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.b...@hiberniaatlantic.com] > Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 6:12 PM > To: Steven M. Bellovin; trel...@trelane.net > Cc: NANOG list > Subject: RE: tor > > -----Original Message----- > From: Steven M. Bellovin [mailto:s...@cs.columbia.edu] > Sent: Wed 6/24/2009 11:01 PM > To: trel...@trelane.net > Cc: NANOG list > Subject: Re: tor > > On Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:48:58 -0400 > Andrew D Kirch <trel...@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 ...