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Comment by malka | Hacker News Reader

When someone is condamned for something online-related (piracy, CP, etc.), we should obviously arrest all the owners of routers between the source and the target. They are accomplice because they helped the data to transit. That's only commom sense !

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Just running network equipment doesn't make you aware of it's use though. Tor users know through high-profile cases that Tor is being used for drugs deals and other criminal activities - but they run the exit nodes in the face of this. I'm not saying the law is correct (nor wrong) just that the application appears to be valid.

Yes, there are high-moral reasons to run an exit node too.

ISPs know that the internet is used for drug deals and criminal activities. Should we prosecute them too?

Gun dealers also know their guns can be used to shoot people. Are they culpable in every murder?

The difference is that ISPs are regulated, and part of that regulation is that they must intercept traffic.

I don't follow this distinction, at least in terms of U.S. law.

Every kind of entity can receive orders under the Wiretap Act, whether it's "regulated" or not. My friend who runs the server where I have my e-mail could receive such an order.

Until the D.C. Circuit accepted law enforcement's reinterpretation of CALEA in 2006, ISPs were not required to buy or have wiretapping equipment, but they were required to comply with wiretap orders to the best of their ability.

Tor node operators are presumably also legally required to comply with wiretap orders to the best of their ability.

Does your theory suggest that ISPs' liability would have been different before 2006 because no specific regulation treated them differently from Tor node operators with respect to wiretap obligations then?

"its use". "It's" means only "it is" or maybe "it has".

Yes. I usually catch my homophonic gaffs but not always. I'm not sure what it is, probably abject lack of sleep, but in the last several years I've become increasingly prone to insert homophones in error in my comments. Apologies.

The requirement for knowing about criminal activities is intentional very high. If it wasn't, almost every internet based service would be deemed illegal. ISP and online market places like Amazon can not claim they aren't aware of fraudsters, but they still a necessary tool in the crime.

During the Pirate Bay trial, the requirement was set to "primary usage". They took a screenshot of the top 100, and sad "obviously, the site founders know that the primary usage was illegal" which the court then accepted. Arguing that same for tor is sketchy at best, and there is government organizations, researchers and developers who would argue that the primary usage for tor is as a privacy tool for non-criminal activities. I also suspect that they would have plenty of evidence to back it up.

> Tor users know through high-profile

Yeah sure. Just install Firefox privacy extension and you are running Tor. Or your children can do it for you.

Well, Tor is used ONLY for criminal activities. That's its entire point. You're in a state where talking to the Americans is a criminal activity punishable by beheading. So you use Tor to talk to them. I'm almost certain that activities which are criminal in the USA outnumber activities which are criminal in some oppressive regime on the Tor network. That's only because it's a damn good and secure network and we have less people standing against oppressive regimes than we have ones standing against USA law.

You can't have a really secure anonymous untraceable network, but also monitor everyone on it for illegal activity. The entire point of that network is illegal activity, for local definitions of illegal.

There are several countries that would do exactly as you say, or would threaten to do it in order to get a few bribes to the right people.

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