To All Of You Being Tricked Into Freaking Out About Rule 41

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Or in a fear-mongering post even if from a well-intentioned redditor.

Bitcoin is NOT being made illegal.

Using a VPN is NOT being made illegal.

Using Signal is NOT being made illegal.

Using Tor is NOT being made illegal.

Using strong encryption is NOT being made illegal.

Caring about your privacy is NOT being made illegal.

Talking about liking drugs online and maintaining your privacy while doing it is NOT being made illegal.

Below is the actual text of the change to Rule 41. Seriously. This is ALL there is to this entire debacle.

Yes. It does suck. Yes. It expands the US government's surveillance power. But we need to stay sane right now. It's already done, and we need to separate the TRUTH from FICTION.

Without further ado, the changes that were made to Rule 41:

(6) a magistrate judge with authority in any district where activities related to a crime may have occurred has authority to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district if: (A) the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means; or (B) in an investigation of a violation of 18 U.S.C. ยง 1030(a)(5), the media are protected computers that have been damaged without authorization and are located in five or more districts.

For a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and seize or copy electronically stored information, the officer must make reasonable efforts to serve a copy of the warrant on the person whose property was searched or whose information was seized or copied. Service may be accomplished by any means, including electronic means, reasonably calculated to reach that person.

Source: https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/proposed-amendment-rule-41.pdf


Comments


[14 Points] DabbyRosin:

Get out of here with your facts and logic, lol.


[4 Points] None:

Can some one eli5


[2 Points] RevengeFor1815:

Respectful disagreement. You're missing a most critical point: Los Federales can now obtain a warrant to launch exploits at your hidden service, then use the loot as evidence against you in a U.S. court. Prior to this, they had to use parallel construction if anything - because initiating the hack without a local warrant for this activity was invalid in some cases, as we saw earlier this year.

To be more clear: part of the Tor security model was (inadvertently) taking advantage of the fact that the feds could not locate you before hacking you; thus invalidating their own evidence in the process. The changes to Rule41 helps them get around this.

We should be worried.


[2 Points] drkntmrkets:

This is very important. I've tried to re-enforce this over the last few days but people seem to be freaking out


[2 Points] Xeeroy:

Goddamn trolltrace.com


[2 Points] lordredvampire:

Using any "anonymizing" tools will land you on FBI's watchlist.

From the article:

The proposed changes would allow the FBI to hack thousands of computers around the world with a single warrant, much like it already did

In addition, the DOJ wants permission to break into "compromised" computers and poke around inside them without the permission or knowledge of the owners of these computers. It also wants to treat anything that anonymizes internet users or hides their locations to be presumed acts of a guilty mind. The stripping of jurisdictional limits not only grants the FBI worldwide access for digital seizures and searches, but also encourages it to go venue shopping for judicial rubber stamps

Just lettin' ya know.


[2 Points] DreamsTheyNeverKnew:

Nobody is being "tricked" into worrying about anything Mr. White Knight. And nobody (as far as I know) in /r/DarkNetMarkets has claimed that anything in your list is illegal.

 

The problem arises when the simple use of Tor makes you a candidate for suspicion of a crime.