While I disagree with them, there are a multitude of laws in most countries that make operating a TOR exit node a very bad idea. The concept of criminal responsibility for enabling the illegal acts of others, even when you don't know specifically what others are going to do with the tools you provide, is well established in the US and other countries.
Perfect example: Ryan Holle of Florida is serving life without parole for allowing his friends to borrow his car at a party when he was 18 years old. He went to sleep; his friends took the car and committed a robbery during which someone was killed. The prosecutor's argument to the jury during the 1 day trial? "No car, no murder".
There is something big missing from that summary of Holle: he knew his friends were going to commit a burglary.[1] Without that connection that puts him on the hook for a felony, he wouldn't be facing life for felony murder.[2]
[1] He disputes his point, which is fair enough, but the court has found otherwise.
[2] Someone could point out the three-felonies-a-day thing here.
EDIT for footnote 2 Flordia's felony murder law[3] spells out the very specific felonies in which you face felony murder charges. These aren't in the same category as accidentally picking up a lobster trap.
Whether he knew or not (he says he didn't believe that they were going to do it), the comparison to TOR-related cases is still appropriate. If one of these cases went to trial in the US, you would hear the prosecutor telling the jury about TOR's seedy reputation, and that because of that reputation, any reasonable person would have known that illegal activity was likely to occur. Under federal and most state laws, that's enough to make someone culpable.
Legally, "you should have known something fishy was going to occur" is a very different beast from "you knowingly participated in a felony conspiracy, and a co-conspirator committed murder that depended on your material aid."
Home invasions have a tendency to end up with someone dead. Don't help your friends commit them by giving them guns or the vehicles to get there. (Also, don't be the getaway driver for a bank robbery.)
Without the court finding that Holle knew his friends were going to commit burglary, the prosecutor could wave his arms all he wanted about how he should have known his friends were scumbags and he should not have lent them even his watch, but the actual legal requirements for felony murder would have fallen apart.
It's not hard to argue that TOR has non illegal useses which provide a fair amount of protection. DARPA provided early funding. Further the US State department is currently funding TOR development giving US exit nodes much better legal standing.
More importantly TOR is not going to work much worse if your exit node(s) shut down. Selling spray paint to a 15 year old might be used for tagging but you don't know and not selling it is not going to stop crap.
Home invasions have a tendency to end up with someone dead. Don't help your friends commit them by giving them guns or the vehicles to get there. (Also, don't be the getaway driver for a bank robbery.)
And, I suspect a jury would add to that...Don't offer up your internet connection with the specific intent to aid in shielding the identities of child pornographers, spammers, and all manner of thieves.
Halle was convicted specifically under Florida's felony murder law, which lists a number of felonies (including arson, escape, home invasion, and carjacking) that, if you participate in them, you are liable for any murders that occur during them.
We might someday find that everyone is responsible for their Internet connection. But it won't be because of felony murder laws.
You're being pedantic. The point is that there are similar laws regarding conspiracy that are even more broad, that could easily put an exit node operator in prison.
> On the other hand, one who has no knowledge of a conspiracy, but happens to act in a way which furthers some object or purpose of the conspiracy, does not thereby become a conspirator. Similarly, a person does not become a conspirator merely by associating with one or more persons who are conspirators, nor merely by knowing that a conspiracy exists.
There's your defense. An individual running a TOR exit node with the purpose of passing news to people behind the great firewall of China does not become a conspirator because an anonymous individual uses that node to commit wire fraud. They had no knowledge that a conspiracy was being committed - they may have furthered it (by simply running the node) but that is insufficient for a conspiracy charge.
> Running a TOR exit node almost certainly would not constitute an agreement under federal law.
You may very well be right. All I'm saying, and this is the EFF's position as well, is that at some point a prosecutor (or several) will test this. By running the node, you have agreed to have traffic run through your system. Given the shady reputation, you are saying "come do illegal things with my internet connection, I'll protect your identity".
Federal prosecutors are smart, and most are gunning for jobs at high-end law firms. Someone is going to try to get a nice resume bump by testing this eventually, and there will be an unlucky exit node operator that will at best only have to pay a six figure defense bill, and at worst will spend time in prison.
If that were really "all you were saying" the comment thread wouldn't be so deep. But earlier you said, "that's enough to make someone culpable," implying not that a prosecutor would test it, but that someone would be convicted. There simply isn't a sturdy argument for that proposition.
Also everyone up to the guy who mined the iron ore. Even the people who designed the machinery used to mine all the way to those who designed the machinery that makes the knives, because, without them, knives would not exist.
Maybe in US law (I'm still not convinced of that), but I disagree with your assertion that this could be used in "most countries". In the UK you would have to prove knowledge that a crime had been or was going to be committed - which kind of seems sensible.
Loaning a car to seedy friends has no redeeming value to society. Hosting a TOR node, on the other hand, protects the privacy of whistle blowers and likely contributes to bringing down totalitarian governments.
It seems quite possible to make the argument that the great good a TOR node can do outweighs the bad it can also do.
This is why the concept of jury nullification is important. Yes, it's good to have laws that punish accessories, but that kind of thing is obviously not the intended case. No rational person would accept that outcome under normal circumstances, but jurors are essentially bullied by the legal establishment, which holds them in fairly clear disdain, and told they must deliver a ruling based on certain rules without consideration to the larger import of the situation or face contempt of court. I suppose the abuse is even worse in jurisdictions and/or cases where jurors do not have a say in sentencing.
Holle knew they were going to use his car in a robbery. I imagine most juries would still punish even if they knew of nullification. The parent poster mislead you into thinking Holle was ignorant of what the car was used for.
I'd convict him considering the circumstances. He is an accomplice.
After some checking with Google I don't get the impression this case was "serious" enough to have a jury involved. E.g. from the statement of the convicted it's implied the maximum jail term would have been 3 months.
Those of us in common law based legal regimes count ourselves lucky to have that check in all but the most trifling of cases.
This is the basic weakness of Tor: while nobody can listen in on your communications, they can determine you're using Tor and communicating covertly. In some jurisdictions that's enough to put you in jail or to question you with the help of very nasty tools.
Perfect example: Ryan Holle of Florida is serving life without parole for allowing his friends to borrow his car at a party when he was 18 years old. He went to sleep; his friends took the car and committed a robbery during which someone was killed. The prosecutor's argument to the jury during the 1 day trial? "No car, no murder".