5 ms·

Got to be honest, that was my first thought - if anybody actually comes up with something that's actually anonymous and actually uncensorable, it will be shut d

Got to be honest, that was my first thought - if anybody actually comes up with something that's actually anonymous and actually uncensorable, it will be shut down, by whatever means necessary, by the government with the full blessing and support of the public.

fishtacos 7y ago
The Tor network hasn't been shut down, has it? Dark sites of all types still continue to run uninhibited for the most part. From my readings, the major or at least known/researched security holes have been plugged already by the developers, and the rest of convictions have happened because of user error, not the technology involved. If memory serves me correctly, one particular pedophile abuser was caught after years of being investigated because he was identified through skin marks (I want to say it was freckles on his hand, though I don't recall the exact details of the article) that led investigators to him, not anything technological. I'm a proponent of total anonymity online because it allows for whistleblowers to leak information that is untraceable to them (again, without consideration of human error). In the case of Wikileaks, for example, even though they weren't on an anonymous network, it still led to the largest classified information leaks known, from NSA tools to national and international communications between heads of states, diplomats and everyone in between. The general consensus was that it was a good thing. I don't necessarily agree with that, but one can't discount its value.
- newguy1234 7y ago
  There was a large bust of a pedophile forum years back. Police took over the site and run it for years and it was ran on TOR. Pretty interesting story overall: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/13/shining-a-light-on-the-dark-web-how-the-police-ended-up-running-a-paedophile-site https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/13/shining-a-li... From what I recall, most of these TOR sites are only taken offline because of some server misconfiguration or some other opsec weakness in the people who run these sites.
  - geggam 7y ago
    The interesting part about that to me is the authorities seem to break the law with impunity under the guise of enforcing the law. Seems a bit disingenuous to do this. Why not sell drugs as a cop to arrest people for buying them... er wait... they do that too.
    - MS90 7y ago
      If they just shut down the site, those who weren't busted would just migrate to a new one. If you run the site under the guise of the owners, you can keep catching more and more users as they come in. Not just the people who are seeking the kids, but possibly also the ones supplying them. It's a grander version of the old trope of an FBI agent posing as a 14 year old girl in a chat room to nab a predator. I agree with you that selling a dimebag to a teenager to bust them is shitty and shouldn't be done. But there's a world of difference between busting kids for weed and catching pedophiles. If they're taking these people off the streets I really do not care if they're "disingenuous" to get them.
      - geggam 7y ago
        You should care and at some point you will. When you let the rules slip eventually that slippage will be used against you. History shows this... First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
        MS90 7y ago
        I have seen and appreciate your quote, but I will not be the one speaking for pedophiles. If you think that running a sting operation to catch pedophiles is going to lead to a Third Reich-esque roundup and extermination of minorities I really don't even know what to say.
- ping_pong 7y ago
  The reason why it hasn't been shut down is because they already have ways to compromise it, so it's better to act like they want to get rid of it, all the while knowing that they can crack it if they really need to. It creates a false sense of security. If there's truly a guaranteed secure way of doing things, the government would act a lot quicker.
  - fishtacos 7y ago
    And you've reached this conclusion how? The sense of security in anonymity is not false as long as the dark web continues to proliferate its services. Your conclusion is invalid without providing further proof. If you want counter-proof, just visit the dark web one of these days. it's as vibrant as ever.
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    This makes the assumption that the government has the ability to go after everyone using it to harm people, including tens of thousands of children, but chooses not to. Under such an assumption, one can no longer consider the government the good guy.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      The USG routinely ignores crimes that would reveal sources and methods. Some known moles have gotten off scot-free while they were fed disinformation because it was more valuable to keep their adversary in the dark about what the US knows.
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  The US Government developed Tor so that covert agents around the world would be able to effectively hide their internet traffic. See https://www.torproject.org/about/history/ https://www.torproject.org/about/history/ They need other people to use it to be effective. They aren't going to shut it down until they have a replacement. They might even control >50% of the network.
leetcrew 7y ago
I'm not so sure. .onion sites are already close to anonymous and uncensorable. the people who do illegal stuff on the darknet seem to get caught because of personal mistakes much more often than a vulnerability of the medium itself. even if you had some perfectly anonymous, uncensorable medium with zero security flaws, people would still make mistakes and get caught. it's never impossible for the state to catch someone, but it can certainly be too expensive to be worth it. this is a feature imo, not a bug. it should be expensive to investigate people.
rsync 7y ago
" ... if anybody actually comes up with something that's actually anonymous and actually uncensorable, it will be shut down, by whatever means necessary, by the government ..." This is correct. However, the building blocks of circumvention technologies (et. al) and the building blocks of basic consumer Internet services and communications channels are indistinguishable. You can't preemptively disable secure, covert communications and also provide rich, secure Internet services (such as banking, corporate email, etc.) It is very much "Free Speech or Stone Age".[1] [1] https://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/06/free-speech-or-stone-age.html https://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/06/free-speech-or...
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  You do not need covert communications for things like banking or corporate email. You only need a safe way to perform authentication.
  - rsync 7y ago
    "You do not need covert communications for things like banking or corporate email. You only need a safe way to perform authentication." Agreed. However, the building blocks of that authentication (and other security protocols involved) are the same building blocks used for covert communications.
Darth_Hobo 7y ago
It already exist and called freenet. If you read the arrest cases for freenet - they are almost non-existent.

fishtacos 7y ago

The Tor network hasn't been shut down, has it? Dark sites of all types still continue to run uninhibited for the most part. From my readings, the major or at least known/researched security holes have been plugged already by the developers, and the rest of convictions have happened because of user error, not the technology involved. If memory serves me correctly, one particular pedophile abuser was caught after years of being investigated because he was identified through skin marks (I want to say it was freckles on his hand, though I don't recall the exact details of the article) that led investigators to him, not anything technological. I'm a proponent of total anonymity online because it allows for whistleblowers to leak information that is untraceable to them (again, without consideration of human error). In the case of Wikileaks, for example, even though they weren't on an anonymous network, it still led to the largest classified information leaks known, from NSA tools to national and international communications between heads of states, diplomats and everyone in between. The general consensus was that it was a good thing. I don't necessarily agree with that, but one can't discount its value.

newguy1234 7y ago
There was a large bust of a pedophile forum years back. Police took over the site and run it for years and it was ran on TOR. Pretty interesting story overall: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/13/shining-a-light-on-the-dark-web-how-the-police-ended-up-running-a-paedophile-site https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/13/shining-a-li... From what I recall, most of these TOR sites are only taken offline because of some server misconfiguration or some other opsec weakness in the people who run these sites.
- geggam 7y ago
  The interesting part about that to me is the authorities seem to break the law with impunity under the guise of enforcing the law. Seems a bit disingenuous to do this. Why not sell drugs as a cop to arrest people for buying them... er wait... they do that too.
  - MS90 7y ago
    If they just shut down the site, those who weren't busted would just migrate to a new one. If you run the site under the guise of the owners, you can keep catching more and more users as they come in. Not just the people who are seeking the kids, but possibly also the ones supplying them. It's a grander version of the old trope of an FBI agent posing as a 14 year old girl in a chat room to nab a predator. I agree with you that selling a dimebag to a teenager to bust them is shitty and shouldn't be done. But there's a world of difference between busting kids for weed and catching pedophiles. If they're taking these people off the streets I really do not care if they're "disingenuous" to get them.
    - geggam 7y ago
      You should care and at some point you will. When you let the rules slip eventually that slippage will be used against you. History shows this... First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
      - MS90 7y ago
        I have seen and appreciate your quote, but I will not be the one speaking for pedophiles. If you think that running a sting operation to catch pedophiles is going to lead to a Third Reich-esque roundup and extermination of minorities I really don't even know what to say.
ping_pong 7y ago
The reason why it hasn't been shut down is because they already have ways to compromise it, so it's better to act like they want to get rid of it, all the while knowing that they can crack it if they really need to. It creates a false sense of security. If there's truly a guaranteed secure way of doing things, the government would act a lot quicker.
- fishtacos 7y ago
  And you've reached this conclusion how? The sense of security in anonymity is not false as long as the dark web continues to proliferate its services. Your conclusion is invalid without providing further proof. If you want counter-proof, just visit the dark web one of these days. it's as vibrant as ever.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  This makes the assumption that the government has the ability to go after everyone using it to harm people, including tens of thousands of children, but chooses not to. Under such an assumption, one can no longer consider the government the good guy.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    The USG routinely ignores crimes that would reveal sources and methods. Some known moles have gotten off scot-free while they were fed disinformation because it was more valuable to keep their adversary in the dark about what the US knows.
henryfjordan 7y ago
The US Government developed Tor so that covert agents around the world would be able to effectively hide their internet traffic. See https://www.torproject.org/about/history/ https://www.torproject.org/about/history/ They need other people to use it to be effective. They aren't going to shut it down until they have a replacement. They might even control >50% of the network.

leetcrew 7y ago

I'm not so sure. .onion sites are already close to anonymous and uncensorable. the people who do illegal stuff on the darknet seem to get caught because of personal mistakes much more often than a vulnerability of the medium itself. even if you had some perfectly anonymous, uncensorable medium with zero security flaws, people would still make mistakes and get caught. it's never impossible for the state to catch someone, but it can certainly be too expensive to be worth it. this is a feature imo, not a bug. it should be expensive to investigate people.

rsync 7y ago

" ... if anybody actually comes up with something that's actually anonymous and actually uncensorable, it will be shut down, by whatever means necessary, by the government ..." This is correct. However, the building blocks of circumvention technologies (et. al) and the building blocks of basic consumer Internet services and communications channels are indistinguishable. You can't preemptively disable secure, covert communications and also provide rich, secure Internet services (such as banking, corporate email, etc.) It is very much "Free Speech or Stone Age".[1] [1] https://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/06/free-speech-or-stone-age.html https://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/06/free-speech-or...

dependenttypes 7y ago
You do not need covert communications for things like banking or corporate email. You only need a safe way to perform authentication.
- rsync 7y ago
  "You do not need covert communications for things like banking or corporate email. You only need a safe way to perform authentication." Agreed. However, the building blocks of that authentication (and other security protocols involved) are the same building blocks used for covert communications.

Darth_Hobo 7y ago

It already exist and called freenet. If you read the arrest cases for freenet - they are almost non-existent.