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Man Found Guilty of Child Porn, Because He Ran a Tor Exit Node (The Story of William Weber) - LowEndBox (lowendbox.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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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.

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[–] 28 points 3 years ago (2 children)

It's like being jailed for having your car stolen and being used to hit a pedestrian.

Exactly this, except that nobody stole your car. You are providing free and no-questions-asked open access to your car for any member of the public who needs to use it. Many other people also used the car that day for legitimate business or for fun, but then one guy got in it and ran over 32 people in a furious rampage.

Clearly the driver is at fault here, but a case can be made (and apparently, was) that this would not have been possible had you not provided access to the car to the perp in question.

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  • [–] 30 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Clearly the driver is at fault here, but a case can be made (and apparently, was) that this would not have been possible had you not provided access to the car to the perp in question.

    This is the equivalent of holding gun manufacturers culpable if someone buys a gun from them and then uses it to commit murder - right?

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Well, if weapons manufacturers were handing the guns out literally for free to anyone who has a pulse, I could definitely see them getting in trouble

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  • [–] 14 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    Why does it make a difference that gun manufacturers charge for their weapens. They make them accessible for basically every adult. If they didn't sell them to basically everyone, many shootings would not happen, as world wide statistics show. Earning income on what they provide makes them even more responsible, because they profit off from the selling. I don't see why they are not being charged for selling it to people that use it to commit crimes, and someone providing an exit point does get charged because he lets people use it while he has no control at all over who uses his access point.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago

    That's a bit more of a stretch, but barely. It's in the same spirit, yes.

    Please do note that I'm not necessarily agreeing with the ruling here, only trying to draw a more accurate analogy. The problem with equating those two though - the tor node ruling vs gun manufacturers being liable for deaths - fundamentally comes down to a few facts, that guns are sold with the intention of killing people, that guns are sold by corporations with lots of money and power, and that governments don't want tor in the hands of citizens. Tor node keepers are easy to prosecute in many countries, as individuals hosting software that is frequently used for illegal action. Gun manufacturers are not.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    This logic holds the ISP and backbone providers liable as well, does it not?

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    Somewhere else in the comments it was said that ISPs have legal protection. The laws were changed afterwards,so that individuals could also be recognized as ISPs so that they'd have protection, for situations like these.

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