To me this seems to target specific illegal sites (which makes sense) rather than operating a service which may be used for illegal stuff while not being explicitly designed for it (so Tor should be fine given it has possibility for legitimate usage, and so do Tor hidden services as long as they're not used for anything illegal).
I disagree. The law in most countries already allows for prosecution for services that exist primarily/solely to aid in the commission of crimes. For example, torrent websites are periodically taken down and seized based on laws around conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.
Therefore, the law already allows websites or services to be shut down if their primary purpose is to enable illegal behavior. The Silk Road is a perfect example of this. They were basically and eBay for drugs and other things. While they didn't actually possess or sell the drugs themselves, no one anywhere considered the site to be legal.
I was disagreeing with the stated use of the law that the OP claimed. I was saying that I am pretty sure all developed countries have laws that already serve the stated purpose, thereby negating the need for this.
That shows that Germany can already prosecute nefarious sites which may even have legitimate purposes (i.e. "file sharing") but are used predominantly for illegal purposes. Thus, the need for this saw seems suspect.
Agreed, while both the proposal and the article contain lots of the usual dark net FUD, the proposed law seems pretty constrained on the platforms themselves.
I honestly fail to see the larger point of that legislation, if a platform is as clearly targeted towards the crimes specified in the proposal it should already be covered by a plethora of German and EU wide law.
Thats just the point, these services are already outlawed. There are numerous laws that regulate the sale of drugs, weapons etc., which makes these onion-services already illegal. The wording of this proposal is made deliberately weak so that even Exit nodes will be covered, if it gets through the Bundestag.
Alas a small word on the legislative procedure. This is "only" a draft of a proposal of the Bundesrat (what in most states is called the Senate). The 'Bundesrat' has no legislative authority, so in essence this is a paper that 'calls the Bundestag (House of representatives)' to initiate a legislative procedure -- on itself it is pretty meaningless but has the chance to become a problem.
> I honestly fail to see the larger point of that legislation, if a platform is as clearly targeted towards the crimes
the problem with wide legislation is that it's got a chilling effect.
Would bitcoin or crypto currency be targeted? it's a fully anonmyous payment system which could circumvent anti-money laundering laws, and be used to conduct illegal activities.
I think platforms should never be charged as illegal. Only acts that are illegal should be charged, and the platform where it takes place should be deemed a neutral utility or carrier.
Who knows what's going to be illegal tomorrow? Who knows if a fascist gov't comes into power, and starts targeting specific groups, using such laws?
Facilitating crime is generally illegal as well as performing it. That's where you get things like (for example) conspiracy and aiding and abetting charges.
The Internet facilitates a great many crimes. New forms of crime previously unimaginable. New scale of crime previously the stuff of nightmares. New reach of crime previously to the most innocent.
Is the purpose of this infrastructure to facilitate all this criminality? Certainly not the sole purpose. Perhaps it was purposely build in a way that would allow scale and prevent censorship which enables many forms of criminality which a different architecture would have suppressed.
Typically the law is written quite differently. If there is a uncoincidental legal purpose, then infrastructure must be legal. Because many times the purpose of a specific technical measure can serve both a legal purpose and a criminal one. To ask merely of a technical measure serves a criminal purpose without regard to a greater purpose is to criminalize any censorship resistant network.
>Is the purpose of this infrastructure to facilitate all this criminality?
>To ask merely of a technical measure serves a criminal purpose without regard to a greater purpose is to criminalize any censorship resistant network.
There's two vastly different talking points here, a) the Tor network and similar tech that could get caught in legalese crossfire and b) specific websites that utilize the above. I agree on your sentiment that a) should never be outlawed but the German text seems rather specifically worded to address b). Please be assured that I'm not trying arguing that these people have enough technical understanding to not make it unnecessarily broad and throw a) under the bus as well.
I believe my main point still stands, b) is the equivalent of me opening a corner shop advertised as "illegal arms deals" and pretty much legislated enough.
> I honestly fail to see the larger point of that legislation, if a platform is as clearly targeted towards the crimes specified in the proposal it should already be covered by a plethora of German and EU wide law.
Based on my understanding of Czech law (which is alike German law, but not that much), the point lies in process issues. Having specific laws allows the government (meaning the executive branch) to form law enforcement units, establish government offices dedicated to the issue etc.
