FBI seizes Mixmaster servers

Re: Not the first time.

Sorry but those analogies don't quite work because once the flat is searched the students get to return home. Well, the ones not being charged with anything that is.

Based on past cases in the news it seems extremely unlikely that the server will be returned.

All emails, websites and mailing lists will be gone unless there are backups.

So back to your analogie the students don't go back to their flat, they have to get a new flat. They might be able to replace some posessions via insurance but not everything, recent purchases not listed in insurance documents would be tough to claim for (no flat, no reciepts) and those assignments that were started recently so not on any backup would have to be redone. And there isn't 4 people affected, I think a number of around 300 was mentioned.

Re: Abuse is the problem

"Abusing mixmaster causes a damage (or the damage). If abused, police have to react. They have to, that's their job."

Hmm. They could have reacted when I was involved in a certain case, in which a man with a firearm in the US indicated he wanted to do dire things to someone to whom he'd taken exception... ...a decade ago or more. There have been many other examples, and you won't be surprised to see that whilst I in principle accept the validity of your argument (on their behalf) I do not accept it as both true and valid. Pursuing the logic of argumenta to similar extremes, it's time to go round up all politicians because a few of them caused massacres, it's time to round up all police officers because of corruption, the beating of people like Rodney King, it's time dispossess all bankers, time to deal with all women as potential sex abusers, given that there has been for decades a growing body of data and since we treat males as potential paedophiles, time to treat all women as spouse beaters, it being that the data are similarly also becoming clear [...]

One thing that will happen is that modern encoding and distribution techniques will be employed and the task of tracking down such people will become even more difficult. There is probably a disquieting corollary inasmuch that super anonymous facilities will attract super nasty abusers, and thus an arms race between the snoops and the privatists will begin. This will make a rod for their backs.

I can't accept the argument in spite of the fact that I have been subjected to harassment by someone abusing such facilities. In a sense it's the Assange argument, and I even handedly reject both types of claim, pro or contra official or private facilities.

One footnote; someone else has already noted that the Feebs only had to image the server, not take the drives. That said, after such a raid I cannot feel confident, and the same was the case with the anon.penet.fi remailer hosted by Julf between 16 and 19 years ago, a service that was broken by $cientology ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penet_remailer ). Although Julf left the dotted IP number in the path statement, which defeated his aim to a substantial extent, damaged the principle of privacy he espoused. I watched a lot of this happen, and I did so with mixed feelings, as much as I now do. On balance I see privacy as being worth a king's ransom, something not to be tossed aside lightly and, be it noted, I have argued strongly against Assange whom I consider to be an abuser and want prosecuted: I have been a whistle blower, once. The case involved the death of a vulnerable man at the hands of people who failed to care. I would not have been involved had anonymity not been available, simply because there would have been repercussions on the part of people who did not GAD about nice things such as laws, and later went on to prove this on a greater scale.