Net Anonymity / Law Enforcement / Offshore Hosting

A

An Anonymous BLer

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Note: I'm guessing this should go to Legal Discussion.


Most people here are going to be familiar with a certain webpage that allows you to check the veracity of sources based on votes from other people who have used that source. Any of you that have used it have probably seen the ocean of shit that gets spammed there, as well as all the posts from scammers, and people trying to advertise (usually bogus) source lists. From my experience, the admins have pretty much abandoned the site. I'm interested in starting a new one.

Being anonymous on the internet is harder than you'd think, when the people you want to be anonymous from are Law Enforcement Agencies. Does anyone know to what extent offshore hosting helps with this? If an American or European LEA came snooping around asking for information, which countries are going to be most likely to tell them to take a long walk off a short pier? Preliminary research suggests India, Israel, and Hong Kong (since its status as a Special Administrative Region seems to afford it a lot of autonomy from the Chinese central government).

Does anyone have any experience with web hosts who care more about privacy than about a piece of paper from a government 10,000 miles away?

Also, what sort of legal liability would a US citizen open themselves up to by running such a site? Could they put the thumbscrews to you and toss you in Gitmo? Could you be considered a criminal accessory or something in the event a vendor or customer gets busted? Is there any liability at all, or am I being unnecessarily paranoid?

I have quite a bit of experience with anonymity online, from anonymizing proxies to industrial-strength crypto, but having an anonymous web-presence seems like it offers a pretty unique set of challenges.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
 
Not sure if this will fly, but will toss it to the LD Mods for now.

ANON to LD
 
An Anonymous BLer said:
Also, what sort of legal liability would a US citizen open themselves up to by running such a site? Could they put the thumbscrews to you and toss you in Gitmo? Could you be considered a criminal accessory or something in the event a vendor or customer gets busted? Is there any liability at all, or am I being unnecessarily paranoid?
Click to expand...
There are a number of sourcing sites that seemingly do alright, at least legally. I recall that Overgrow was busted because the site's operators were physically involved in seed sales and grow operations. They were doing much more than simply running a web site. Though the states' and federal law is not black-and-white, since site busts often revolve around conspiracy liability, one of the most vague of criminal concepts, the critical area is the point at which a site operator is aiding someone in committing a crime. There are differing opinions as to when the "conspiracy line" is crossed.

Looking at noteworthy site busts, there seem to be three different categories -- supplier sites, sourcing sites, and discussion sites. Supplier sites, which are commerical in nature, distribute illegal or semi-legal contraband. These guys get busted all of the time. Sourcing sites are in a grey area. Culpability could turn on whether the site's owner knowingly aides in illegal transactions. If not -- there is no conspiracy charge. It's a tough question to answer, so it's difficult to know for sure.
 
What about discussion sites; How often do they get busted by the feds, and how likely would they be. Basically, what would they need in terms of evidence or action to prove such a case?
 
Re: Net Anonymity

(NOTE: In reponse to http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=338988 Thanks for posting the initial thread. It's been informative.)


So I'm guessing that if you're just running a site where people can discuss sources they already know about, you're not aiding anyone in potentially breaking the law. I'm assuming then that this sort of setup would be the most you could distance yourself from criminal liability while still running such a website, and that everything beyond that is a matter of protecting your anonymity, which really seems like a question more geared for the S&T crowd.

Thanks for the responses. It's been informative. :)
 
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