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from the land-of-the-free-and-home-of-the-easily-coerced dept.
The Kilton Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire, had been hosting an exit relay on the Tor network since July as part of a pilot program to safeguard citizens' privacy online.
After meeting with [local cops, tipped off by the US Department of Homeland Security], however, the librarians have taken the box offline over fears it was being used for criminal activity.
[...] Kilton's exit node was the pilot for an effort by the Library Freedom Project to equip local libraries in the US with Tor nodes that could be accessed by users in areas where internet traffic is censored and closely monitored.
ProPublica claims that the police did not threaten any action against the library, but merely informed them of the possibility that their Tor node could be used for criminal activity.
The library's board of trustees will vote later this month on whether to bring the node back online.
[...] The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it was starting a campaign to flood library trustees with letters of support for the node in an effort to get the Tor box back up and running in the Kilton Library.
Additional reporting here.
SoylentNews is available through Tor, as well. Here is our .onion link. -Ed.
(Score: 1) by SomeGuy on Saturday September 12 2015, @04:53PM
Let's get rid of this entire Internet thingy... because criminals might use it.
While we are at it, let's get rid of air... because criminals are known to use that too.
Those that want to take away privacy are the real criminals.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Saturday September 12 2015, @05:04PM
mark my words, in 5 years or less, we'll have an 'internet license' forced on us where anonymity is stamped out as best the authorities can, and we'll all be fear mongered into always 'signing in to the internet' for any i/o to flow thru the inter-tubes.
if it even takes 5 years, I'd be surprised. but you watch, we'll see more motions by various interest groups to convince the unwashed masses that its for their own 'safety' that they always login 'to the internet' with their real names before they can do anything.
with DPI and other forms of 'network mgmt' I fully expect edge routers to deny i/o unless the right stateful info is set first, such as a login. I'm not involved in this space anymore (I used to be employed in network mgmt, but have not worked for quite a long time in that area (various reasons...) but I'm aware of the advances in hardware packet decode and user tracking that goes on inside the many levels of router and switch we have today.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."