Kafka and the Internet . . . perhaps you might turn this into an interactive novella<br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Nov 14, 2007 9:22 AM, Mirko Thiesen <<a href="mailto:Mirko.Thiesen@tuebingen.mpg.de">Mirko.Thiesen@tuebingen.mpg.de
</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Good morning,<br><br>I've been operating a Tor node (NetWorkXXIII) for quite some years now
<br>(although it was down for several months as it was facing repeated DDoS<br>attacks earlier this year).<br><br>In June the local police informed me about preliminary proceedings against<br>me by asking me (by mail) to "visit" them. The letter mentioned computer
<br>fraud (actually it was "Computerbetrug in Tateinheit mit Faelschung<br>beweiserheblicher Daten gemaess Paragrafen 263a, 269, 52 StGB"), but since I<br>hadn't done anything I followed the general advice in such situations: You
<br>have the right to remain silent. Use it. So I decided not to go to the<br>police - if you haven't done anything and you don't even have a clue what<br>they are talking about, it usually can only get worse. Apart from that, the
<br>day they wanted me to come I was not even in town.<br><br>In early September I received a penalty order ("Strafbefehl") - from the<br>court. A judge found me guilty of having ordered a gift voucher (value: 51
<br>EUR) on <a href="http://amazon.de" target="_blank">amazon.de</a>, providing address details of a living person (but not<br>myself obviously), and using a <a href="http://Web.de" target="_blank">Web.de</a> email address registered specifically
<br>for this purpose. I was sentenced to pay a fine of 500 EUR.<br><br>Because I hadn't ordered the voucher, I appealed ("form- und fristgerechter<br>Einspruch") to that penalty order, which led - according to German laws - to
<br>an actual trial. This trial was held today.<br><br>While the penalty order listed four witnesses (the person whose address<br>details had been used, a police officer in a cow town near that person's<br>home hometown, a local police officer, and an employee of
<a href="http://amazon.de" target="_blank">amazon.de</a>), the<br>summoning ("Ladung") to the actual trial didn't list any witnesses at all. I<br>had been a lay assessor ("Schoeffe") for four years in Germany (but in a
<br>different part of the country), so I knew that this usually would be a good<br>sign as the judge(s) during the actual trial wouldn't have much more than<br>the defendant's testimony (and of course the records) to rely on.
<br><br>Well, it turned out to be the exact opposite of what I had expected. They<br>had absolutely no doubts that I was at least somehow guilty. I explained in<br>great detail what Tor is and what it is used for, and the judge asked me:
<br>"Is this illegal?" Wow - shouldn't she know?! I replied "No, of course not.<br>Otherwise I wouldn't do it."<br><br>The judge and the public prosecutor realized soon that I probably wasn't the
<br>originator of the transaction in question. But instead of realizing the<br>faults of the police and the public prosecutor's department (German laws say<br>that they have to investigate *all* aspects of a crime and not just find
<br>someone that seems to be somehow guilty at first sight), they tried to<br>construct a case of aiding and abetting ("Beihilfe") - they insisted that I<br>most probably set up my node in order to help people committing crimes. Or
<br>at least I accepted that people would commit crimes using my Tor node. I<br>asked "What about a postal service that delivers i.e. a bomb or a blackmail<br>letter? Do they help people committing crimes as well?" They said that these
<br>two things could not be compared as a postal service offers transportation<br>services whereas I offer anonymization services.<br><br>To make a long story short: The judge as well as the public prosecutor<br>refused to accept that I didn't do anything criminal, that I didn't and
<br>still don't want to help anyone committing a crime (at least not more than<br>i.e. <put a random<br>telco/ISP/postal service here> does), and that they should have investigated<br>the issue further beforehand.
<br><br>They offered me to dismiss the actual court trial according to paragraph 153<br>StPO which is not the same as an acquittal (no "Freispruch") which I<br>eventually accepted. It means, however, that I won't have to pay for the
<br>trial. They also repeatedly said that this time I got off with just a slap<br>on the wrist - next time it wouldn't be that cheap.<br><br>Yeah, and that's it. I am completely disappointed by the way this court<br>
trial was held. I don't know if this is how they usually do it here in<br>Southern Germany. When I was a lay assessor, we always treated the<br>defendants with some kind of respect - not only but especially if there was
<br>no actual evidence that they had committed a crime. But the public<br>prosecutor as well as the judge both repeatedly showed me their disrespect -<br>because I didn't confess anything, because I was not thankful for their
<br>offer, because I still operate this criminal thing they obviously had no<br>clue about.<br><br>Okay, signing off for now.<br><br>Bye, K&K,<br>T-Zee<br><font color="#888888">--<br>|Mirko Thiesen "We're with you all the way, mostly"|
<br>|Mirko.Thiesen@<a href="http://Tuebingen.MPG.de" target="_blank">Tuebingen.MPG.de</a> | <a href="http://www.kyb.mpg.de/" target="_blank">http://www.kyb.mpg.de/</a> |<br>|MPI for Biological Cybernetics | Phone: +49-7071-601-638|
<br>|Spemannstr. 38, D-72076 Tuebingen | FAX: +49-7071-601-616|<br></font></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><br><a href="http://scottmacleod.com">http://scottmacleod.com</a><br><br>This email is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of this email message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and destroy/delete all copies of the transmittal. Thank you.