4 ms·

It's commendable that the project states "anonymity is hard to get – solely using Tor doesn’t guarantee it" and "it is strongly advised not to use TorBox if you

It's commendable that the project states "anonymity is hard to get – solely using Tor doesn’t guarantee it" and "it is strongly advised not to use TorBox if your well-being depends on your anonymity". Other such solutions like to gloss over the fact that "using tor !== anonymity" and even the Tor Browser does a lot more to help with anonymity than just route your traffic through tor. I'm still not sure where such a solution would be a good choice though. Getting access to the broader, uncensored internet is also not as easy as it seems in countries where this applies, e.g. China, as even getting an entry node that works is not easy so this is not a plug'n'play option anymore for that.

BelenusMordred 5y ago
> uncensored internet is also not as easy as it seems in countries where this applies, e.g. China The Chinese mostly use shadowsocks. Tor usage from a mainland ip entry point is incredibly low.
- tutfbhuf 5y ago
  > Shadowsocks is a free and open-source encryption protocol project, widely used in China to circumvent Internet censorship. It was created in 2012 by a Chinese programmer named "clowwindy", and multiple implementations of the protocol have been made available since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowsocks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowsocks
- traspler 5y ago
  Shadowsocks and similar tools are mainly about obfuscating your traffic flow so it‘s harder to classify and block by the GFW, right? The Tor Project has the „obfsproxy“ project for that I think, or is that aimed at something else? I always wondered why that did not overtake shadowsocks.
- superkuh 5y ago
  I use shadowsocks-libev for everything these days. It's UDP so unlike TCP it isn't quite as vulnerable to, say, central government or ISP mediated forged TCP reset packets. It's way faster than a ssh socks proxy too since it isn't limited to one connection. And it's tiny and requires very little CPU resources and only about 2 MB of ram. It's getting less and less funny that I have to use the same methods as chinese citizens living under a dictator for life just to avoid my ISP attacking my HTTP connections.
  - yosito 5y ago
    From the first half of your comment, I assumed you were talking about connecting from China.
  - zo1 5y ago
    What would you say is a good place to find Shadowsocks? Looks like the main repo is empty: https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks with the readme stating "Removed according to regulations."
    - simcop2387 5y ago
      From right there looks ok. Just change the branch from rm to master. Not sure if there's a better place though
    - superkuh 5y ago
      https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks-libev https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks-libev
  - Snawoot 5y ago
    BTW, here is SSH proxy which uses pool of steady connections: https://github.com/Snawoot/rsp#performance https://github.com/Snawoot/rsp#performance
captainmuon 5y ago
There are different kinds of anonymity. If you just want to hide you IP address from a specific website's operator, then you don't care much about being trackable or not. You just use Tor as a fancy IP spoofing technique. They know that you are you, but might find it harder to ban you or call the police on you. (Of course, they can just ban all of Tor. And of course this scenario is mostly useful for trolls... but I can imagine some cases where this you have a legitimate need to spoof you IP like this.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- traspler 5y ago
  But any of the VPN services out there do that for you without the incredible stigmata of having an IP of a Tor Exit Node and the reduced performance of the Tor Network.
  - gruez 5y ago
    On the other hand we definitely do want people to use tor for relatively innocuous reasons, so there's plausible deniability for all the people using it for legitimate reasons (eg. journalists, whistleblowers, etc.)
  - butt_hugger 5y ago
    Most of the stigma just comes from people on HN. Start by fixing that.

BelenusMordred 5y ago

> uncensored internet is also not as easy as it seems in countries where this applies, e.g. China The Chinese mostly use shadowsocks. Tor usage from a mainland ip entry point is incredibly low.

tutfbhuf 5y ago
> Shadowsocks is a free and open-source encryption protocol project, widely used in China to circumvent Internet censorship. It was created in 2012 by a Chinese programmer named "clowwindy", and multiple implementations of the protocol have been made available since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowsocks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowsocks
traspler 5y ago
Shadowsocks and similar tools are mainly about obfuscating your traffic flow so it‘s harder to classify and block by the GFW, right? The Tor Project has the „obfsproxy“ project for that I think, or is that aimed at something else? I always wondered why that did not overtake shadowsocks.
superkuh 5y ago
I use shadowsocks-libev for everything these days. It's UDP so unlike TCP it isn't quite as vulnerable to, say, central government or ISP mediated forged TCP reset packets. It's way faster than a ssh socks proxy too since it isn't limited to one connection. And it's tiny and requires very little CPU resources and only about 2 MB of ram. It's getting less and less funny that I have to use the same methods as chinese citizens living under a dictator for life just to avoid my ISP attacking my HTTP connections.
- yosito 5y ago
  From the first half of your comment, I assumed you were talking about connecting from China.
- zo1 5y ago
  What would you say is a good place to find Shadowsocks? Looks like the main repo is empty: https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks with the readme stating "Removed according to regulations."
  - simcop2387 5y ago
    From right there looks ok. Just change the branch from rm to master. Not sure if there's a better place though
  - superkuh 5y ago
    https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks-libev https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks-libev
- Snawoot 5y ago
  BTW, here is SSH proxy which uses pool of steady connections: https://github.com/Snawoot/rsp#performance https://github.com/Snawoot/rsp#performance

captainmuon 5y ago

There are different kinds of anonymity. If you just want to hide you IP address from a specific website's operator, then you don't care much about being trackable or not. You just use Tor as a fancy IP spoofing technique. They know that you are you, but might find it harder to ban you or call the police on you. (Of course, they can just ban all of Tor. And of course this scenario is mostly useful for trolls... but I can imagine some cases where this you have a legitimate need to spoof you IP like this.)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
traspler 5y ago
But any of the VPN services out there do that for you without the incredible stigmata of having an IP of a Tor Exit Node and the reduced performance of the Tor Network.
- gruez 5y ago
  On the other hand we definitely do want people to use tor for relatively innocuous reasons, so there's plausible deniability for all the people using it for legitimate reasons (eg. journalists, whistleblowers, etc.)
- butt_hugger 5y ago
  Most of the stigma just comes from people on HN. Start by fixing that.