User Anonymity

hal@finney.org hal@finney.org
Thu, 15 Feb 2001 23:43:12 -0800


Wei writes:
> My point is that if the authorities were willing to be Draconian enough,
> then jurisdiction shopping is the only defense available. Is there
> some intermediate threat level where it would make sense to try to hide
> the physical location of the server?

The first part sounds right, but if they are Draconian enough then even
jurisdiction shopping will not be enough.  They can require monitors in
everyone's computers to see what pages they are surfing, etc.  The
question, as you say, is what is a plausible threat model.

For the second part, I'd say that the US, today, under the DMCA fits
pretty well.  This is from
http://www.eff.org/ip/DMCA/hr2281_dmca_law_19981020_pl105-304.html:

  `Sec. 512. Limitations on liability relating to material online

     `(a) TRANSITORY DIGITAL NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS- A service provider
     shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided
     in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for
     infringement of copyright by reason of the provider's transmitting,
     routing, or providing connections for, material through a system
     or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider,
     or by reason of the intermediate and transient storage of that
     material in the course of such transmitting, routing, or providing
     connections, if--

          `(1) the transmission of the material was initiated by or at
          the direction of a person other than the service provider;

          `(2) the transmission, routing, provision of connections, or
          storage is carried out through an automatic technical process
          without selection of the material by the service provider;

          `(3) the service provider does not select the recipients of
          the material except as an automatic response to the request
          of another person;

          `(4) no copy of the material made by the service provider in the
          course of such intermediate or transient storage is maintained
          on the system or network in a manner ordinarily accessible
          to anyone other than anticipated recipients, and no such copy
          is maintained on the system or network in a manner ordinarily
          accessible to such anticipated recipients for a longer period
          than is reasonably necessary for the transmission, routing,
          or provision of connections; and

          `(5) the material is transmitted through the system or network
          without modification of its content.

Under this law, you are OK if you are just passing the data through.
Servers OTOH are required to remove data upon request of the copyright
holder.  Hide the server and there is no suppression possible.

Hal