Stupid Texas Tricks

Someone named Shelby Conklin is suing Tor. You can read the complaint here.

The lawsuit comes about because of a hidden site call Pinkmeth that lives on Tor. Pinkmeth offers its visitors what is known as revenge porn and blackmail porn. The revenge variety involves people (usually men) posting compromising pictures of their ex-whatevers. It's in retaliation for whatever slight they felt when the relationship broke up, real or imagined. The blackmail variety consists of people (usually girls) who are blackmailed into producing compromising pictures. Whatever they did that is subjecting them to this kind of blackmail must be pretty horrific since they will have to live with those pictures floating around the internet until the end of time.

Whatever. I think I'm getting jaded because the lengths that people go to to get their freak on has ceased to surprise me in the least. This sounds to me like the kind of thing a 15 year old boy or a hairy sociopathic basement-dweller would get their kicks from. Or maybe frat boys, who are generally a combination of both. But I digress...

Anyway, Ms. Conklin is suing Pinkmeth.com. Her lawyer claims jurisdiction because, according to their assertion, Pinkmeth does business in Texas. The basis for that claim is that people from Texas can see the website. The complaint complains that Pinkmeth is apparently hard to grab hold of because they operate offshore, and the only handle they have is some law firm in Michigan. Maybe they are an LLC and the law firm did their paperwork. Who knows. The important part to remember is that Ms. Conklin's lawyer is flailing around wildly, trying to hit something. That's where Tor comes in.

The Tor project is a non-profit corporation. It has a president and a physical address. It's easy for Ms. Conklin's lawyer to reach out and grab them. Her lawyer has alleged that there is a conspiracy between Tor and Pinkmeth to put embarrassing pictures of people on the internet. It calls Tor an unscrupulous internet service operator, and states that the collusion is evident because Pinkmeth's home page has links to the Tor project website. That's like saying that because Hamas put a link to Google on their website, Google must, therefore be in cahoots with Hamas.

What the drooling dipshits in Plano don't get is that the only thing the Tor project provides is software. There isn't some entity called Tor running a network. All of the people participating in Tor are running the network. Or maybe they do get it, but they are so desperate to grab some real live entity, they have cobbled together this convoluted argument.

The whole thing would be kind of funny if it wasn't also a bit scary. There is enough precedent-setting material in this to scare the bejesus out of all but the most hardcore hanging judge. The legal snarl it would cause would be a thing to behold. That being said, stranger things have happened. If Ms. Conklin gets away with suing a non-profit software group in Massachusetts over the operation of a network that they don't operate, what's next? Sue Google for facilitating minors finding their way to porn? Oh wait. That actually happened. Google settled to make it go away. Since the Tor project is a non-profit loose affiliation of software developers, I don't see any settlements happening.

Honestly, I don't see this going anywhere. The suit is seeking injunctive relief. Since they can't seem to get their hands on Pinkmeth, a court order isn't likely to impress them. I don't know what an injunction against Tor would look like. It would seek to stop them doing something that they aren't doing.

Stupid Texas Tricks.