[tor-relays] An update regarding the raid in August

["Artikel 5 e.V. via tor-relays" <tor-relays@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone!
The holidays and the 38C3 are coming up. Unfortunately nobody from our 
organization will be able to attend the congress in person this year.
In case that the police raid in August is going to be a topic for the 
relay operators meetup, we would like to provide you with a small update 
regarding the current state here.

The legal complaint procedure is still ongoing but last week -after 
several delays- we were finally able to get access to the court records 
for the case. We are not allowed to (and will not) directly 
quote/publish any of this material.

We can however make the following information public at this point:
- This case is about an (unsuccessful) cybergrooming attempt
  from Q2/2024.
- We have a list of IP-Adresses supposedly used by the perpetrator.
- Only one of them is one of our exit nodes.
- Others point to other exit nodes.
- Some of these other exit nodes are also run by German organizations.
- To our knowledge, none of these other organizations were visited like
  we were.
- In contrast to what the prosecution stated as part of the complaint
  procedure, several pages in the case file clearly state that they knew
  and fully understood that the server in question was never located at
  the home/mail address of our organization.
- This was clear even before the case was handed off to the local
  department responsible for our current registered address.
- At least some of the people involved also fully understand Tor and the
  implications.
- As we suspected, they also knew (and documented) upfront that this was
  a home address and not some sort of rented office or server farm.
- In combination, it looks a lot like several involved parties did not
  fully read and/or understand the entire file before playing their part
  in the puzzle.

It pretty much confirms what we already suspected.
Whether all this is a simple result of repeated organizational failure, 
unfortunate lack of technical understanding or even malicious intent 
against us or the Tor network in general, is an interpretation we will 
leave up to you.

Just be aware that if you are operating Tor exits in Germany, this could 
currently happen to you as well - even if you follow ALL the 
best-practices rules and recommendations currently out there.
Maybe we just have the "luck" of being registered at the wrong city with 
the wrong people working on these cases. Maybe not.

In any case... enjoy the holidays and (if you attend) the congress in 
Hamburg as well.

Kind regards,

   Gero
   for Artikel 5 e.V.
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