friend-to-friend, or F2F. It's not a closed darknet but it's a darknet. You need to have a friend (or preferably friends) through which to connect.

The guy in question had the local equivalent of MAFIAA as a trusted F2F friend. That's a completely wrong position to begin with. This doesn't make Retroshare or darknets or F2F networks illegal.

With friends, you can do whatever you want so as long as nobody gets hurt or the MAFIAA won't know about it.

Does the ruling technically means that anyone who processes the copyrighted song on his wetware, for example Jingle Bells (copyrighted by Disney), and then shares the file by means of acoustic murmuring in a public toilet in Hamburg with trusted friends, one of which is an anti-piracy maniac, will be sentenced for 6 months?

... "In Germany", where they don't have safe harbor laws, so it has no effect on the United States.

IANAL. Germany does have a common carrier status for ISPs just like the US. It doesn't extend to private citizens.

The liability in cases like this is not really settled, though it's not looking very promising. It's already very difficult to find open Wifi, which is at least partly due to concerns about liability and their widespread discussion in the media. OTOH I think there've been Tor exit nodes in Germany for a long time, though not without subjecting their operators to some legal harassment (and bills).

> users exchange data through encrypted transfers and the network setup ensures that the true sender of the file is always obfuscated

If this were really true in practice, the authorities shouldn't be able to see whether copyrighted content is transferred through your computer in theory (except by breaking the law themselves by putting surveillance software on your computer)... or am I missing something? (or do they have a "weaker" meaning for the term 'obsfucated'?)

Exit nodes are identifiable. The original source of that communication is not. The obfuscation is internal to the network, not on the border between networks.

This might be a stupid thing to ask but: if the sole purpose of RetroShare is p2p file sharing, why even have "exit nodes" at all? It's not like Tor when in the end you need an "exit" to the server you're trying to reach.

I guess the last hop before the receiver is meant. you cannot hide that. if the client downloads something, through many hops or not, the most recent one will always be the one that ultimately sends the requested data. and thus, even while it would be encrypted and the maintainer of said last hop has no idea what is transferred, he is the sender.

the law would need to acknowledge the hop's function as clueless service provider.

You are right, it is nonsensical.

RetroShare has no exit-nodes. The whole story doesn't fit together.

On friend-2-friend-networks, only your friends see you. You have to actively add an user and their "public" key to exchange data with them, also if you only act as a relay-node. What has to have happened here is that either the pc was unlawfully hacked, or the user in question added a key from one of the public exchange boards, so he no longer only connected with his friends. Or one of his friends ratted him out.

The blogpost[1] taken by the article as source about some of the claims of the new danger for users talks about "Netzwerkmitschnitte", network logs. As the traffic between all parties is encrypted with keys only known to your trusted parties, that is impossible (apart from the possible mistakes above provoking this). At least as long as there is no crticial issue on the side of the Retroshare itself.

Furthermore, note two things: The court in Hamburg is known to be not in compliance with the german constitution. They repeatedly ruled against the law and in favor of media companies, or pro personal rights against the guaranteed freedom of speech. Furthermore, in this specific case the whole ruling is wrong, as it claims about "making the data available to the public", which is impossible in a friend-2-friend-network. Last, it is only a "Einstweilige Verfügung", which is not a full ruling, more like a first decision after a short fact check.

[1] http://www.internet-law.de/2012/11/lg-hamburg-erlasst-einstw...

> In this case, the defendant added the anti-piracy monitoring company as a friend, which allowed him to be “caught.”

What's the company called? I don't want to friend them by accident.

> In this case, the defendant added the anti-piracy monitoring company as a friend, which allowed him to be “caught.”

This is equivalent to asking a friend for his wifi key, downloading a song and then have him sued for copyright infringement. Obviously he is the bad guy!

In the US, aren't those who run tor exit nodes already liable for the activity of those they host? I don't see how this is much different -- different network in a different country, maybe, but conceptually similar/identical.

https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git?a=blob_plain;hb=HEAD;f...

I believe Tor exit nodes are considered internet service providers and thus are granted safe harbor under the DMCA and CDA Section 230.

Interesting. Does that provision also cover those operating unsecured wireless networks?

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