[tor-relays] BitTorrent complaint

[Troy Arnold]

On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 11:00:42AM +0200, bartels wrote:
> On 04/12/2013 10:06 AM, Moritz Bartl wrote:
> >On 11.04.2013 22:17, bartels wrote:
> >>I don't see the legal issue, though. Maybe it is there, but I don't see
> >>how rejecting sites via Exit Policy ;) would trigger any one of  (1)
> >>through (5).
> >Yes, rejecting via exit policy should not, but direct
> >filtering/tampering via iptables might.
> >
> 
> How do you figure that? Where's the legal difference?

Rejecting via exit policy means that those packets/traffic never reach your
relay because the rest of the network won't select your relay as part of
the circuit.

Rejecting via iptables means those packets reach your machine but never
leave.  Therefor, you are making a judgement about which traffic is abusive
or illegal.  In some jurisdictions this has, by some twisted logic, been
interpreted to mean that the operator is giving tacit approval for anything
that has not been rejected.

This is even more clear-cut if you are rejecting specific hosts rather than
all traffic on a given set of ports.

It really is spelled out in the doc that Moritz linked:
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorExitGuidelines

In any case it *is* mean to tell the network that you'll relay certain
traffic but then in fact not pass it on. Nobody likes a liar :)

-troy