[declan at well.com: [Politech] Lawsuit challenges law targeting Internet "annoyances" [fs]]

[Ashton Vaz]

Eugen Leitl wrote:

>Seems like a reasonable law? Sure, if you've just put down the crack pipe.
>A reasonable law should *protect* the operator.
>  
>
Regarding my intent, let me elaborate.  I was looking for a simple, 
coherent and intelligent answer or discussion.  I invite you to not 
respond to any of my future posts or queries if you can't refrain from 
trite adolescent comments.  It should be obvious that I am *ignorant* of 
the what is triggering your panic, hence the question.  The rest of your 
response however, is much appreciated.

I disagree that the law should explicitly *protect* the operator.  Its 
equivalent to asking that there be a law to protect knife manufacturers, 
because people use knives to kill other people.  (Er no, thanks but I 
think that would just cause law bloat.)  The law should neither do more 
nor assume more in the case of anonymizing server operators than it does 
with knife manufacturers, i.e. innocent until proven guilty.

>>Isn't anyone paying attention to this clause - "and with intent to 
>>annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person"?  It isn't anonymity or 
>>    
>>
>
>If the abusive traffic *seems* to originate from your server, then
>1) intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass is clearly evident from abuse
>   complaint (emails, web server logs, etc).
>  
>
No, intent isn't clearly evident from a mere complaint.  You're assuming 
that it is.  A complaint and associated emails, logs, posts, etc. can 
only serve to identify that your ip was the final origin of the illegal 
action, nothing more.  It needs to be proven in court that you were the 
first origin of the action.  If you're just a middle node you have 
nothing to fear.  Even if you're an entry node or client node you have 
nothing to fear.  You've done nothing wrong.  Even examination of your 
seized hardware will demonstrate that fact.

>2) the originator is suddenly you, until proven otherwise
>
>The proof is usually associated with a search warrant, hardware
>confiscation (the process is so slow you can consider that loss
>permanent), and plenty of quality time spent with your lawyer, 
>and in court.
>
>I can see how this helps making more USians run Tor servers.
>  
>
I agree, partially.  Only the final origin is you. Any attempt in court 
to prove you as the first origin will fail.  You're not complicit in the 
abuse, just an unwilling pawn used by someone else.  So again, I ask, 
what's the fear for?  The courts can't charge you for receiving or 
forwarding the abuse *knowingly*.  That's what the law is about - 
receiving & forwarding abuse *knowingly*.

I'm certain that there will be charges laid and some pain on the part of 
a *few* people (yes, with a few lawyers making good $$$ :) ).  But that 
is how the system works.  They'll try prosecuting a few people & fail 
when it'll be seen that Tor node operators are not *knowingly* receiving 
& forwarding abuse.  (Neither are i2p or Freenet operators doing so.)

In other words, doesn't such a law apply to your ISP as well?  It is 
they who carried the communication *to you* in the first place.  All the 
ISPs upstream to you are complicit and involved in the "annoy, abuse, 
threaten or harass" intent.  If they, large corporations with loads of 
cash are not required to examine all packets and prevent certain 
traffic, then, neither can you, a poor single individual be expected to 
do so.  You're merely running a router, nothing more.  In that sense, 
you're identical to every ISP, no?

>>anonymizing services that are being targeted, but misuse of anonymizing 
>>technologies.
>>    
>>
>But misuse of anonymizing technologies is habitual. The current anonymizing
>infrastructure doesn't allow persistent pseudonyms and prestige tracking,
>so this is an inevitable side effect of providing anonymizing service at all. 
>We could use a law making operators guilty until proven otherwise like another 
>trepanation. 
>  
>
You don't know that.  You're assuming it is true.  Read the Tor 
documentation sometime.  A variety of people (government spies included) 
are using Tor & other anonymizing networks!  It isn't just being used by 
losers to abuse people.

Cheers,

Ashton