FBI Sends Subpoena To Boing Boing Over Its Tor Exit Node, Gets Educated, Goes Away
from the well-that's-nice dept
There have been plenty of discussions on the possible "risks" of running a tor exit node, where clueless law enforcement might confuse traffic that comes out of that node as being from the person who actually manages the node. And, indeed, last year we wrote about an absolutely ridiculous case in which a tor exit node operator in Austria was found guilty as an "accomplice" because someone used his node to commit a crime. Thankfully, it appears that the US isn't going quite down that road yet. It appears that a month and a half ago, of all places, the website Boing Boing received a subpoena concerning the tor exit node that the site hosts, demanding an appearance before a federal grand jury in New Jersey.Except, Boing Boing's lawyer, Lauren Gelman, quickly shot off a note explaining "tor exit node" to the FBI... and the FBI understood what was going on and moved on. Really. Here's the note that Gellman sent:
Special Agent XXXXXX.They didn't have any questions. They understood the situation and (one assumes) continued the investigation through other means. As Cory Docotorow writes:
I represent Boing Boing. I just received a Grand Jury Subpoena to Boing Boing dated June 12, 2015 (see attached).
The Subpoena requests subscriber records and user information related to an IP address. The IP address you cite is a TOR exit node hosted by Boing Boing (please see: http://tor-exit.boingboing.net/). As such, Boing Boing does not have any subscriber records, user information, or any records at all related to the use of that IP address at that time, and thus cannot produce any responsive records.
I would be happy to discuss this further with you if you have any questions.
The FBI agent did his homework, realized we had no logs to give him, and no one had to go to New Jersey. Case closed. For us, anyway. Not sure what went down with the grand jury.We write plenty of stories about "clueless" law enforcement and politicians overreacting to things by not understanding the technology. Because that's newsworthy. But it is worthwhile, every once in a while, to remember that there are some in these jobs who do understand technology and are perfectly willing to understand what is happening and continue to do their jobs without going overboard.
And, as Cory notes, perhaps this story of nothing actually happening will be useful in convincing a few more people that maybe the "risks" of running a tor exit node aren't quite as high as some have made them out to be. Yes, you may receive a subpoena, but hopefully it's from law enforcement willing to understand how tor actually works and what it means.
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Filed Under: fbi, subpoena, tor, tor exit node
Companies: boing boing
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Explanation note
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Can't provide what you don't have
It's also a good reason to encourage proper strong encryption of e-mail (ie. encrypted with the recipient's public key by the sender, decrypted by the recipient on their system, mail systems never have the private keys at all). That way if a subpoena comes in you can just turn over the encrypted data and if law enforcement comes back wanting the keys you can honestly shrug and say "don't have 'em, never did, only person who has them is the recipient so you'll have to talk to them about it". (Yes, encrypted e-mail can work safely with webmail, Javascript has the APIs to decrypt the text if the page is coded to use them and the text is in a standard form in an easily-identified page element.)
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Re: Explanation note
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Remember the Cop Mentality
ALWAYS remember this when you're dealing with the Masters.
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You'll receive a subpoena if you're a company. If you're just an average person and someone does something like share child pornography through your exit node, you will have you door kicked in by the FBI, be slammed to the floor, cuffed, have an assault rifle be jammed in the back of your head and then spend the next several hours at the nearest FBI field office, while agents collect every electronic device from your home and go over your life with a fine-toothed comb.
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But this article makes one really useful point: don't put your TOR exit node on an IP shared with other traffic. Because then you'll have to dig up all your logs to prove that it was the TOR node and not you using HTTPS that made the connection in question.
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Actually, only one that goes the way described by Rekrul is enough for the rest of your whole life...
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Prima facie "Social Justice Warrior" detected!
Can't be bothered to read the article, but posting what I think about what it says anyway. That comment has nothing to do with this story. The cop realized his/her mistake, and went away happy. Yet you then come along and spit out that. What for?
Why would anyone want to do this (what you did) as an AC? What's it really get you?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUahTD5IBXU
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Cease and resist
What he did was something akin to Hollywood's speculative invoicing, where he hoped to gather information from a clueless, shitscared or insanely patriotic (read non-thinking patriot) company/individual in the hopes that would make his job easier. When this didn't happen, no doubt the fed just moved on to his next (speculative) target.
If this were real there would still be the need to testify, regardless of whether said *documents* could be supplied or not.
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https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html.en
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