And someone else pointed out that the IRA used to send bombs through the mail. Yet we are not debating shutting down the Royal Mail because of that (and rightly so).
There are governments out there who kill people who criticise them, usually journalists. We need those people to continue their work. We do not want a world in which all communication is government-approved.
> the IRA used to send bombs through the mail. Yet we are not debating shutting down the Royal Mail because of that (and rightly so).
As I said elsewhere, at least in the US there's an entire law enforcement agency whose sole job is tracking down people who use the postal service to commit crimes and hurt other people. I'm sure there's an equivalent process in the UK. Tor is specifically designed to make that impossible.
There's really no comparison.
> There are governments out there who kill people who criticise them, usually journalists. We need those people to continue their work. We do not want a world in which all communication is government-approved.
I agree, and it may well be that on the balance we come to the conclusion that Tor is worth it. All I'm asking is that we stop looking at the harms as an abstraction and the benefits as concrete.
OP facilitated a bomb threat but seems to have thought primarily about how unfair it was that law enforcement subpoenaed them rather than the complexity of the moral choice they made and its consequences.
OP facilitated a bomb threat in the same way that the postman who delivered an IRA bomb did.
The complaint seems to be really about how the people who are hunting for the actual bad guys are so incompetent that they're hassling people running Tor exit nodes. The basic misunderstanding of technology is leading to unjust outcomes (whatever you think of the moral choices of people running Tor nodes; they are incapable of helping the inquiries so should not be subjected to these incompetent fumblings).
If the government thinks that Tor is a bad thing, and that running an exit node is immoral then we have a system in place to deal with that: pass a law making it illegal. Letting incompetent authorities hassle people who choose to do this perfectly legal activity is not the answer.
There are governments out there who kill people who criticise them, usually journalists. We need those people to continue their work. We do not want a world in which all communication is government-approved.