Authorities in Japan are so worried about their inability to tackle
cybercrime that they are asking the country's ISPs to block the use of Tor.
According to The Mainichi,
the National Police Agency (NPA, a bit like the Japanese FBI) is going
to urge ISPs to block customers if they are found to have "abused" Tor
online. Since Tor anonymizes traffic, that can be read as a presumption
of guilt on anyone who anonymizes their Web activity.
The Japanese police have had a torrid time of late when it comes to
cybercrime. Late last year a hacker by the name of Demon Killer began
posting death threats on public message boards after remo
tely taking
control of computers across the country. The police arrested the four
people whose IP addresses had been used and reportedly "extracted" a
confession, but they were forced into a humiliating apology when the
hacker kept posting messages while the suspects were in custody.
The games continued. Shortly after the New Year, police were directed to a small island south of Tokyo where a cat was found
with a USB drive on its collar. The drive contained information that
only the hacker could have known, and after reviewing CCTV footage of
the area, the police arrested and charged 30-year-old Yusuke Katayama with the crimes.
Despite his capture, the case was widely seen
as a damning indictment of Japan's justice system (which has a
reputation for forcing confessions from innocent people) and the
abilities of Japanese detectives (who are out of their depth when it
comes to cyber crime).
When the police seized PCs from Katayama's home and analyzed them,
they found that he had routinely used Tor to anonymize his online
activities. This was one of the discoveries that led to the formation of
a special panel by the NPA to examine how it investigated these kinds
of crimes.
According to The Mainichi: "[The panel], which was looking
into measures to combat crimes abusing the Tor system, compiled a report
on April 18 stating that blocking online communications at the
discretion of site administrators will be effective in preventing such
crimes. Based on the recommendation, the NPA will urge the Internet
provider industry and other entities to make voluntary efforts to that
effect."
Other crimes cited by the panel that Tor has made easier include:
financial fraud, the predatory behavior of child abusers, and leaks of
confidential police information. That last one should be a warning that,
at least in part, this idea is motivated by the desire of police to
avoid getting egg on their faces again.
Tor is a valuable tool for activists who live under repressive
regimes and anyone who might want to do something online anonymously
(like whistleblowers for instance). Quite what "abuse" of Tor means is
unclear. Since by definition you can't really know what someone does
when they're using the service, it seems a blanket ban is the real
intention.
A more encouraging move from the NPA is the decision to get its officers to start "joining hacker communities,"
to "create relationships with hackers and carry out necessary
information collecting activities." What hackers might think of the
police cracking down on Web freedom remains to be seen.
This story first appeared on Wired UK.
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