Lawyer sues Tor for containing revenge porn site

[colonel_mortis]

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/9/5883651/texas-lawyer-sues-tor-for-providing-tools-used-by-revenge-porn-site

Yesterday, attorney Jason Lee Van Dyke linked to a lawsuit filing against Pink Meth, a nude photos site accessible only to users of the encryption software. The complaint accuses Pink Meth of offenses that include potentially distributing child pornography and gaining unauthorized access to privately hosted nude photos, neither of which are uncommon ways to go after a revenge porn site. But Van Dyke's case also extends to Tor, which he says is guilty of conspiring with Pink Meth by helping it operate.

A settlement with Verisign temporarily took down the site's main domain, but it's continued to operate under various addresses. Van Dyke equates Tor and its anonymous hosting tool with traditional hosting services, calling it an example of "unscrupulous internet service companies" that "allow illegal websites like Pink Meth to remain anonymous and difficult for authorities to shut down."

Pink Meth, [...] prominently thanks Tor for making it possible to operate and urges users to donate to the project. But Tor is agnostic about the capabilities it enables, which range from getting around oppressive government firewalls to buying illegal drugs. It has no hand in "registering" sites that use it, though Van Dyke claims that Pink Meth's operation signifies "continued tolerance and endorsement."

Van Dyke, who bills himself as "quite possibly the meanest and most right-wing lawyer in Texas," linked to the suit this morning as part of a series of taunts on Twitter. After a critic said that suing Tor for Pink Meth's actions was like "suing an automaker because their car was used in a bank robbery," he contended that "I can always dismiss them later. That's not going to stop me from destroying Pink Meth."

 
This is ridiculous! Sure, Tor is a mechanism through which many illegal things are done, but so is the WWW and that doesn't mean people are allowed to sue Sir Tim Berners-Lee for inventing it... nor the ISPs for connecting you to the internet (although by that logic you could sue them for providing access to Tor as well - not that it's realistically possible to). I don't agree with or support revenge porn in any way, and am not against the suit against the website that facilitates it, but that does not mean that they have the right to sue Tor for providing a protocol to host their site on.

The article implies that the lawyer feels that Tor should be regulated like domain names are, to make it comparable to the WWW, but that is stupid for a few reasons: 1) Tor is not the Web, and cannot be treated as such. Just because they are online, doesn't mean they can be regulated equally. 2) The regulation that affects the web is in terms of domain names, but a website will work fine without a domain name (not that running a website with just an IP is the best idea), so you can't expect Tor, which AFAIK uses an IP-like system rather than a DNS-like system, to regulate its contents.

[Unhelpful]

I'm going to sue car manufacturers. People use cars to drive to places and kill people.

 

Seems like similar logic.

[qwertywarrior]

hahaha thats like sueing bittorrent or firefox 

[ericlee30]

Good i hope that lawyer wins, F that sick site with child porn, it can burn to the ground,

 

I think I read the article wrong. Damn it ,I hate when that happens.

[colonel_mortis]

Good i hope that lawyer wins, F that sick site with child porn, it can burn to the ground,

1) This is revenge porn rather than child porn

2) Totally agree with you that the site should be shut down, but that doesn't mean that Tor is at fault and should be sued, which is the main issue here.

[ericlee30]

1) This is revenge porn rather than child porn

2) Totally agree with you that the site should be shut down, but that doesn't mean that Tor is at fault and should be sued, which is the main issue here.

Am I missind something then? in the articale it says "The complaint accuses Pink Meth of offenses that include potentially distributing child pornography and gaining unauthorized access to privately hosted nude photos, neither of which are uncommon ways to go after a revenge porn site. But Van Dyke's case also extends to Tor, which he says is guilty of conspiring with Pink Meth by helping it operate."

[ericlee30]

1) This is revenge porn rather than child porn

2) Totally agree with you that the site should be shut down, but that doesn't mean that Tor is at fault and should be sued, which is the main issue here.

Oh I think I understand, the Lawyer is going after Tor and not Pink Meth?

[Nineshadow]

Let's sue the Universe because it allows all this to happen!

[Geneslaw]

Cute. Let’s sue Tim Berners-Lee. He invented the WWW and did pioneering work on HTTP. And those systems are now ridden with illegal downloading, illegal (child) porn, and so on. It’s probably used by terrorists too. Let’s sue Mozilla, Google, Apple and Microsoft for creating browsers that allow you to view the WWW, and thus facilitate child porn and terrorists (the two magical words). Let’s sue Dell for allowing computers that can use web browsers. Let’s also sue the government, because their roads can be used by drunk drivers and transporters of illegal goods. Let’s sue the sea for allowing ships that are involved in human trafficking. Let’s sue God, since it is claimed that God created the sea, and thus obviously facilitates human trafficking.

Looking at the lawyer’s Twitter, he’s just a silly redneck who never grew up. Tells me more about the lawyer and his client.

[mr moose]

Let all the silly analogies begin:

 

I'll start: does this mean I can sue the banana company for growing a straight banana when I was hungry for an apple?

[Legion]

I hope they shut this site down but attacking TOR is the wrong way to do it -.-

[Enderman]

American logic: SUE SUE SUE!

[flibberdipper]

Yeah... Not gonna work, stupid.

[Misanthrope]

In other news, I'm launching a lawsuit against the administration of my city for containing a house where known drug dealers live.

[StingBull]

I expect the day someone tries to ban electricity.

 

This reminds one of Yahtzee's poems.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jim-yahtzees-rhymedown-spectacular/7646-Games-Games-Everywhere

[Mooshi]

This is like trying to sue Coca Cola because someone at a Mcdonalds slipped on spilled soda on the ground.

 

What's next, sueing Jesus because of the Westboro Baptist church?

[landon418]

Pink meth wat

[JAKEBAB]

Personally don't see a problem with this Tor is allowing the site to operate i love Tor but child porn is sick and the thing i hate so much about the deep web Tor is allowing these sick bastards to access that site they should block any site with child porn because that is too far!! also for the revenge porn thing are u guys kidding have u been on 4chan lately? theres like a million threads all the time of revenge porn lol if people are stupid enough to let someone take a picture or video it then go and cheat on someone then people are going to be hurt and do stuff like post it online lol what do people expect

[RobDeleu]

This girl must be dumb, since now everybody is going to be curious about her naked pics/video and check it out. The only thing she's doing is giving that website more exposure.

How did she find out about that site anyway? I thought you needed a special tool to browse sites on TOR and who says her stuff ain't on sites like xhamster, http://theporndude.com/, tube8, etc. What's so extraordinary about this pink meth? Does anybody have a screenshot or something, since I don't feel like downloading TOR.

Looks like this girl is trying to get rich with her own stupidity, but no way she'll win this. Others girls would follow her example and the courts would be doing overtime massively with similar cases.

[Victorious Secret]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

 

Guys, have we not had this effect ruin lives enough before? These guys really need to stop giving publicity to things they don't like. 

[Kamina]

Someone mind explaining what the hell is revenge porn?

 

Sounds kinky.

[LAwLz]

Someone mind explaining what the hell is revenge porn?

 

Sounds kinky.

Step 1) Collect a bunch of nude pictures and videos on your current partner.

Step 2) He/she breaks up with you

Step 3) You release all pictures and images as revenge.

Step 4) ???

Step 5) Profit

 

 

I just love the lawyers logic. So because someone uses Tor for illegal things, Tor should be responsible? I guess YouTube is responsible if someone were to upload revenge porn on there too then. Google probably has a ton of revenge porn sites indexed and cached as well.

If anything, shouldn't it be the one who uploaded the photos (her former partner) that should be punished? I guess suing the person that originally spread the images would make too much sense, so let's sue the network that a service he uploaded it to uses.

The lawyer is a dumbass:

"In prosecuting our claims against them, we will make no distinction between Pinkmeth, its operators, and those who give them aid or comfort."

Sorry, but that's not how the law works. You have to make distinctions between the real criminal, and anyone who supports them or provide them with the tools to do illegal things. By his logic, since I am "giving them comfort" by calling him a dumbass, he won't make any distinction between me making this comment and Pinkmeth spreading illegal images around?

 

"The TOR Project Inc. ("TOR") is a slightly different story. They were named as a conspirator in the lawsuit based upon out belief that they were hosting PinkMeth or providing it with services that have allowed its operators to continue to escape justice".

Well, so does Ford when someone uses their car as a getaway car. That doesn't mean Ford should be punished for bank robbery. Wanna take it one step further? Sue the company that built the road. No wait, let's take one more step and sue everyone who helped paid for the road (with tax money).

Oh but Mr "MeanTXLawyer" has thought this through already. "Fine. I can always dismiss them later. That's not going to stop me from destroying PinkMeth.".

So he will sue Tor first and then dismiss them. Yeah this sounds really thought out.

"I am willing to consider that perhaps the real problem here is how people use the Internet".

You know... If some random people on Twitter is enough to convince you, the lawyer, that your lawsuit is bullshit, then maybe you shouldn't work as a lawyer.

 

 

Also, why is it that like 90% of people misspell Tor? It's not an acronym anymore and is officially spelled Tor. It's even misspelled in the official court documents.