Dealing with feds

["Hans S." <toronall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

hi, 

following all the previous and ongoing threads I believe it begins to make sense for TOR operators to get a little familiar about standard 
procedures/behaviour in case of bust/interrogation, at least in germany.

Me:
I run a node.
I am not a lawyer.
I am not a criminal.
I am not a cop or anything alike.
after  having this clear ;) we can proceed.

I personally have switched my node to "reject *:*" and opened a DirPort after there were indications of surveillance, and I believe in order to provide $reasons_running_TOR I first must protect myself and epecially my family, as they are probably the weakest point.

At least in germany, the police/feds still(!) need a reason to act, as seen with recently alex and morphium, there were/are clear accusations. 
In english: They need some sort of unlawful action originating from your IP to act. Running a tornode itself is _not_ against the law (in germany/yet). 
We'd been all facing impeachments since long if that was so.  

There were/are various reasons to believe I was/am under surveillance, a few highlights (of rather dull nature):

My isp __unasked__ sent  a new modem  with a letter to set it up, the old one (still humming along today) would be broken.
Wires in the houses' telekom teminal block were in a very odd order. 
In a call to the isp's help desk I was told my file was  tagged as  router,
and other small and more or less  noticable things.
Completely non-tec: My wife sometimes thinks she's watched when going out.

If all these incidents are not mere paranoia, apparently this is rather local police acting than hightec surveillance.
Bad enough though, if not worse.

For what I was told the best tactic in dealing with interrogations should be not to say anything except the necessary. This is your lawful option
(in germany), as long as you are accused of something. If called as a witness, you cannot refuse answers, unless you again would
incriminate youself. (correct me if I'm wrong)
The only goal the interrogation has, is primarily to make you sign your confession. 
Neither the tough, nor the friendly cop you meet are your friends, they all have the same goal. see above. If you decide to talk, remember, 
if caught in conversation you might expose many details, sometimes contradicting yourself and your lawyer has an awful lot of things to correct. (and you pay) So let a lawyer do the talking. You pay for that.

Running a node is _not_ against the law, but I do not believe there's a point in trying to explain TOR, or even better,  trying to convince a cop of $reasons_running_TOR.

They most probably will try to prove (or make you admit) the node was only run as an obfuscation for $sinister_doings.
Questions I could imagine:
prove your node was running at $particular_time
prove this is/was your node 
prove node $yournode was run by you at $particular_time
prove you yourself did not use $yournode for $sinister_doings

They actually could ask the ISP/hoster for a complete logs  at $your_ip around  $particular_time in order to prove you were running a Tornode, (you will hardly ever cause these amounts and type of traffic yourself alone), but this is not their job, and their indication probably is one connection to somewhere originating from $yournode.
Also, and more complicated, they could compare the amount of data in and out of $yournode minus tls etc... to prove you did not use you own node for $sinister_doings.
But this certainly is beyond the mental capabilities of normal coppers.  
Maybe it would be helpful to 'name' the router, at least there is some communication and the nick and key of $yournode can be associated with you. 
But I am not so shure if TOR really wishes an avalanche of requests ... 

Efforts finding appropriate organisations and in order to engage them in whichever manner, are brave, and if successful, fantastic.
But after all the talk though there will be not much change and some of us will pay a lawyer themselves, I wouldn't  really count on 
any support there, it is against the current political trend, at least in, but not only in germany.




Hans