RE: tor

["Joe Blanchard" <jbfixurpc () gmail com>]

My gosh...

Ok, so if someone happens to talk about murder over the phone, is the phone
company providing the service held liable?

Lets get back to rational/informative content please.

-Joe Blanchard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rod Beck [mailto:Rod.Beck () hiberniaatlantic com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 6:12 PM
> To: Steven M. Bellovin; trelane () trelane net
> Cc: NANOG list
> Subject: RE: tor
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven M. Bellovin [mailto:smb () cs columbia edu]
> Sent: Wed 6/24/2009 11:01 PM
> To: trelane () trelane net
> Cc: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: tor
>  
> On Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:48:58 -0400
> Andrew D Kirch <trelane () trelane net> wrote:
>
> > Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 12:43:15PM -0700, Randy Bush wrote:
> > >   
> > > > sadly, naively turning up tor to help folk who wish to 
> be anonymous 
> > > > in hard times gets one a lot of assertive email from 
> self-important 
> > > > people who wear formal clothes.
> > > >
> > > > folk who learn this the hard way may find a pointer 
> passed to me by 
> > > > smb helpful, <http://www.chrisbrunner.com/?p=119>.
> > > >     
> > >
> > > If bittorrent of copyrighted material is the most illegal 
> thing you 
> > > helped facilitate while running tor, and all you got was an 
> > > assertive e-mail because of it, you should consider yourself 
> > > extremely lucky.
> > >
> > > Anonymity against privacy invasion and for political causes sure 
> > > sounds like a great concept, but in reality it presents 
> too tempting 
> > > a target for abuse. If you choose to open up your internet 
> > > connection to anyone who wants to use it, you should be 
> prepared to 
> > > be held accountable for what those anonymous people do 
> with it. I'm 
> > > sure you don't just sell transit to any spammer who comes along 
> > > without researching them a little first, why should this be any 
> > > different.
> > You might also consider asserting your right to common carrier 
> > immunity under 47USC230.
> OK -- I looked at that part of the US Code 
> (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/230.html).  Apart from 
> the fact that the phrase "common carrier" does not occur in 
> that section, subparagraph (f)(2) says:
>
>       Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or expand
>       any law pertaining to intellectual property.
>
> Perhaps you're referring to the law exempting ISPs from 
> liability for user-created content?  (I don't have the 
> citation handy.)  If so, remember that that law requires 
> response to take-down notices.
>
>
>               --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
>
> Well, let's push a little harder. If I transfer stolen 
> intellectual property over the Internet using simple file 
> transfer, I don't believe any court is going to accept that 
> the ISP has liability. 
>
> So what is the underlying principle? Mind you the law is ad 
> hoc most of the time. This whole area is fuzzy to the point 
> of being a pea soup fog ...