My house was raided in the beginning of August – living in Germany. My computer, smartphone, tablet, my home server and all of my employer’s work devices were confiscated.
During the house raid I was confronted with descriptions from multiple CyberTipline reports from the “National Center for Missing & Exploited Children USA”: Several screenshots of porn folders have been posted on a Clearweb forum from my IP. Those porn folders also contain underaged material. A sticker has been attached to these screenshots with the description “DM for links prices”
Now one month later I have received confirmation that this seems related to the operation of MystNodes - because there are several cases like this right now.
No other mode than B2B Data Scraping and B2B VPN was enabled all the time. I don’t know if really a verified B2B partner is related to this incident but there is no Myst Token income for the other operation modes on my node.
As far as I know this is a massive case and every MystNode runner from Germany since April 2024 could be affected! Each affected MystNode has made up to 15200 illegal posts during the lasts months on the internet.
Up to hundreds of NodeRunners will receive a visit/letter/phone call from the police during the next days and weeks.
Disable even B2B VPN for security reasons now!
Create an export of connection logs since April 2024!
Tell the police that you are a Mystnode runner as soon as they knock on your door!
Stay safe!
I have no information if node runners outside of Germany are affected too
We are very sorry to hear that this has happened to you, It’s hard to imagine how scary and frustrating it is to be in this situation.
Everyone on our team is also shaken by this horrible event, and we want to ensure that we are taking every step possible to prevent even the slightest chance of this situation ever repeating in the future.
For the past several months, we have been communicating with several organizations whose primary goal is to prevent child exploitation in various countries. With these talks in fruitful progress, we are also working on solutions that would make it impossible for our Node network to be used for these absolutely disgusting purposes on a technical level.
In this situation, we would like to assure you that we are not leaving you on your own. If there is any way whatsoever how we could help you out in proving that it wasn’t you who performed these vile acts, we are, without any doubt or hesitation, willing to do that. We had to tackle a similar, albeit, less disturbing case a while ago, and we provided all the necessary information to prove that the person running the node was not the culprit:
This’s only one reason why this project isn’t viable.
Other is that whenever you run it in your own network, a lot of services will treat you as a commercial VPN IP and they’ll restrict services for you, causing problems. I’ve had this issue, solving lost of captchas, and one person could no longer watch Hulu in my household. I stopped this due to above reasons. It’s unfeasible. It definitely won’t worth the little $ you’re given.
Don’t run a node if you aren’t running your own DNS server and blocking whatever you can. There’s plenty that you can do to block whatever you can. Then you’re being proactive, but still can’t be held liable for what others do with the service you sell to them. You’re covered under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US. I’m not sure about other countries, but I have to imagine they also have data centers and service providers. There’s most likely protection for them as well.
so let me get this straight, because you participate in a decentralized vpn network that maybe earns less than 100$ / month:
your house got raided
all your computers and informatic devices were confiscated
your whole digital life is under investigation by the local authorities
you have to hire a lawyer
you are accused of being involved in pedophile business
Am I getting this right ?
even for 1000$ months I would not do this for this risk. I admire some of you who keep fighting for the fundamental right of privacy and freedom but I must say this is crazy to me. I could not do it.
I’ve seen several of these new acct posts. In the US, since companies aren’t liable for the material on the network, couldn’t you just sign your internet to an llc, and say you’re not liable for your network users?
I ran it for almost 3 years. No issues. Again, proof? Case? News coverage about this? If all was confiscated how you posting this and from where?
Don’t rent your house either in airbnb in case you provide wifi to your clients, don’t run a coffee shop in case someone runs a drug cartel transaction while having a coffee from your shop…
What is your local infrastructure? Are you using your own DNS server at home? I am not sure yet if the Nodes are using the local DNS or some other DNS like google or cloudflare.
I have a pfsense with a quite extensive list of blocked DNS entries, should block 90% of bad stuff out there. If my node is using my pfsense as the DNS server, i may be not affected (hopefully).
exactly why I only did it for maybe 10 days back in 2021. Also I was having concern routing traffic for something I don’t know and this case is clearly scary.
