Police in Japan ask ISPs to start blocking Tor network
Apr 22, 2013
Tor is a web service that allows users to surf the Internet, use IM, and other services while keeping themselves completely anonymous, but Japan's National Police Agency wants ISPs to block access to Tor if users are found to have abused it. The push by Japanese authorities is because they're worried about an inability to tackle cyber crime enabled in part by anonymizing services such as Tor. Japanese police is having a hard time when it comes to crimes in the cyberspace. Just last year a hacker, going by the name Demon Killer, took remote control of systems across the country and posted death threats on public message boards. The panel claimed it has been used in the past to commit internet fraud, help paedophiles groom kids online and, tellingly, enabled leaks from Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department. Tor has proven to be an invaluable tool for pro-democracy campaigners in the Middle East while censorious regimes such as the Chinese authorities have atte