Re: German data rentention law

[Scott Bennett <bennett@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     On Sat, 1 Nov 2008 00:23:20 +0100 Sven Anderson <sven@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>Am 31.10.2008 um 06:03 schrieb Roger Dingledine:
>
>> I'm still surprised at all the people who think the choice is between
>> keeping their Tor relay without logs or adding logging. The choice is
>> to keep the relay running with no logs, or to shut down the relay.
>> Let's beat it here and now, rather than letting them gnaw us to death.
>
>I will also not log even after January 1st. And I am fighting against  
>the law. But I was talking about the last resort, if a court will  

     In what way?  Are you participating in a lawsuit and requesting an
injunction against the government to prevent it from enforcing the law
until after the court case has been decided?  Stashing hand grenades?

>decide that Tor operators have to log.
>
>To your fours reasons:
>
>> First, Tor isn't actually that bulletproof against a distributed
>> attacker (see all the recent papers we've been adding to
>> http://freehaven.net/anonbib/ as well as the upcoming attack papers
>> we keep hearing rumors about), and we don't want to make the job even
>> easier by making each of these relays into a juicy data target.
>
>Unfortunately I don't have time now to go through the papers in detail  
>now, but what about Racoons calculations? Don't they apply to these  
>papers?
>
>> Second, the rest of the Tor community would not easily believe that
>> trading off network security for network capacity in this way is a
>> tradeoff they want.
>
>How do you know that?

     Good grief, Sven!  Haven't you been reading this list during the
last couple of years?  The attitudes and reactions presented on this
list ought to be enough to convince anyone to take Roger's point for
granted.
>
>> Third, if Tor tolerates this law because its network architecture  
>> resists
>> it, and we let the law survive, then the next iteration of the law  
>> will
>> be better adapted to Tor's threat model.
>
>If we switch off the Tor nodes, it's like the law was well adapted  
>from the beginning. So at least we gain more time. (If Tor "tolerates"  
>the law or not will not influence legislation.)

     Not so.  First off, no one is suggesting not running tor.  The
choice many tor *exit* operators appear to be considering is to stop
providing *exit* service, nothing else.  Most of them would still run
tor as a relay.
     Secondly, the old adage that it is better to ask forgiveness than
to ask permission frequently will not keep you out of jail, while a
lawsuit to overturn enacted, but uncontitutional, legislation can usually
be handled without the plaintiff having to go to jail.
>
>> Fourth, we don't want to undermine the effort to make this data  
>> retention
>> law go away, by showing "oh, the law isn't so bad".
>
>
>I didn't suggest that. I'm talking about the time _after_ we lost the  
>fight against it.
>
     The last I saw posted here, that fight hadn't been lost, so please
do not refer to it in the past tense that way.  The fight can go on with
or without exits in Germany.

					Scott