Abuse ticket

[Harry Hoffman]

Not to turn this into a legal thread (compulsary IANAL warning) but I
don't see how running a tor exit node makes anyone a common carrier.

I would be very interested to see any legal precedence for this. 
If anything most exit nodes reside in network space that has it's own
set of acceptable use policies (most of which are vague enough to ban
servers or extend the network beyond what the ISP has provisioned to the
customer).

In order to be considered a "common carrier" I believe that you need to
have the authority to provide service, which in most AUPs is not granted
and usually strictly forbidden.

Because a ISP doesn't actively enforce all aspects of a AUP doesn't mean
that it doesn't have a legal right to do so when it finds a customer
violating the AUP (this is why they are so vaguely written).

My $0.02, and again IANAL.

Perhaps it's better to follow the craigslist route and force https when
a user wants to post something. This way a tor node could block https to
the network space craigslist uses. This would allow a user to browse but
not post via a tor exit node. </shrug> 


Cheers,
Harry

 
On Mon, 2009-03-16 at 20:11 -0500, Scott Bennett wrote:
<snip>
> >
>      Wow.  The differences in laws from one place to another makes it
> difficult or impossible to recommend any single practice for tor users.  In
> the U.S., censoring the content makes you liable for any content that is
> alllowed to pass through, whereas a complete lack of content-based censorship
> and refusal to implement any leaves you protected as a "common carrier".
>      I would suggest in your case that you close port 80 (HTTP) while you
> contact your provider to find out whether they would accept blockage on an
> IP address basis.  One thing to keep in mind is that, as far as the tor
> community is concerned, content-based censorship by an exit node qualifies
> the exit node for a BadExit flag from the directory authorities.  If you are
> forced to close the port in order to keep tor running, then your node can
> still be useful.  But I wouldn't wait for another "abuse ticket" to take some
> sort of evasive action.
</snip>