legislative problem in Slovakia

["Vita Cizek" <civ@xxxxxxxx>]

 Hi,
Another legislative problem for running a Tor relay is probably on the rise:

In September, the Slovak Ministry of Transport, Post and Telecommunication
prepared an amendment of the Electronic Communication Act.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs integrated their suggestions, which
include prohibition of anonymizing services.

A link (in slovak) to the appended part is here :
http://www.ictlaw.sk/elektronicke-komunikacie/historia-pravnej-upravy-v-c-s-sr-a-sr/zakon-c-610-2003-z-z-o-elektronickych-komunikaciach/Siedma_novela_ZoEK-pripomienky_vznesene_v_ramci_MPK.rtf/view

An anonymizer is defined there as "A service that restrains or makes
impossible tracking of Internet users", which is a very vague term. It's
not obvious, exactly what technologies (HTTP proxy, VPN, Tor, SSH
tunnelling?) will be treated as "anonymizers".

Providing or even allowing such a service (within this could probably fall
running a Tor relay) will be prosecuted.
The fee can rise up to 33,000 Euros.

The reason for this is (no surprise here), that anonymizers are mostly
used for spreading child pornography, for extremists' communication and
for financial frauds.

If this amendment gets approved in this or similar form, it will pose a
serious threat to Tor and online anonymity in general.

I was unable to find any related text in english, so here is google
translation of an article analyzing this amendment in slovak:
http://translate.google.cz/translate?hl=cs&sl=sk&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inet.sk%2Fclanok%2F8135%2Fministerstvo-vnutra-navrhuje-zakazat-pouzivanie-anonymizerov-a-uchovavat-udaje-pouzivatelov-verejnych-internetovych-for

--
Vita








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