On Sunday, July 29, German Tor onion router operator Alexander Janssen was arrested by the German police. A bomb threat against police on a German forum had run through Janssen’s Tor node and the police traced his IP address. he attempted to explain that Tor was a system distributed on computers around the world that allowed people in, say, repressive countries to both gain access to forbidden materials (like sex education or the Encyclopedia Britannica) and to send messages and post on websites without the Internet police in those countries finding you. The cops were not in a listening mood.

He was released not long after, with an apology but waited to tell the world about it on his blog until the charges were officially dropped.

Tor can be abused as well as used and police forces in theoretically non-repressive countries need to get some night-classes under their belts to avoid arresting people like Janssen, while really miscreants walk free.