Popular Net anonymity service back-doored (fwd)

[Steve Schear]

At 10:39 PM 8/21/2003 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote:

>However, perhaps the JAP team at TU Dresden hadn't much choice.  I
>haven't seen the court order, but I could imagine that they weren't
>allowed to inform the users because it would have harmed the criminal
>investigation.  Following the order while fighting it within the legal
>system is perhaps a wiser choice than just resisting it (and thus
>breaking the law yourself).

Some time back I suggested, on this list, what I believe is a legal method 
for thwarting such court orders for libraries that may work for other 
service providers.  In short, implementing a feature (perhaps a paid 
feature to turn it into a profit center) where users can inquire whether 
they or anyone using the service is the subject of such a court order short 
circuits the process.  If an inquiry comes in when no relevant court orders 
are in place then the service can reply no.  If court order is received the 
service cannot tell the users, but it can fail to respond.  This response 
failure is documented in the feature service guide as being indicative of a 
muzzled service provider.  So, unless the courts can order a service 
provider to lie to their clients, and thus subject them to possible 
litigation if it violates their TOS, the this non-response should do the trick.

steve