Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 7:57 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
Parent article: Recent improvements to Tor

We may need Tor, but in the public mind the "dark net" is associated with child porn and other such undesirable things. So the Tor people need to explain why it's about more than that, and what they can do about the unsavoury aspects (if the argument is that child porn is acceptable collateral damage for right to anonymity, there will be few buyers).

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Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 8:21 UTC (Thu) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (2 responses)

The problem with this argument is the implied suggestion that sexual (or other) child abuse will stop when child porn is no longer available.

Surprise: it won't.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 8:24 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

No, that's not implied at all. Reduced, yes that's implied. And even if you disagree, you won't persuade anyone saying that.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 10:37 UTC (Thu) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]

In politics, ground truth often matters less than how things look. And well, tor doesn't look very good at the moment.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 8:41 UTC (Thu) by ema (subscriber, #17750) [Link]

So the Tor project should explain that "people who do bad things protect their privacy" does not imply "people protecting their privacy do bad things"?

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 10:34 UTC (Thu) by merge (subscriber, #65339) [Link] (5 responses)

I think so too. We all know there's plenty of good reasons to run an onion-service for your web service; That's why The NYTimes, facebook, duckduckgo, debian, many I don't know of, and probably more over time do it. It can be abused to offer illegal content and hide your location and I don't have a solution at all, but to me it feels like the Tor Project could at least try to do something about it.

The technical posssibility can't go away by design, but I think it's sad that people get the impression the Tor Project hides behind that fact and doesn't try to get creative around it.

Also, of course it's true that (maybe even stronger) anonymity can be achieved without using Tor, but some money instead. While that fact is important to see, it shouldn't always be a first reaction to doubts or critics. It's hard in this case, but taking doubts seriously is important and probably could be improved by the Tor Project.

I really think that this project will only get more important in the future, and maybe should get involved and try to fix any such non-technical issues as good as we can...

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 14:35 UTC (Thu) by Tara_Li (guest, #26706) [Link] (1 responses)

You're looking for the "Golden Key" that law enforcement claims to want. As long as Tor has *any* way to distinguish between "good" and "bad" content, someone is going to try to define what that "good" and "bad" content is, and enforce filtering it. That's what it comes down to. If they build in a "Golden Key" that supposedly only law enforcement can use, well - they have to have access to that golden key to build it in, in the first place. So that's *one* non-law enforcement operation with access to it. And how do you magically keep that number from growing? It's an open-source project in the first place - so the Golden Key is going to be buried in the source for everyone to see!

The tech industry has got to figure out how to get this message out better - but aiming the message at law enforcement is useless, it needs to be aimed at the public. Law enforcement (and the politicians behind them) are going to keep putting their fingers in their ears, singing "la-la-la I can't hear you." and insisting that if the tech industry just "nerds harder", it could turn rose bushes into unicorns.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 15:37 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

The classic example: https://badcyber.com/the-great-greek-wiretapping-affair. The possibility of wiretrapping was implemented for the good guys, but was used by bad guys. It might or might not be acceptable.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 16:19 UTC (Thu) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (1 responses)

> It can be abused to offer illegal content and hide your location and I don't have a solution at all, but to me it feels like the Tor Project could at least try to do something about it.

"Abused"? Facilitating the spread of illegal content (i.e. information one State or another is trying to suppress) is a core goal of the project. Its original purpose, back when the concept was first developed by the US Naval Research Laboratory, was to enable secure, untraceable communication between intelligence operatives (spies), which is not exactly legal and above-board from the perspective of the target country. Hiding one's location is critical to either role. Why would the Tor Project attempt to "do something about" the very reason for the project's existence? Anything which could be done to restrict the spread of CP via Tor could just as easily be turned to prevent the spread of "subversive" political messages etc., rendering Tor completely useless.

People have the right to communicate in private, including anonymity if they so desire. If you want to prevent child *abuse* or other forms of harm—a laudable goal, to be sure—you'll have to do something about it in the real world, not by attacking the means of communication.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 30, 2018 6:23 UTC (Fri) by merge (subscriber, #65339) [Link]

I know and actually support the Tor network as it is personally, I use it every day and encourage everybody to do so too.

I admit i deliberately phrased that somewhat provokingly. Tor won't, shouldn't and can't become insecure in any way deliberately. Tor should be as safe to use as can be. Also it's of course definitely not Tor's business how cruel or ill some people are.

After talking with others who have a more distant view to Tor, I have the impression that there's *something* missing for people to accept or "trust" i.e. to use TorBrowser. I don't know what that is. Communicate how to report illegal content in case you encounter some? That applies to firefox as well. Diversity in the Tor Project's team itself would maybe help. Diversity in their funding too. I know that they are working on it. We should get involved!

For me personally, the project doesn't need to do anything more than what they do now. I only have the impression that some creativity to gain acceptance from everybody would be needed. For me, it's important to connect over Tor. It would equally be so for others. And they shouldn't reject the TorBrowser because they don't trust it or the organisation... but people do.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Apr 5, 2018 23:55 UTC (Thu) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link]

> It can be abused to offer illegal content and hide your location and I don't have a solution at all, but to me it feels like the Tor Project could at least try to do something about it.

I read this as "I can't see a solution and there probably isn't a solution, but somebody should be spending their time tying to find one anyway so I can feel better about using Tor".

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 29, 2018 19:51 UTC (Thu) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

The counter to that argument is that Tor is unnecessary for those things. Clearnet social media site owners let people get away with (metaphorical) murder daily, while throwing sacrifices of unrelated users under the bus every so often and making empty PR offerings to the online safety fairy.

We already have an anonymising network where sociopaths run rampant and cause widespread damage with no accountability - it's called the advertising industry, and the ownership has a lot of overlap with social media.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Mar 30, 2018 2:02 UTC (Fri) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link] (1 responses)

Last time I checked, Tor is not a product for sale. So the metaphors of "buyers" has little meaning here.

As far as "the Tor people" are concerned, it may be great to tell working volunteers what they need to do in addition to what they are already doing just to make *you* feel better, but the better bet for actual change is to volunteer yourself to do what you think will help. Take a look at https://www.torproject.org/getinvolved/volunteer.html.en and see what you can do to be the change you've been waiting for.

Also, they do explain. A lot. See also: https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Apr 2, 2018 8:59 UTC (Mon) by darwish (guest, #102479) [Link]

Please let's not undermine/stare-down positive, good-meaning, criticism with the "patches welcome" argument. It was still important to have a discussion about the topic.

Recent improvements to Tor

Posted Apr 1, 2018 11:29 UTC (Sun) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

I think the best argument advocates for Tor can make in response is that uses of curtains, envelopes and conversations behind closed doors don't exist because the users of these have anything to hide. It's because privacy, as with wearing clothes, is a normal part of civilised life, protected by the US 5th ammendment, and article 8 of the ECHR.