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If we all use it, it will slow to a crawl. Even more than now. Nobody that’s not halfway suicidal is running exit nodes on their home machines (I won’t, I don’

If we all use it, it will slow to a crawl. Even more than now. Nobody that’s not halfway suicidal is running exit nodes on their home machines (I won’t, I don’t want police knocking on my door). And just for the onionspace… yeah I saw some bad stuff there. After what I saw I don’t think anonymity is a good idea. There is darkness inside people that lack of rules, lack of order, lack of accountability brings out.

aredox 3y ago
And in the end it can't circumvent stuff like the great firewall of China. In the end Toe is just a legacy project from the CIA/NSA that has outlived it's usefulness. The NSA has certainly redteamed all the ways to take it down or uncloak users, if needs be, so it's not even a tool against a potential fall into dictatorship of the USA.
- holmesworcester 3y ago
  > And in the end it can't circumvent stuff like the great firewall of China. Actually, this isn't true: Tor with private Snowflake bridges can be very effective against the Great Firewall. I'm an activist who works in this area and I've spoken with activists who were using it as recently as this year. The issue is scaling bridge discovery, since any automated bridge discovery mechanism rapidly exposes available bridges to a determined censor. But any team doing high profile, notable, or sensitive work can find an individual or organization outside China to provide them with private bridges. So Tor is one effective option now for key activists in China, just not a mass-scale solution for everyone.
  - solanav 3y ago
    is it better than something like shadowsocks?
    - cosentiyes 3y ago
      for anonymity, yes (if using a "private" snowflake). for daily use or basic firewall circumvention, not really. as others have mentioned, it is more convenient and faster to just use shadowsocks to a digital ocean droplet or other vm.
  - DANmode 3y ago
    Thank you.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  Tor is a meme in 2023. Even advocates for it seem to believe it's only really good for circumvention, which is the totally wrong way to look at it. Having a built-in outproxy to the web is probably it's greatest flaw, not its strength. Why? Because there's nothing stopping anyone from setting up exit nodes and analyzing the traffic. The open web itself is a vulnerability. Being an anonymizer for the web also encourages people to not contribute energy to "hidden services" but to the non-hidden web, which is self defeating. And as others have pointed out, Tor wouldn't scale if everyone was using it. Contrast this with I2P which not only would scale but become more resistant to DDOS attacks with the more nodes on the network. Unlike For, I2P has no distinction between nodes, mostly because it's not designed to be an outproxy. But no, let's keep insisting that everyone use a deep state tool with chronic flaws because reasons. /s
  - holmesworcester 3y ago
    > And as others have pointed out, Tor wouldn't scale if everyone was using it. Contrast this with I2P which not only would scale but become more resistant to DDOS attacks with the more nodes on the network. One objection a lot of people in this thread have to using Tor is the (misconception) that they'll be relaying Tor traffic. (It doesn't work this way in Tor.) But what you're saying is that i2p will scale because this is the default behavior in i2p. But is that what people want? Also, hidden services have been harder for Tor to scale than exit nodes, at least in the past few years. I don't think this is the result of the fact that Tor provides exit nodes. I think it's just a result of the onion service connection process being a series of fragile steps. I do agree that supporting traffic to the web results in the Tor dev team prioritizing this use case over traffic to hidden services, but that's understandable given that it's the vast majority of their traffic and usage.
    - nvy 3y ago
      >One objection a lot of people in this thread have to using Tor is the (misconception) that they'll be relaying Tor traffic. Um. I'm pretty sure that nodes relaying Tor traffic is the fundamental principle underlying Tor. Everyone relays Tor traffic when using it.
- pandog 3y ago
  There are a bunch of projects from Tor to aid in circumvention of the great firewall of China: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/ https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-ch...
duxup 3y ago
> There is darkness inside people that lack of rules, lack of order, lack of accountability brings out. This extends to social networking too. As much angst as there is about moderation, it’s a feature people want.
version_five 3y ago
> There is darkness inside people that lack of rules, lack of order, lack of accountability brings out. Maybe, but it's nothing in comparison the darkness that comes out of people who want rules and someone held accountable.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
It's certainly an interesting mindset: "I'd rather live in a neighborhood where the HOA is run by psychopathic busybodies, even if it means I have to become a pod person!"
Run_DOS_Run 3y ago
>yeah I saw some bad stuff there. After what I saw I don’t think anonymity is a good idea This is a somewhat one-sided way of thinking. Tor is a tool that can be used for useful things as well as misused for bad things (like a knife or a truck). Now, leaving aside the fact that websites related to credit card fraud, child pornography, and terrorism also have a large presence on the Clearweb. Also, I'd like to note that Instagram is a global hub for human trafficking, and the moderators' stories don't sound any more innocuous than the Onion stories. I use Tor daily and abide by the law, but don't want to miss the anonymity or pseudonymity of a Whonix VM and a Tails session. Since I've been hosting Tor Nodes since I was 14, I don't have to worry about showing up on blacklists of 3-letter organizations, since I've been on top for over a decade anyway.
- mrits 3y ago
  Not all tools are equal. The iron maiden was also a tool that I suppose could be used for cracking open pecans.
  - esperent 3y ago
    The iron maiden never existed FYI. Well, not as a real torture device. It was invented about 150 years ago as a fake museum display.
    - flangola7 3y ago
      Then use a real implement. Let's take mustard gas shells, what is their offsetting positive use? There isn't one.
      - esperent 3y ago
        Why exactly are you trying to compare mustard gas to Tor? I'm kind of lost here. But anyway, to answer your question: mustard gas is not one thing, it's a class of chemicals. But one of them became the first ever chemotherapy drugs, Mustine: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlormethine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlormethine
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
DANmode 3y ago
> After what I saw I don’t think anonymity is a good idea. Any ideas for how to eradicate it without authoritarianism?

aredox 3y ago

And in the end it can't circumvent stuff like the great firewall of China. In the end Toe is just a legacy project from the CIA/NSA that has outlived it's usefulness. The NSA has certainly redteamed all the ways to take it down or uncloak users, if needs be, so it's not even a tool against a potential fall into dictatorship of the USA.

holmesworcester 3y ago
> And in the end it can't circumvent stuff like the great firewall of China. Actually, this isn't true: Tor with private Snowflake bridges can be very effective against the Great Firewall. I'm an activist who works in this area and I've spoken with activists who were using it as recently as this year. The issue is scaling bridge discovery, since any automated bridge discovery mechanism rapidly exposes available bridges to a determined censor. But any team doing high profile, notable, or sensitive work can find an individual or organization outside China to provide them with private bridges. So Tor is one effective option now for key activists in China, just not a mass-scale solution for everyone.
- solanav 3y ago
  is it better than something like shadowsocks?
  - cosentiyes 3y ago
    for anonymity, yes (if using a "private" snowflake). for daily use or basic firewall circumvention, not really. as others have mentioned, it is more convenient and faster to just use shadowsocks to a digital ocean droplet or other vm.
- DANmode 3y ago
  Thank you.
ravenstine 3y ago
Tor is a meme in 2023. Even advocates for it seem to believe it's only really good for circumvention, which is the totally wrong way to look at it. Having a built-in outproxy to the web is probably it's greatest flaw, not its strength. Why? Because there's nothing stopping anyone from setting up exit nodes and analyzing the traffic. The open web itself is a vulnerability. Being an anonymizer for the web also encourages people to not contribute energy to "hidden services" but to the non-hidden web, which is self defeating. And as others have pointed out, Tor wouldn't scale if everyone was using it. Contrast this with I2P which not only would scale but become more resistant to DDOS attacks with the more nodes on the network. Unlike For, I2P has no distinction between nodes, mostly because it's not designed to be an outproxy. But no, let's keep insisting that everyone use a deep state tool with chronic flaws because reasons. /s
- holmesworcester 3y ago
  > And as others have pointed out, Tor wouldn't scale if everyone was using it. Contrast this with I2P which not only would scale but become more resistant to DDOS attacks with the more nodes on the network. One objection a lot of people in this thread have to using Tor is the (misconception) that they'll be relaying Tor traffic. (It doesn't work this way in Tor.) But what you're saying is that i2p will scale because this is the default behavior in i2p. But is that what people want? Also, hidden services have been harder for Tor to scale than exit nodes, at least in the past few years. I don't think this is the result of the fact that Tor provides exit nodes. I think it's just a result of the onion service connection process being a series of fragile steps. I do agree that supporting traffic to the web results in the Tor dev team prioritizing this use case over traffic to hidden services, but that's understandable given that it's the vast majority of their traffic and usage.
  - nvy 3y ago
    >One objection a lot of people in this thread have to using Tor is the (misconception) that they'll be relaying Tor traffic. Um. I'm pretty sure that nodes relaying Tor traffic is the fundamental principle underlying Tor. Everyone relays Tor traffic when using it.
pandog 3y ago
There are a bunch of projects from Tor to aid in circumvention of the great firewall of China: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/ https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-ch...

duxup 3y ago

> There is darkness inside people that lack of rules, lack of order, lack of accountability brings out. This extends to social networking too. As much angst as there is about moderation, it’s a feature people want.

version_five 3y ago

> There is darkness inside people that lack of rules, lack of order, lack of accountability brings out. Maybe, but it's nothing in comparison the darkness that comes out of people who want rules and someone held accountable.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

It's certainly an interesting mindset: "I'd rather live in a neighborhood where the HOA is run by psychopathic busybodies, even if it means I have to become a pod person!"

Run_DOS_Run 3y ago

>yeah I saw some bad stuff there. After what I saw I don’t think anonymity is a good idea This is a somewhat one-sided way of thinking. Tor is a tool that can be used for useful things as well as misused for bad things (like a knife or a truck). Now, leaving aside the fact that websites related to credit card fraud, child pornography, and terrorism also have a large presence on the Clearweb. Also, I'd like to note that Instagram is a global hub for human trafficking, and the moderators' stories don't sound any more innocuous than the Onion stories. I use Tor daily and abide by the law, but don't want to miss the anonymity or pseudonymity of a Whonix VM and a Tails session. Since I've been hosting Tor Nodes since I was 14, I don't have to worry about showing up on blacklists of 3-letter organizations, since I've been on top for over a decade anyway.

mrits 3y ago
Not all tools are equal. The iron maiden was also a tool that I suppose could be used for cracking open pecans.
- esperent 3y ago
  The iron maiden never existed FYI. Well, not as a real torture device. It was invented about 150 years ago as a fake museum display.
  - flangola7 3y ago
    Then use a real implement. Let's take mustard gas shells, what is their offsetting positive use? There isn't one.
    - esperent 3y ago
      Why exactly are you trying to compare mustard gas to Tor? I'm kind of lost here. But anyway, to answer your question: mustard gas is not one thing, it's a class of chemicals. But one of them became the first ever chemotherapy drugs, Mustine: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlormethine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlormethine

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

DANmode 3y ago

> After what I saw I don’t think anonymity is a good idea. Any ideas for how to eradicate it without authoritarianism?