German laws and tor

[Ringo Kamens]

The reply worked.

On 4/24/06, Landorin (GPG 4096R/E9FD5518) <Landorin at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I just joined this mailing list and sadly the welcome mail did not
> indicate how exactly I can respond to another posting, so hopefully I
> did it the right way now.
>
> I'm studying laws right now (but don't believe I'm an expert now!) but I
> can't give you a direct answer about §9.
> The point is, paragraphs can be used/interpreted in different ways, thus
> it really depends on the arguments of a lawyer or judge. Additionally,
> each judge may decide differently about a case. So if a judge from an
> "Amtsgericht" (lowest German court) decides that you are responsible for
> the traffic going through your TOR server, the judge of a "Landgericht"
> (next higher court instance) might say the opposite. It's not like in
> the USA where (as far as I know) people can rely on a similar case which
> was judged by any court. The only exception is when a "Bundesgericht"
> (and "BGH/BVerfG") decides on a case. That decision is valid for
> everyone then (a court decision of a lower court is often followed by
> persons and companies, but it's not binding as well as it is not valid
> for everyone; just the involved persons).
>
> So what does that mean for German TOR users? Unless a "Bundesgericht"
> decides on this specific question, the answer could be yes as well as
> no, it really depends on how the court decides. So in theory, you could
> safely use TOR as well as you can't safely use it (since the judge might
> claim you're responsible for the traffic and then you have to accept it
> or go to the next higher court and hope it decides differently). I guess
> with a good lawyer one could go up the courts one by one until one gets
> the decision one wants. ;)
> My advice: in doubt, don't be an exit node and instead become a
> middleman node (add ExitPolicy reject *:* to your tor configuration).
> That way your IP won't show up on a website or so if someone is browsing
> through your node, so theoretically no one can tell the traffic from a
> person went through your node and can't hold you responsible.
>
> Sincerely,
> Landorin
>
> --
> Accelerate cancer research with your PC:
> http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/curecancer.html
>
> The sender of this mail supports mail encryption (GnuPG/GPG, OpenPGP
> compatible) and digital signature.
>
>
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