How will credit card purchases NOT fall under the guidlines of the new Supreme Court ruling? The intent of this new ruling by the Supreme Court is for anonymous networks but, when doing forensics on a wire in such a manner as to present to a judge, you can't tell what's inside those packets. Also, an encryption session from the peer to peer client WASTE has a 256 encryption key in the header and that is it. WASTE would certainly fall under the criteria under the new ruling BUT, as soon as you class WASTE into the mix, a regular credit card purchase fits like a glove too! Tor ban article: http://themerkle.com/fbi-can-obtain-a-warrant-if-you-run-tor-come-december/ The ruling: http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/frcr16_mj80.pdf The part that sucks: A magistrate judge ... has authority to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage … if: (A) the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means; What's to prevent cops from busting down your door for making a credit card purchase? UPDATE response: So, one dirty movie/copy write protection violation on Frostwire and a connection to Tor, and I'm gonna be looking down the barrel of a few M-16s? In theory, the FBI could be after Bob but have the 'wrong address', like what happens so many times today. They perform a packet capture at the ISP and look for what they consider dirty traffic but could easily be some other form of encrypted service, and end up raiding Mary's house because she was running encrypted traffic (such as a credit card purchase) on a non-standard port to her servers. RPC servers do this all the time (send encrypted credit card purchase data on a nonstandard port).
This question, along with a number of articles on the Internet, misconstrues what the rule change is about. The rule change does not say that you can get a search warrant, that is to enter premises with/without machineguns etc, solely on the basis that someone is running Tor on that premises. The rule changes actually has nothing to do with search warrants. The rule change is about "remote access" warrants and, specifically, the question of which magistrate you need to get the warrant from. The background is that statute grants the FBI the power to hack into a computer (that is, obtain "remote access") to search for and retrieve evidence in a criminal investigation. One of the preconditions for doing so is that they identify which district the computer is in, and apply to a magistrate in that district. (By way of further background, under the American way of distributing power, it is seen as a bad thing for (for example) a magistrate in California to be able to issue a warrant to an FBI agent to conduct a search in North Carolina.) When the target computer is desired to be hacked because it is running a hidden Tor service, then how does anyone know what district it is in? Where does the poor FBI agent apply for his or her warrant? This rule change resolves this practical problem by saying that, where the use of Tor or a similar system precludes any knowledge of the physical location of the target computer, then the FBI can apply for a warrant with any magistrate. See further http://www.fed-soc.org/blog/detail/amendments-to-federal-criminal-rule-41-address-venue-not-hacking-powers
Short answer: Maybe. Long answer: The answer here varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Normally, the process goes like this: The application for the warrant is usually made under seal or otherwise in secret to prevent the target from trying to hide evidence. So before it's been executed, you can pretty much forget about accessing it. After the warrant is executed, though, there are differing answers to this question. The Supreme Court gave us a test for this kind of question in Press-Enterprise II, which held that the First Amendment gives us a qualified right to access court proceedings and records. The right applies when public access makes sense using the "experience and logic" test: Has the Anglo-Saxon experience typically been to provide access, and does logic tell us that access has beneficial effects for the judicial process? But lower courts have disagreed about how to apply the test. The Eighth Circuit allowed access to warrants in a defense-industry corruption investigation in In re Search Warrant for Secretarial Area-Gunn, but the Ninth Circuit denied access in to warrants in the same investigation in Times Mirror Co. v. U.S. I think, though, that the Ninth Circuit decision would have come out differently if the investigation had already ended. Just to mix things up further, the Fourth Circuit has also allowed access, but based on common law principles of access, rather than the First Amendment. That was Baltimore Sun Co. v. Goetz. Same in the Second Circuit: In re Application of Newsday, Inc. Individual states also have their own rules, but those are of course subject to limits under the First Amendment. When I wanted a copy of a warrant, I would go first to the clerk of the court whose judge signed the warrant. I would tell them what I was looking for, and I pretty much always got it. I would rarely submit a FOIA request, especially if the warrant was issued by a federal agency. Those requests sit in a queue for months or years without being reviewed, and the agency virtually always denies the request anyway. When law enforcement agencies and courts have copies of the same record, you're almost always going to have better luck getting access from the courts, which are set to open by default. If the court denies the request, try again after there's an indictment, and again after the trial.
One way in which it holds legal water is that if you use the website in violation of the terms, then you may forfeit your right to take civil action against the company. Analogous language especially regarding the age of the user may protect the site against actions by third party governmental entities (COPPA-like laws), though nothing patently obvious springs to mind (insofar as this deals with firearms and there is also an age 21 restriction both on the web site and in terms of US firearms law, this is not a totally crazy idea). The citation of 18 USC 1030 non-probatively points to an issue which may be disposed of by SCOTUS in US v. van Buren, that knowingly violating the terms of service is a crime (a proposition rejected by lower courts, see US v. Valle). Facebook v. Power Ventures in particular clarifies how &quot;being put on notice&quot; may make such unauthorized access indeed &quot;unauthorized access&quot; in the statutorily-relevant sense. This does not prevent a legally-authorized law enforcement investigation, pursuant to para (f), but if the &quot;violation of TOS = unauthorized access&quot; theory is upheld, it limits how LEOs can legally access the website (and the limitations extend past LEOs). It is a separate and potentially interesting question whether there actually are any legal limits on the investigative powers of the government – if any law enforcement officer has the liberty to investigate anyone they want, with no supervision or requirement of justification, then this would be a rather gaping loophole in their legal strategy. Web pages involve massive copying of copyright-protected data, and the function of terms of use is in part to conditionally grant access to that copyright-protected content. When a person copies protected material from someone's web page having been explicitly denied permission to copy, they run the risk of an infringement lawsuit.
Suppose I obtain the ability to access someone else's cryptocurrency. This sounds like fraud e.g. I overheard them saying the password to their wallet out loud or I am a custodian of their assets. Nope, STILL fraud, possibly even Computer Misuse aka hacking... and because you use internet: it's Wire Fraud I now borrow those assets, keep them for some period of time, and then return them, without the owner's consent. hmmm, let's take california... Luckjy you, it is not embezzlement because you were not entrusted with the cryptocurrency, you gave yourself access. 503. Embezzlement is the fraudulent appropriation of property by a person to whom it has been intrusted. No it is plainly... theft under California law: 484. (a) Every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the personal property of another, or who shall fraudulently appropriate property which has been entrusted to him or her, or who shall knowingly and designedly, by any false or fraudulent representation or pretense, defraud any other person of money, labor or real or personal property, or who causes or procures others to report falsely of his or her wealth or mercantile character and by thus imposing upon any person, obtains credit and thereby fraudulently gets or obtains possession of money, or property or obtains the labor or service of another, is guilty of theft. In determining the value of the property obtained, for the purposes of this section, the reasonable and fair market value shall be the test, and in determining the value of services received the contract price shall be the test. If there be no contract price, the reasonable and going wage for the service rendered shall govern. For the purposes of this section, any false or fraudulent representation or pretense made shall be treated as continuing, so as to cover any money, property or service received as a result thereof, and the complaint, information or indictment may charge that the crime was committed on any date during the particular period in question. The hiring of any additional employee or employees without advising each of them of every labor claim due and unpaid and every judgment that the employer has been unable to meet shall be prima facie evidence of intent to defraud. Giving it back doesn't matter. The person taking the crypto for any amount of time without being entitled to them is committing theft. You see, California doesn't interest that you just want to borrow. They don't even require Mens Rea for the mere taking - only for fraudulent pretense there is an intent question. In fact, it might even be automatically Grand Theft: 484d. As used in this section and Sections 484e to 484j, inclusive:[...] (2) “Access card” means any card, plate, code, account number, or other means of account access that can be used, alone or in conjunction with another access card, to obtain money, goods, services, or any other thing of value, or that can be used to initiate a transfer of funds, other than a transfer originated solely by a paper instrument. 484e. (a) Every person who, with intent to defraud, sells, transfers, or conveys, an access card, without the cardholder’s or issuer’s consent, is guilty of grand theft. YIKES! and now, intent to defraud comes in, but that is actually minimal: that just means taking without being allowed to by the owner in many cases.
There are three main aspects to this: Its their website, and their terms of service. They can enforce those terms, or change them (in some appropriate manner). You have no recourse if they remove you, block you, or delete your account, for example. That's the measure that you would probably have, virtually every time. To claim damages, or litigate beyond just website access control, requires a legal claim. But there's a catch there. To claim damages, they need to show actual damage, which they wish to be compensated for. If you misused their website but no actual harm can be shown, the total damage claimable is zero, whether or not you followed their rules. Merely entering dishonest information isn't by itself harm. So they would have to show they suffered damage/harm because of that, which is directly attributable to your behaviour, was foreseeably harmful etc, or similar. They also need to consider legal costs, and ability to enforce, especially if you are in a different country. If for some reason the computer use was also illegal, then a criminal act could be committed and they could notify law enforcement. For example suppose you did this in the little known country of Honestania, where the law says that to prevent trolling and online abuse, anything posted on social media under any but your own legal name is a crime. Or suppose you'd been banned from the system and ignoring/evading such a ban was criminal computer use or criminal trespass due to the forbidden/unauthorised access (which can happen in several places). But this is purely for completeness; I guess you'd know if you were taking it further, into criminal computer use.
The U.S. could pass a law directing Apple to create software for fair compensation. Similar statutes have been passed in wartime compelling companies to do all sorts of things and companies don't have all of the rights of individuals. If it can be done (not obvious in the case of existing products in the market place), it might be possible for the government to compel it to do so; if it can't be done, it can't be compelled and not all things are possible retroactively. There would also be a constitutional contracts clause issues with such a law impairing contracts between Apple and its customers when applied to existing phones retroactively. Whether it could require Apple to create a law enforcement back door depends upon whether 4th Amendment privacy rights trump the creation of a means to do so. There is an expectation of privacy in electronic records, but it is not absolute. But, there is no law on the books requiring this from Apple. It does not flow naturally from existing powers of law enforcement under existing statutes. It goes beyond what a subpoena would ordinarily require someone to do, and a subpoena is the main means by which governments compel people to provide information. In my opinion, a court faced with that question would rule that a statute requiring Apple to do this prospectively would be constitutional, but no such statute exists. However, this is currently an open legal question because there is no statute of the kind that have been litigated in a manner that produced a binding precedent.
There is not necessarily a contradiction. Information that they may keep may be: Account information Subscriber information Information on breaches of the Terms of Service or Agreement So yes, they might certainly not keep any logs &ndash; although that claim is doubtful, since they almost certainly keep at least error-level logs of their services &ndash; but that doesn't mean that they have no information to disclose to law enforcement. It's also questionable what "logs" refers to &ndash; would aggregate statistics be considered a log, by law? Would your last known IP address be considered a log, provided they don't keep any other history?
Such a law would be constitutional The US Congress could decide to require VPN providers to register the IPs that they provide to VPN customers. The use of such techniques would almost surely be considered &quot;interstate or foreign commerce&quot; and so Congress would have power under the Commerce Clause of the constitution to legislate concerning it. There would clearly be a rational basis for such a law -- the question outlines such a basis. This is not an area subject to strict scrutiny. None of the previously established limits on the commerce power (and there are few) would seem to apply. State laws on this topic would probably be preempted by the dormant commerce clause if Congress does not act, and clearly preempted if Congress does act, unless Congress explicitly permits concurrent legislation. Whether Congress should act on this matter is a policy question not on topic on Law.se. Whether Congress will act is speculation. I can only say that I am not aware of any widespread demand for such action, or any proposed bills, on the topic. However, there is US caselaw to the effect that anonymous speech (or other communication) is protected by the First Amendment , and that laws effectively banning anonymous speech are not acceptable. But there are other ways of anonymizing online speech, so that would not seem to provide sufficient grounds to overturn such a law.