This is a VPN Exit Router
You are most likely accessing this website because you've had some issues with the traffic coming from this IP address. This router is part of the MultiVPN Anonymity Network, which is dedicated to providing privacy to people who need it the most: average computer users. This router's IP address should be generating no other traffic, unless it has been compromised. MultiVPN works by running user traffic through a chain of encrypted servers and then letting the traffic exit the MultiVPN network through an exit node, like this one. This design makes it very hard for a service to know which user is connecting to it, since it can only see the IP address of the MultiVPN exit node.
MultiVPN is used by many important segments of the population, including whistleblowers, journalists, Chinese dissidents circumventing the Great Firewall and repressive censorship, victims of abuse, persecutors, military and law enforcement agencies, to name a few. Although MultiVPN is not intended for malicious computer users, it is true that they can use the network for malicious purposes. However, in reality, the actual number of abuses is quite small. This is largely due to the fact that criminals and hackers have significantly better access to privacy and anonymity than regular users, whom they are targeting. Criminals can and do create, sell, and trade much larger and more powerful networks every day. Thus, according to the MultiVPN service administration, the public need for easily accessible, censorship-resistant, private, and anonymous communication outweighs the risk of unqualified wrongdoers, who are almost always easier to detect through traditional police work than through extensive monitoring and surveillance. In terms of applicable law, the best way to understand MultiVPN is to consider it a network of routers operating as common carriers, much like the Internet backbone. However, unlike the Internet backbone routers, MultiVPN routers explicitly do not contain identifiable routing information about the source of a packet, and no single MultiVPN node can determine both the origin and destination of a given transmission. As such, there is little the operator of this router can do to help you track the connection further. This router maintains no logs of any of the traffic, so there is little that can be done to trace either legitimate or illegitimate traffic (or to filter one from the other). Attempts to seize this router will accomplish nothing. Furthermore, this machine also serves as a carrier of email, which means that its contents are further protected under the ECPA. 18 USC 2707 explicitly allows for civil remedies ($1000/account plus legal fees) in the event of a seizure executed without good faith or probable cause (it should be clear at this point that traffic with an originating IP address of 178.17.170.88 / md1.encryptedconnection.info should not constitute probable cause to seize the machine). Similar considerations exist for 1st amendment content on this machine. If you are a representative of a company who feels that this router is being used to violate the DMCA, please be aware that this machine does not host or contain any illegal content. Also be aware that network infrastructure maintainers are not liable for the type of content that passes over their equipment, in accordance with DMCA "safe harbor" provisions. In other words, you will have just as much luck sending a takedown notice to the Internet backbone providers. Please consult EFF's prepared response for more information on this matter. That being said, if you still have a complaint about the router, you may email the maintainer. If complaints are related to a particular service that is being abused, I will consider removing that service from my exit policy, which would prevent my router from allowing that traffic to exit through it. I can only do this on an IP+destination port basis, however. You also have the option of blocking this IP address and others on the MultiVPN network if you so desire. The MultiVPN provides a web-page to fetch a list of all IP addresses of VPN exit nodes that allow exiting to a specified IP:port. Please be considerate when using these options. It would be unfortunate to deny all MultiVPN users access to your site indefinitely simply because of a few bad apples. © The text is based on materials from the Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. |
