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At the end of the day when you're dealing with a government that has absolutely no qualms about simply taking you away and killing you discreetly, regardless of

At the end of the day when you're dealing with a government that has absolutely no qualms about simply taking you away and killing you discreetly, regardless of who you are, there is no hack clever enough to protect you.

dublinclontarf 16y ago
True, but a good Friend to Friend darknet cannot be stopped as long as there is a network to run it on.
- flatline 16y ago
  If enough people were using it, I'd think that a) some of them would be government operatives and b) the traffic could be analyzed to identify and remove internet access from a large number of the participants. I don't know that much about darknets so maybe the traffic analysis is not so straightforward.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    It isn't. You can use the analysis algorithms to hide your traffic in a bunch of garbage. If China banned encrypted traffic it would be easier though.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  They could switch from a blacklist to a whitelist and then you would only be able to connect to other nodes if they were run surreptitiously on pre-approved networks.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    It would be far too complex to do with human operators without destroying the primary benefits of the internet.
gnosis 16y ago
"At the end of the day when you're dealing with a government that has absolutely no qualms about simply taking you away and killing you discreetly, regardless of who you are, there is no hack clever enough to protect you." The thing is that for many people the risk of getting killed is worth it, and protecting the source is not the ultimate goal. History has shown us that dissidents will often and gladly risk their own lives to get their message out. And often, despite the risks, they've managed to evade detection and capture even when they were up against huge, ruthless spy networks like those of the Soviet Union, post-war East Germany, or the Gestapo.

dublinclontarf 16y ago

True, but a good Friend to Friend darknet cannot be stopped as long as there is a network to run it on.

flatline 16y ago
If enough people were using it, I'd think that a) some of them would be government operatives and b) the traffic could be analyzed to identify and remove internet access from a large number of the participants. I don't know that much about darknets so maybe the traffic analysis is not so straightforward.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  It isn't. You can use the analysis algorithms to hide your traffic in a bunch of garbage. If China banned encrypted traffic it would be easier though.
cookiecaper 16y ago
They could switch from a blacklist to a whitelist and then you would only be able to connect to other nodes if they were run surreptitiously on pre-approved networks.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  It would be far too complex to do with human operators without destroying the primary benefits of the internet.

gnosis 16y ago

"At the end of the day when you're dealing with a government that has absolutely no qualms about simply taking you away and killing you discreetly, regardless of who you are, there is no hack clever enough to protect you." The thing is that for many people the risk of getting killed is worth it, and protecting the source is not the ultimate goal. History has shown us that dissidents will often and gladly risk their own lives to get their message out. And often, despite the risks, they've managed to evade detection and capture even when they were up against huge, ruthless spy networks like those of the Soviet Union, post-war East Germany, or the Gestapo.