ah, reputation and trust. my favorite crux
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: france-info@safe-mail.net
Date: May 14, 2006 8:10 AM
Subject: Re: Some legal trouble with TOR in France
To: or-talk@freehaven.net
I am living in France and working for some French security agency.
Please understand that I may not identify myself. Working for a
security agency does not mean that I approve all their actions, even
those that I MUST do.
Since about 5 years, French services are trying to control the
"anonymous" French based services. It includes TOR, and some
remailers.
About 4 years ago (I don't remember exactly, and I am at home now, I
haven't my documents with me), we visited the operator of the
remailers FROG and AZERTY. We suspected him to be also the webmaster
of the website CAMELEON, but it is another story.
We seized his computers, disks of course, etc, and arrested the man.
Then we told him "You have a choice between 2 options: You accept to
work for us, it means concretely to give us your remailers' keys and
to forward the remailer emails to us, or you will go to prison for
threat against the national security. Just a few months, the time we
check all your computers, make an audit on your disks, etc".
After 30 minutes, the guy gave us his remailers' keys, and accepted
our offer. He then re-installed his remailers, and all the traffic was
sent to us too. I remember that we asked him to NOT send us the
garbage that the remailers automatically send! Then our computers
processed the messages, using the remailers' keys. Of course we could
not decypher all, if Frog/Azerty was :"in the middle" we couldn't do
anything. But when these remailers where the first or the last one, it
was very very interesting...
I don't know now if these remailers are still operated, I am working
in another service.
About TOR now: I MAY not say all what I know, as the case is currently
investigated by our services and I don't want to get into trouble!
Just know that France's policy is to NOT allow ANY remailer or
anonymous service run from France, UNLESS the French special services
can control it. This is a NO exception rule.
The only recommendations that I can do to the TOR users, is to NOT use
any French-based TOR servers in entry ou exit.
People here and there are generally against the US gov and say that he
"violates their rights". I don't know a lot about the US gov. But what
I know about the French gov, and the instructions our services receive
a few times by week, make me sure that the French citizens' rights are
perpetually violated, about phone tapping and internet.
