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If by 'accountability' you mean the ability for site ops to unilaterally de-anonymise Tor users, then no; Tor users will never agree to that. If SE executives

If by 'accountability' you mean the ability for site ops to unilaterally de-anonymise Tor users, then no; Tor users will never agree to that. If SE executives are really concerned about spam and vandalism by anonymous actors, then SE could Tor users to post assets in escrow (e.g. Monero) before posting. Similarly, if SE executives are concerned about denial-of-service attacks, then SE could rate-limit the sites that are causing the attacks; Tor is not efficient for that kind of attack anyway. There is no sound argument that blocking Tor entirely would further the interests of SE users. This is the act of a monopolist in secular decline.

jbentham 5y ago
If by 'accountability' you mean the ability for site ops to unilaterally de-anonymise Tor users, then no; Tor users will never agree to that. If SE executives are really concerned about spam and vandalism by anonymous actors, then SE could Tor users to post assets in escrow (e.g. Monero) before posting. Similarly, if SE executives are concerned about denial-of-service attacks, then SE could rate-limit the sites that are causing the attacks; Tor is not efficient for that kind of attack anyway. There is no sound argument that blocking Tor entirely would further the interests of SE users. A site looking to grow its influence would be more concerned with attracting new users than repelling them. This is the act of a monopolist in secular decline.
fabian2k 5y ago
This is not the spam or vandalism counter-measure, those work differently and only block posting to the sites. And you can avoid them if you establish a reputable account, they won't affect you anymore then.
- jbentham 5y ago
  If it is not to block spam, or vandalism, or denial-of-service attacks, then what is the purpose of this new policy? To your other point, how can one establish a 'reputable account' if it is not even possible to access the site in the first instance.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    Reputation is a feature of identity. Tor users are, by definition and intent, unidentifiable. Opting out of identification naturally opts one out of reputation, as is the case in reality as well — for example, Anonymous using Guy Fawkes masks to prevent reputation from being associated with their citizenship identity. I don’t understand why Tor users would be interested in reputation at all, given the implicit identification it requires.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Tor is used for shady practices, just like proxies of old. SE has a lot of measures in place already to prevent shady practices. If 90% of traffic from Tor exit nodes is shady, why shouldn't they block Tor entirely? If you access any website through Tor (or proxies) you're already more suspicious than the average user. If enough people cause trouble through Tor exit node IPs, it's only natural they get blocked.
- jbentham 5y ago
  Actually, there is no evidence that Tor is any shadier than the rest of the Internet, especially given that most attacks and vandalism originate from botnets and other compromised systems, not Tor. Akamai published an analysis that affirms this: https://web.archive.org/web/20170317110115/https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/2015-q2-cloud-security-report.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20170317110115/https://www.akama...
  - harabat 5y ago
    Great resource, a surprisingly clear and detailed introduction to the various attacks faced by websites! The relevant part: > "we concluded that approximately 1 in 380 http requests coming out of Tor is verified to be malicious, while only 1 in 11,500 http requests coming out of a non-Tor ip were verified to be malicious. In essence, an http request from a Tor ip is 30 times more likely to be a malicious attack than one that comes from a non-Tor ip."
- yanmaani 5y ago
  Because 'shady' traffic does you more or less no harm, unless your web application executes arbitrary untrusted input? For a serious site, the cost of allowing passive reading is going to be ~0.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  I think it’s more like Tor traffic is 99.9999% less profitable. “Legit” Users likely block ads, are unlikely to enter their credit card numbers because of MITM shenanigans and it’s one of the few browsers that takes non-fingerprintability of its users seriously.
floatingatoll 5y ago
Not deanonymise, no. Come up with a way for siteops to block someone and all their sockpuppet accounts, without knowing the underlying identity, and you’ll become a billionaire. Without that, the only option we have today is deanonymization, which is a terrible option. We ought to do better.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  It's really just a matter of balancing the difficulty of creating a new "identity", so that legitimate users can occasionally use multiple identities to partition their traffic and make it harder to get doxxed, but are still deterred from creating identities cheaply to engage in sybil attacks or escape blocks. There are various ways of committing real-world resources to an identity to deter such abuse. Actual meatspace identity is of course one way of doing this, but there are probably others.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    That’s all plausible sounding, but no one’s connected the dots and done it yet. We’re still at “step 2: ???”.
- jbentham 5y ago
  What you are assuming is possible is a logical contradiction. To be able to recognise two persons as being the same is in fact the definition of de-anonymisation. Please check your math.
  - paxys 5y ago
    It is not a contradiction. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof as a somewhat similar example.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    I'm not restricting my considerations to "the technology that is implemented and available to Tor users today", given that what's available neither meets the needs of sites, nor the needs of users. If you think that the idea is inappropriate, please state so and make your case for why you believe in your viewpoint. If you think that the idea is impossible, please note why you believe that — and then consider the idea as if it were possible.

jbentham 5y ago

If by 'accountability' you mean the ability for site ops to unilaterally de-anonymise Tor users, then no; Tor users will never agree to that. If SE executives are really concerned about spam and vandalism by anonymous actors, then SE could Tor users to post assets in escrow (e.g. Monero) before posting. Similarly, if SE executives are concerned about denial-of-service attacks, then SE could rate-limit the sites that are causing the attacks; Tor is not efficient for that kind of attack anyway. There is no sound argument that blocking Tor entirely would further the interests of SE users. A site looking to grow its influence would be more concerned with attracting new users than repelling them. This is the act of a monopolist in secular decline.

fabian2k 5y ago

This is not the spam or vandalism counter-measure, those work differently and only block posting to the sites. And you can avoid them if you establish a reputable account, they won't affect you anymore then.

jbentham 5y ago
If it is not to block spam, or vandalism, or denial-of-service attacks, then what is the purpose of this new policy? To your other point, how can one establish a 'reputable account' if it is not even possible to access the site in the first instance.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  Reputation is a feature of identity. Tor users are, by definition and intent, unidentifiable. Opting out of identification naturally opts one out of reputation, as is the case in reality as well — for example, Anonymous using Guy Fawkes masks to prevent reputation from being associated with their citizenship identity. I don’t understand why Tor users would be interested in reputation at all, given the implicit identification it requires.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

Tor is used for shady practices, just like proxies of old. SE has a lot of measures in place already to prevent shady practices. If 90% of traffic from Tor exit nodes is shady, why shouldn't they block Tor entirely? If you access any website through Tor (or proxies) you're already more suspicious than the average user. If enough people cause trouble through Tor exit node IPs, it's only natural they get blocked.

jbentham 5y ago
Actually, there is no evidence that Tor is any shadier than the rest of the Internet, especially given that most attacks and vandalism originate from botnets and other compromised systems, not Tor. Akamai published an analysis that affirms this: https://web.archive.org/web/20170317110115/https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/2015-q2-cloud-security-report.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20170317110115/https://www.akama...
- harabat 5y ago
  Great resource, a surprisingly clear and detailed introduction to the various attacks faced by websites! The relevant part: > "we concluded that approximately 1 in 380 http requests coming out of Tor is verified to be malicious, while only 1 in 11,500 http requests coming out of a non-Tor ip were verified to be malicious. In essence, an http request from a Tor ip is 30 times more likely to be a malicious attack than one that comes from a non-Tor ip."
yanmaani 5y ago
Because 'shady' traffic does you more or less no harm, unless your web application executes arbitrary untrusted input? For a serious site, the cost of allowing passive reading is going to be ~0.
Scoundreller 5y ago
I think it’s more like Tor traffic is 99.9999% less profitable. “Legit” Users likely block ads, are unlikely to enter their credit card numbers because of MITM shenanigans and it’s one of the few browsers that takes non-fingerprintability of its users seriously.

floatingatoll 5y ago

Not deanonymise, no. Come up with a way for siteops to block someone and all their sockpuppet accounts, without knowing the underlying identity, and you’ll become a billionaire. Without that, the only option we have today is deanonymization, which is a terrible option. We ought to do better.

zozbot234 5y ago
It's really just a matter of balancing the difficulty of creating a new "identity", so that legitimate users can occasionally use multiple identities to partition their traffic and make it harder to get doxxed, but are still deterred from creating identities cheaply to engage in sybil attacks or escape blocks. There are various ways of committing real-world resources to an identity to deter such abuse. Actual meatspace identity is of course one way of doing this, but there are probably others.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  That’s all plausible sounding, but no one’s connected the dots and done it yet. We’re still at “step 2: ???”.
jbentham 5y ago
What you are assuming is possible is a logical contradiction. To be able to recognise two persons as being the same is in fact the definition of de-anonymisation. Please check your math.
- paxys 5y ago
  It is not a contradiction. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof as a somewhat similar example.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  I'm not restricting my considerations to "the technology that is implemented and available to Tor users today", given that what's available neither meets the needs of sites, nor the needs of users. If you think that the idea is inappropriate, please state so and make your case for why you believe in your viewpoint. If you think that the idea is impossible, please note why you believe that — and then consider the idea as if it were possible.