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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 1 year ago by trashhalo@beehaw.org 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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[–] fearout@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Btw, what’s the current judicial status of exit nodes around the world? Why was he charged, yet the isp wasn’t? Would the isp be charged if it ran a similar exit node, or is it strictly because it was a private entity?

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Rule of thumb: You get the blame.

TL;DR: Ask a lawyer.

You can compare them to VPNs for the severity of restrictions (in 2020):

2020 restrictions on VPNs

For some more historical info, there is this list on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(network)#Reception,_impact,_and_legislation

For a more US-centric FAQ, you can check: https://community.torproject.org/relay/community-resources/eff-tor-legal-faq/

Still, most countries don't like random people to let other unidentified random people to do random stuff, most police officers are ill equipped or educated to deal with it, legislation hasn't been tested in most places, and you're running a hard to define, changing, and sometimes random level of risk.