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Tor node operator after run-in with police: "I can\'t do this any more"

arstechnica.com — A German Tor node operator has shut down his server after a confrontation with law enforcement agents that resulted from a bomb threat relayed through his exit node.

Who dugg this? Made popular Sep 18, 2007

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  • Junkyarddawg, on 10/10/2007, -1/+49Running a tor server effectively means providing a free, public, proxy. I can't see that anyone could really be surprised that bad people take advantage of that.
  • kafraco, on 10/10/2007, -1/+46As bad as it might sound, I would probably do the same thing.
  • aservin, on 10/10/2007, -3/+45I have never used Tor, I wanted but I never have had the time (or the need to anonymize my identity). It is shame that a good service such at this is used too for bad purposes such as child abuse/porn. The result is that now Tor for some state police is a synonym of bad guys, which it is not at all.
  • InfiniteNothing, on 10/10/2007, -3/+32Isn't it cool how Tor provides plausible deniability?
  • rauz, on 10/10/2007, -4/+28My left.
  • NikoKun, on 10/10/2007, -4/+27These days, if you want to be anonymous... you must be doing something bad... -_-

    Never mind that we have a right to privacy... If we are using that right, somehow we must be evil people... -_-
  • jimbs, on 10/10/2007, -2/+21It's too bad that anonymity is so abused. For every oppressed victim who needs to hide hid her actions from authorities, there are ten ***** who use anonymity to commit crime or harass people.
  • Zippo, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19I'm all anonymity on the web, but this is like putting the blame on someone else. It's not fair to the server operators. It's almost as if the Tor servers need a proxy themselves.
  • sirloin, on 10/10/2007, -4/+15but people do appear surprised that good people have good reasons to use it, if they live in oppressive countries, or need to release information that would place a target on their back if their anonymity wasnt preserved. Without a doubt it is well known to everyone in tor and other servers like it, that bad people use it. Bad people use guns too. Bad people use cd copiers, bad people use copping machines, bad people use cold medicine, bad people use a lot of things that good people use.. you just shouldnt be surprised good people use it even if you dont.
  • RetroRufio, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12I'm ambidextrous
  • dlsspy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8I use tor every single day and not because I'm doing anything that I should be particularly ashamed of, but because I can.

    All of my IM traffic leaves my company or home via tor. Sometimes I talk about some things that are somewhat personal that my company's or ISP's (assumed) packet sniffers don't need on record. Most of my messages still end up in the clear (don't always have otr on both ends), but more encryption is always better.

    IM traffic is a bad example when you're not using your own IM servers, but the point still stands. Do people who choose not to use services such as tor do so because they actually *want* people reading their communication?
  • Anchoret, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10What everyone is missing is that this "bomb threat" was almost certainly part of the huge and ongoing effort to destroy remailers and onion routers by producing malicious "illegal" traffic to attract law enforcement harassment of the server operators. This has been going on every day since the early '90s. It's unrelenting and has frequently been traced to law inforcement and intelligence agencies themselves.
  • ronjohn, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8What was that you said? You said NAZI...
  • dlsspy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8There's a lot of configuration you can perform on your node, including the type of traffic you're willing to pass as an exit node. Additionally, it's not hard to run something like an IDS that could prevent things you don't like from coming out of your exit node. Not necessarily a good idea, but if you own it, there are lots of options.

    When I'm running an exit node, I don't allow outbound HTTP traffic, for example. I just don't have the bandwidth for it. I don't mind lower traffic stuff like IM, though.
  • db113456, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8It is deliberate, no misunderstanding here, it was meant to be this way, and he gave up. The only silver lining would be 10 more tor servers to replace his server.
  • inactive, on 10/10/2007, -4/+11YOU'RE wrong
  • HonoredMule, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6As opposed to simply using it without hosting an exit node and never being faced with any charges to deny?
  • noahhoward, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8That is not the point. The point is, while Tor sites may be set up for a good cause it is commonly not what hey are used for. They get used by child pornographers, hackers and other people who simply want to do harm and get away with it. In cases like this an innocent person gets in trouble because of it.
    The guy wasn't arrested because he was helping people be anonymous he was arrested because someone else abused the system.
    Regardless of what you think hackers and child pornographers are not within their rights to do what they do in privacy.
  • aaronm67, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5No it doesn't. There are plenty of reasons to be anonymous on the internet that don't involve bad things.
    That's like saying Bittorrent exists solely for piracy. There are plenty of legitimate uses for it (for example, Linux distros, World of Warcraft patches, etc), but there are also many ways of abusing it.
  • rdoger6424, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4they could always use tor.
  • Vektuz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Cool, that means the police/other governmental agencies just have to keep placing bomb threats THEMSELVES, until all tor nodes are seizable. By design, its impossible to track that they did it, and gives them cause to seize equipment and make threats.
  • Tordenflesk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5ah, Tor. How you have helped me through many the School/corporate firewall. How could i feed my Digg-addiction without you.
  • pashdown, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Some people fear for their lives and livelihoods but still have the moral fiber to blow the whistle when they see a government, corporation, or criminal doing something wrong. If you believe lack of anonymity keeps the individual honest, what keeps government honest?
  • pbaehr, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Exactly. I think Tor is great and I'd love to help the project, but I don't need this sort of hassle. Sure, when you finally have an opportunity to explain why you're not the person they're looking for you they'll let you go (I believe there is even a legal letter on the Tor site for people to use for exactly this purpose) but who wants to go through all this trouble.
  • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4back in your days cough syrup had Codeine in it. And was far more effective than DXM at giving you a buzz. Probably less toxic and safer too.
  • cygnus2112, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8Illegal? Nah.. I bet the vast majority used Tor nodes to troll blogs.
  • inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3A better analogy is if you owned a campground, and one of the people camping smoked a joint. Except they don't arrest the guy smoking it, they arrest the the owner of the campground.
  • legendxx, on 10/10/2007, -13/+16I dont understand why anyone would run one of these nodes... the majority of people who use tor are using it for illegal activity.. and it's going to be traced back to you.
  • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3anonymous servers only work if the people operating the servers are also anonymous. Otherwise it seems you end up taking on the liability for the action the people you let onto your servers.
  • noahhoward, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3What is the point of a Tor if no one hosts and exit node?
  • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3not sure what you mean with that analogy.
    I remember when you could anonymously use a public campgrounds, and they have envelopes to write your bill and attach your check or cash payment to leave in a drop box. People almost universally paid their camp fee, and there was a real problem of people rounding up or over paying.
  • dlsspy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I had an investigator ask me to help with some kind of investigation involving an email sent from @somedomain for which I was some sort of contact. I'm glad the forgery didn't lead to my immediate arrest and confiscation of my equipment.

    Tor is a *little* different in that you're running a service that allows bad people to do bad things without being easily traced.

    Compare your government's concept of ``bad people'' and ``bad things'' against yours to decide whether anything immoral is happening.
  • Vektuz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Getting repeatedly chucked in jail (for short whiles) and interrogated and having your ***** stolen and your family scared kinda goes beyond just "intimidation." It costs you real time and money. If you're spending your entire life at the police station cuz someones using your tor node to spam bomb threats, you're pretty much incarcerated anyway.
  • Nougat, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5And the majority of people who drive cars use them to drive faster than the posted speed limits, also illegal. So should we look askew at automobile owners?
  • noahhoward, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I can assure you that the person who used one against our systems here were doing a bad thing and cost the American taxpayers a couple of million.
  • misterjangles, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3This is a serious question so digg me down if you feel like it, but post a reply. Why do people feel we should have anonymity on the net any more than we do in real life? I feel I have a right to protect my privacy, but that is not the same as anonymity. When everybody is anonymous there is no accountability and the first thing that happens is some asshat does something stupid just to screw with everybody else. It's human nature. Accountability is what keeps us honest.
  • trogdor282, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2What's your point? So hassling people is a great way to deter them from doing something. Duh. Doesn't mean everybody will give up, or that the concept of Tor is flawed.
  • godzilla808, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I'm not surprised at all. Bad people take advantage of everything, that's part of what makes them bad. :)

    What does surprise me is the number of law enforcement officials who fail to understand technology, and yet use it as a basis for an arrest--we have his IP address, so its-just-gotta be him! I don't see a difference between someone phoning in a threat from a pay phone and e-mailing it through Tor. Do we hold the telephone company liable because they provided the means for the call to be placed?
  • cygnus2112, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4.. and their socialist jackboots! POLICE STATE! The Jews were behind it all.
  • wdr1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2My desire to become a Tor node was just greatly diminished.
  • noahhoward, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4OH for ***** sake is everything a conspiracy these days? It isn't concievable that a bomb threat would cause someone to come to the place it eminated from?
  • a3r0, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Can't you set it so that you're never an exit node?
  • TinFoil209, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5Guess mom and dad were right on that old fart saying: "It just takes a couple bad people to ruin a good thing.". Tor a project to combat how ridiculously simple it is to track you on the internet with no defense, put to bad use. Thanx child porn pedophile / wanna be terrorist ass hats!
  • HonoredMule, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I'll be surprised when I get pulled over for driving...
  • mscman, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Are you running a Tor node? If not, then STFU. He tried offering a legit service for people, and when people abused it and it started to cause him trouble, he decided it's not worth it. I don't blame him one bit.
  • smellinator, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Not sure why people are burying you. I\'m laughing.
  • ZaZ2137, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Or, you could just check the box to operate in 'middleman' mode indicating you are not wanting to run as an exit node.
  • Pixelante, on 10/10/2007, -7/+9Nothing really surprising here. For all the tall tales, the loud proclaims, the hollow rhetoric, in the end the "online freedom" brigade turns out unable to put their money where their mouth is. When subjected to pressure, the Net's freedom fighters surrender.

    It only took some old-fashioned intimidation, you see. The Man won.
  • shreela, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I'm pretty sure large ISPs are working with marketing and data collection companies, so if I do a search on something I wouldn't want to be seen by everyone in the world with enough $ to buy my search/surf patterns, I click on my Torbutton (FF addon) icon, search, open links that look good into new tabs, then turn Tor off again (because it slows things down). I don't search for things that would trigger any Tor honeypot red flags (assuming there's such a thing, which if not before this incident, the odds seem likely there will be soon).

    It's my understanding that the main reason for Tor is to protect people that report on oppressive regimes. But between people taking advantage of Tor for illegal activities, and law enforcement bullying when they don't understand something slightly technological, people that use Tor for other reasons will suffer. Typical.
  • Junkyarddawg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2@sirloin: good point. I agree that tor has legitimate uses, and increasingly so as the electronic surveillance noose tightens around us all, I'm just saying that if you set up a tor server, you should be aware that your IP number may show up in the damndest places, and those who sniff IP numbers wont know you're running a tor server until they've interviewed you.
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