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Do people actually use Tor, day to day?
by pclark 16y ago
Do people actually use Tor, day to day?
- mike-cardwell 16y agoYes. Shitloads.
- wesley 16y agoShitloads of spammers.
- mike-cardwell 16y agohttps://www.torproject.org/faq-abuse.html.en#WhatAboutSpammers https://www.torproject.org/faq-abuse.html.en#WhatAboutSpamme...
- bitdiddle 16y agoI think the state department does, or did at one point
- pclark 16y agocan you quantify "shitloads" into an actual metric?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- mike-cardwell 16y agoLooks to be about 15,000 regulars atm in Iran alone: http://metrics.torproject.org/graphs.html#recurringusers http://metrics.torproject.org/graphs.html#recurringusers Plenty more graphs and stats on that page. Also read this for information about the type of people who use it: https://www.torproject.org/torusers.html.en https://www.torproject.org/torusers.html.en
- axod 16y agoFWIW Almost all other countries listed have no usage or very little.
- mike-cardwell 16y agoAll of the countries listed seem to have either thousands or hundreds of users. You think that's "no usage or very little" ? I guess that depends on your perspective. Tor is never going to be used by tens of millions of people. It doesn't need to be used by tens of millions of people to serve its purpose and be successful. I'm not sure why they only present that small subset of countries in their stats. I wish they'd provide more comprehensive stats.
- aw3c2 16y agoI use it for my "distractive" browsing. I access reddit/slashdot and other alike sites only through it. On the one hand it slows down, making me more selective and aware of what I do (ie I do not "wake up" 10 wikipedia links later) and on the other I have total privacy.
- jrockway 16y agoWell, not total privacy. Your browser leaks uniquely-identifiable information, Javascript tracking bugs + cookies track you, and your hard drive is subject to seizure by customs or law enforcement. Now, if you fake the UA with something very common, turn off most Javascript, and encrypt your hard drive in a deniable manner, then you are OK. (One of my side projects is to make the deniable encryption even easier for web browser history.)
- aw3c2 16y agoI do nothing illegal so harddrive encryption or anything tin-foily like that is irrelevant. (I do it though as it does not hurt and is so easy, plus if a HDD fails I can discard it without having to bother.) Cookies are per session. I use Firefox with Tor-Button. In the worst case there is "someone" who does the things I do. But no-one does connect that to me. You could do complicate analysis and pinpoint my demographic through that but no-one does that.
- jrockway 16y agoI did for a while, but have gotten lazy. There is latency, though it is nothing like dialup was. Why did I use Tor? Because a website whose FAQ said they don't log IPs (Slashdot) gave my IP to the Secret Service. The Service then came to my house with guns. Seriously. (I showed them the comment, and they went away. The agents investigating did not actually read the comment before coming to my house to question me about it. WTF?) Anyway, Tor is a necessity if you post content to the Internet. Although there is very little the legal system can do to you in the US for your protected speech, they can still fuck up and show up at your house to harass you. Use Tor, and they end up in Siberia instead.
- barmstrong 16y agoWow - what was the subject of the post they were investigating?
- jrockway 16y agoThe parent post said, "what are some things you can't say on the Internet". I replied, "I am going to kill the president." Guess I was right!
- kuahyeow 16y agoNo kidding, using Tor with usernames that link to profiles is pointless