[tor-relays] Got a visit from the police this morning..

Stig Atle Steffensen stigatle at cryptolab.net
Sun Jul 31 13:13:40 UTC 2016


I never thought I would be one of those operators who had to deal with the police or anything like that.
I've done all I can to set things up so that it's easy to see that I run a exit node.

I have a disclaimer on my website : 
https://stigatle.no/index.php/tor-exit-node/

and if you go to the ip of the node, you'll see the same info:
https://185.97.32.18/

I run this node - which is no secret:
https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/04250C3835019B26AA6764E85D836088BE441088

So, back to earlier this morning.
Suddenly got a hard knock on my door, I was surprised because we never get visitors.
I saw it was the police (2 officers), and they asked if we could talk in private, because
they heard my kids (2 and 4) and my wife upstairs, I said yes, no problem, let them in.

They would not let me know what it was about at first, they asked a lot about what I did yesterday,
easy for me to answer since I was out climbing mountains all day long.
Then asked a lot about who has access to my connection at home, It's just me, my wife, no one else.

Then I start to ask a bit, and I thought about the exit node I run, I quickly confirmed 
that it was the exit node (which is in sweden and not in Norway where I live) that was the reason why they where at my house.
All though - 2 second check would confirm to them that the server is not at my house, and the impression they gave me until I
showed the Exit node was that they thought it was sent from my house.

I have blocked the email ports on the exit node, but the issue was that a email had been sent through hotmail (web),
threatening Angela Merkel, that's why they where at my house this morning.


I got the chance to explain everything as best I could, explained how it all worked, and why
I run a exit node, and I feel they got all the answers they needed. They then left - and for now that was that.

I would be put on some kind of list, but that list would also explain that I operate a tor exit node.
I'm happy with that, and hopefully this will be all that there's to it.

I might have to do some more explaining if I travel to sweden\germany, but that's fine with me.


Anyone else here that has this happen to you recently as well?..




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