William Weber, a LowEndTalk member, was raided by Austrian police in 2012 for operating a Tor exit node that was allegedly used to distribute child pornography. While he was not arrested, many of his computers and devices were confiscated. He was later found guilty of supporting the distribution of child pornography through his Tor exit node, though he claims it was unintentional and he was simply supporting free speech and anonymity. He was given a 5 year probation sentence but left Austria shortly after. Though some articles portray him negatively, it is debatable whether he intentionally supported child pornography distribution or simply operated in the legal grey area of Tor exit nodes.
Kind of… only you parked the car in front of a jail, left the door open, keys in the ignition, and a “FREE TO USE” sign next to it.
Hey, maybe the next guy will just use it to go buy some groceries… maybe.
I hate this analogy. Its more like you parked it in a very public space and said “free to use” and someone who had been to jail used it. There are all kinds of legitimate reasons to use TOR that aren’t child porn, and acting like because it can be used to view child porn makes it truly horrible and hosting hardware to use it makes you part of the problem shows a misunderstanding of what its for.
Let me pose it to you this way. Do you use a VPN? Do you know someone who has used a VPN? Have you watched a YouTube video that was sponsored by a VPN? Do you remember the reasons to use a VPN? Those are all things Tor does well. Better even. And for free. Meanwhile, hosting VPN hardware comes with all the same “people could use it to host child porn” downsides as TOR exit nodes
In my personal life, I use Orbot all the time for things like keeping my Syncthing traffic secure and quickly anonymizing my traffic. I also host a relay because Iranian women and Ukrainian soldiers are currently using the Tor network for life and death circumstances.
As much as I sympathize and approve of that… try to take a step back and look at it from the side: you’re still saying you do it to help others “break the law”, it’s just someone else’s law that you don’t agree with, and hopefully it doesn’t break the law where you live (stay safe, although running a relay is not the same as running an exit node… but still). My analogy tried to capture that.
BTW, I do use Tor, and may also host a relay or two, but still no exit nodes.
I thought Syncthing already used encryption with a dual public key system to do the syncing? Is there an extra reason to add Orbot to it?
I don’t quite understand this. How is this different from this case: a substance is prohibited in a country X, but not in yours. You sell the produce in your country, and people from country X come to visit your store and buy the produce. They might take it back home, and hence, break the law. Or they might use it down the street.
How are you to blame for this? Though in OPs case the produce is given away.
It’s not different, and many countries have established laws against “drug tourism”, “sex tourism”, “abortion tourism”, or other stuff punishable under their law that people would seek to do in other more permissive countries.
Those laws often include punishments for the enablers, so while Iran may not be able to punish you in your own country, beware of ever visiting Iran, or any other country whose laws you may be helping people to break… or getting doxxed for some “extreme law defending enthusiast” to pay you a visit (see cases like Charlie Hebdo).
I did not know this but I guess it makes sense. But yes many countries do have these kinds of laws. Then sure, it is a good idea to know the laws regarding this of the country you are visiting.