Is it illegal to make an account on &#39;DarkNet&#39; marketplaces (which provide illegal goods for purchase), but not actually make any trades? i know this might be a goofy question, but i wanted to ask here, i am thinking about making tutorial videos on tor because it fascinates me, and i wanted to find out if it's illegal to create accounts and access websites on tor that provide illegal goods, but however not purchase any of those goods. i have read some articles online about darkweb markets and some of these markets you simply can't see unless you made an account, and so if it's illegal to make an account on these websites on the darkweb then some journalists might have broken the law. but before any of that, i wanted to ask you guys and find out, to make sure i wouldn't be recording myself committing a crime or something, thank you. 1st EDIT: someone has said that my question is a duplicate of this post Why is Silk Road criminal but not LocalBitcoins? my question asks a completely different question then that post, that post asks why the makers and providers of a darknet website are criminal, i am asking if a private 3rd party, who is not the maker of the platform, the pusher of drugs, or the law enforcement hunting these parties, is at fault simply by making an account and passively observing the illegal darkweb market place, am i committing a crime if i do? would i be guilty by association? would i be a accessory to a crime? thanks 2nd EDIT: so this guy named &quot;gorkin&quot; has commented that i need to &quot;reword&quot; my title, but i have no idea what he means and i have no idea how to get in contact with him, or speak to him directly, he said that the &quot;that&quot; in my title can refer to the market places or the accounts themselves, and my question is not about the marketplaces, it's about just passively setting up the accounts on the darkweb marketplaces, i checked the question that someone claims my question is a duplicate of, and it's a completely different question then the question i am trying to ask, so if someone were to just contact me directly and explain to my why they think my question is a duplicate that would be great and i can explain what i mean by my question, thanks.
Under United States law, it is not illegal to simply make an account on a forum where criminal activity takes place. The closest thing I can think of would be misprision of felony (AKA failure to report a crime), which requires active concealment (see United States v. Johnson, 546 F.2d 1225 (5th Cir. 1977)). Simply observing evidence of criminal activity and not reporting it would not qualify. However, if that forum also contains material that is illegal to posses (such as child sexual abuse material), downloading that (even by simply viewing it using your browser) could be a crime. I would note that I am specifically not advising you whether or not doing any of the other things, like making and publishing tutorial videos on how to access such sites, is likely to get you into trouble with the law. If you want that sort of legal advice, you should contact a lawyer, as the advice is going to be very specific to the exact details.
It would be illegal because only you are allowed to view the comic you purchased. Creating a copy of your comic (e.g photcopying, scanning etc) is not allowed, and showing others a copy of your comic is also not allowed
That GDPR Disclaimer is no protection in some jurisdictions: the applicable laws to that situation in germany for example don't care about the GDPR: Cold calling, mailing, or e-mailing private people to advertise services all is handled by the same law: Without the consent it is expressly illegal under §7 of the law against unfair competition (Gesetz gegen unlauteren Wettbewerb UWG) and such cases are rather Slam-Dunk if the origin can be made out. The punishment can be a 300.000 € fine. The fact that to email someone you need their e-mail address and that e-mail addresses and private addresses are by default considered personally identifiable information is making it worse for the advertizer: Without either an exception (there is none available to cold-emailing) or special allowance of the person the data belongs to, you violate §4 of the federal data protection law (Bundesdatenschutzgesetzes BDSG) just by handling their e-mail address. That's a separate crime from the UWG one, adding up to another 300.000 € fine under §43 BDSG - or even up to 2 years in prison under §44 BDSG! Oh, and if the email does not contain a proper sender's address, that's another chance for a huge fine under the UWG... So, GDPR is your least trouble, if you violate the marketing laws of a country, or their own data privacy laws. A disclaimer means nothing as the act of sending the mail, even to an unintended addressee, is what is illegal and the law as written does not give a damn about 'I didn't want to advertise to that person' when in fact you sent them unwanted advertisements. Oh, and the very repository you suggest? It would violate the very same §4 BDSG and be illegal for processing private data if it was not actively asked to do that by the end user. As a result, that database is useless: It does kick back all people not in its database. Its database is incomplete because only few people give their address to that database as people not aware of the database never add their data on their own. So it regularly violates §4 BDSG with every German citizen's e-mail address it gets and kicks back, and claiming those addresses would be OK, it throws the company trying to check the database under the bus because they rely on data that is impossible to be reliable. tl;dr Don't do cold-(e)-mail marketing. You throw yourself into boiling oil with a lit torch in hand. further reading Other laws banning such behavior I had listed here, and I quote myself: The US has the CAN-SPAM-Act, which illegalizes sending unsocialised advertisements. You may NOT send a mail if any of the following is true: it has no opt-out the email was gained by 'harvesting' contains a header not matching the text contains less than one sentence the adressee does not have any relation to you In fact, you are liable for a 5-digit fine per infringing e-mail in the US. The FTC itself suggests to never buy e-mail lists - as E-mail harvesting or generating any possible e-mail adress itself is illegal.
Think of a website that has gives no option for the users to delete what they have posted -but still the users can delete their account completely. That's easy - this is exactly how all StackExchange sites (including this one) work :-). See for example: How does deleting work? on meta.SE. Is it against the right to erasure mentioned here as a part of GDPR? No, it is not (otherwise StackExchange would be in rather big trouble). The "right to be forgotten" is subject to limitations. Most importantly, it only applies to personal data. Personal data is defined as (GDPR, art.4): any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’) If what you posted contains no personal information about you, it is not "relating to" you. The details are complicated (as usual, see e.g. The GDPR: What exactly is personal data?), but "personal data" is things about you (your name, your address, your sexual history, maybe even your IP address). On the other hand, if someone asks how to solve a programming problem, and you write an answer explaining what API to call, that answer is not personal data. In addition to that, even personal data may be retained if the data controller has a need to retain that information. This is also covered in article 4. For example, the controller may retain information "for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims" - otherwise you could buy something online without paying, and then ask the seller to forget about your purchases so they cannot collect the outstanding payment. So, in summary: A website will need to allow users to delete or hide personal data that they posted - such as their user profile information, or personal information in their posts. That does not mean they are allowed to delete entire posts - it is enough if personal information is redacted or anonymized. The website may be allowed to retain that information (hidden) if they can show legitimate interest - for example billing information, or posts that are the subject of a lawsuit. The StackExchange network, for example, covers this by allowing users to: disassociate posts from their account delete their account entirely (thus effectively disassociating all posts from personal information) asking a moderator for redaction of personal data
Wikipedia explains this well enough: Particular numbers can be trade secrets, and their reproduction and dissemination may be particularly proscribed, e.g., by the U.S. DCMA. As a coarse analogy: Your social security number is not "illegal." But if somebody entrusted with it shared it in violation of law or contract then their communication of the number in a context that allowed potential identity thieves to associate it with you would be illegal. To answer follow-up questions in the comments: Sure, "mere possession" of a number can land one in jail for all sorts of crimes, just like "mere possession" of stolen property can. For example, if you possess a bank account number, credit card number, or PIN, and you "conspire, confederate, or combine with another" person who actually commits fraud or theft using that number, then you can be convicted of the same crime. This is so common that a search for "conspiracy to commit wire fraud" or "credit card fraud" provides ample reading.
Of course it is illegal. You are attempting to access somebody's data without their knowledge and certainly without their consent. In the U.K. it is a crime under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, the Police and Justice Act 2006 and the Serious Crimes Act 2015. The clue here should be in the term Serious Crimes. The Human Rights Act, and indeed the ECHR, should never come into it unless it was state sponsored or corporate spying. And even then certain states have given themselves Orwellian totalitarian authority to do as they please.
There is no law against a person creating and distributing such a poster, to the best of my knowledge. However such a poster pretty clearly implies that the person shown is guilty of a crime, or at least strongly suspected. If the store somehow made an error, pulling the image of a person who did not use the stolen card or there is some other error, the person pictured might well suffer a significant loss of reputation, and might sue for defamation. Damages could possibly be significant. Such suits have, I believe, happened when surveillance photos were posted but there later proved to have been an error. Mary might wish to double check how sure the store is that the photos are of the person who actually used the stolen card.
Hypothetically speaking, if a program doesn't come with a EULA, does that mean someone in possession of it (who isn't the owner) would be breaking the law if they used it? If the copy on the stick was lawfully made with permission of the copyright holder, then you can lawfully use the software. Someone who lawfully comes into possession of a lawfully made copy of the software (that was not a backup) has the right to use that software in the ordinary way. For example if someone found a USB stick lying on the ground and it had software on it but no EULA, could they use the software? Maybe, but it would be hard for them to know whether they could or not. It might be a backup. It might be an unlawful copy. There was a case where a person found a CD in the trash that was clearly an original. The package had a shrink wrap agreement, but he found the CD without the package. The court held that he had every right to use the software on the CD (since it was a lawfully-made copy and not a backup) and was not bound by the EULA (since he hadn't opened the package). But he was very fortunate in being able to demonstrate these facts.