Tor blocking german nodes

Andrew tor at kleinhirn.org
Sat Nov 24 09:44:17 UTC 2007


kazaam schrieb:
> All german nodes (entry,middle and exit) are forced to log who connected to them and what they manipulated on the packet. So if you are accidently just connected to german nodes they got you. There's afaik no way in tor to prevent that this happens. Maybe blocking all german nodes would be too much and as you said destroying the network but at least there have to be taken care that not more than 1 node comes from germany.
>   
Sadly, what you say is true. Precautions have to be implemented in Tor
that no more than one node from Germany is chosen for any connection. We
should ask tor development to implement such a feature until 12/2008,
and have it activated automatically before the end of next year.
Actually, it might be wise to develop a feature that lets the client
choose no more than one node from _any_ country, since other EU
countries might use the directive that led to the german law, to pass
similar laws. Anonymous communication is something a lot of executive
agencies would like very much to get rid of, and this might be their way
to achieve that goal.

But please, everybody, do not overreact by blocking german tor nodes.
The law will only have an effect for tor operators by the beginning of
2009, and I doubt anyone will start logging before that. Blocking german
tor nodes on a larger scale will have a very serious impact on tor's
network reliability and speed, which is something we don't need.
Plus, there's still a chance the german Supreme Court
(Bundesverfassungsgericht) will stop this law before the end of next
year. The lawsuit is under way...

Andrew

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