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To be honest despite agreeing with many arguments around privacy, they're not quite compelling enough to convince me to adopt Tor's approach to it which in my m

To be honest despite agreeing with many arguments around privacy, they're not quite compelling enough to convince me to adopt Tor's approach to it which in my mind is akin to hiding in a bin. Sure, you're hidden, but you're also in with a lot of stuff you don't want to be in with and that can come with legal liabilities and ethical issues that I don't feel qualified to mitigate. And as other people have pointed out maybe the government or your least favourite company actually has a camera in the bin you chose to hide in.

holmesworcester 3y ago
A common misconception about Tor is that by using Tor as an end user you are also hosting and relaying stuff on the Tor network for other users. This is not the case, unless you explicitly set up a relay node or volunteer to run a Snowflake bridge. True, you're mixed in with other users from the point of view of websites that might treat you as spam, say. But you aren't taking on any liability unless you run an exit node, and even that is fairly well-established as safe in at least some jurisdictions.
- vorticalbox 3y ago
  Snowflake as far as I am aware only helps people connect to tor, it doesn't route any traffic after that point.
- captainbland 3y ago
  I think even as a user, the risk then is that law enforcement agencies want to unmask/correlate users which leads to the possibility of them screwing that up and conflating people's identities. Arguably this is more of an issue with trust in those performing/acting on the analysis but on an individual level still factors into the "do I want to use tor?" mental model.
  - twosdai 3y ago
    Couldn't you make the same argument about https requests over the clear net? You're request is being processed by intermediaries through your isp which three letter agencies could incorrectly correlate with you. I know there are deep fundamental technical differences, but I could see an outcome where the end result is the same across both services. I'm not trying to justify to use tor as well, just that I don't think the argument of guilt through incorrect association is solved by not using tor.
    - DANmode 3y ago
      I was going to say, this person is making the exact same argument I'm making about the mainstream Internet in general, today. Just morality-lacking trash, at best.
- foobiekr 3y ago
  Well, you are _absolutely_ taking on the potential liability implicit in becoming a person of interest in any case involving the exchange of materials that you are facilitating. You may not _lose_ but you may find yourself with your life seriously disrupted.
  - LocalH 3y ago
    What exactly do you mean by "facilitating", outside of a person explicitly running an exit node?
    - foobiekr 3y ago
      That is literally what I mean.
      - DANmode 3y ago
        Browsing Tor isn't running a Tor node or relay, as many others in this thread have corrected.
kmeisthax 3y ago
In the case of Tor, the government you're trying to hide from actually made the bins and handed them out all over the world so that CIA agents would have somewhere to dead-drop files in.
- optimalsolver 3y ago
  IIRC the US Gov still funds the Tor project.
  - holmesworcester 3y ago
    For perspective, the same entity, Open Tech Fund (OTF), has funded many projects in the tools-for-activists space, including Signal, NoScript, Wireguard, Tails, Mediawiki, OpenVPN, Filezilla, Psiphon, Tahoe-LAFS, Briar, Lantern, and Qubes.[1] Quite a lot of serious projects in this space are US-government funded. OTF does somewhat focus on needs in regions that are geopolitical priorities for the US, but since most of these projects (like Signal or Wireguard) are building general purpose tools, it seems pretty good for the world overall and not nefarious. Germany recently started a similar fund and hopefully more countries will too! [2] (I know people involved in both OTF and Sovereign Tech Fund I work with a user researcher who's funded by a small grant from OTF on my project Quiet.[3]) One funny historical note is that OTF grew out of Radio Free Asia, a program started after the Tiananmen Square massacre to broadcast AM, satellite and shortwave pro-democracy propaganda in Mandarin into China.[4] So the mission of funding general purpose anti-censorship and privacy tools kinda makes sense! 1. https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/ https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/ 2. https://sovereigntechfund.de/en/ https://sovereigntechfund.de/en/ 3. https://tryquiet.org https://tryquiet.org 4. https://www.opentech.fund/about/our-history/ https://www.opentech.fund/about/our-history/ & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia
A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
I can understand that argument due to the nature of Tor, but if you use it as a communication medium only, how is different from using non-Tor internet or a cell phone. Yet, no one seems to argue that you are one of those nefarious internet or cell phone user. I think the argument is solid. The fact that is is not commonly used makes it a niche application. If it was more widely adopted, all those 'bad things' would likely be on par with regular phone/net issues in terms of volume.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
Imagine if I was under investigation for drug trafficking, or tax fraud, or whatever have you. “He had Tor on his computer to access the Dark Web” is extremely strong jury bait even though it doesn’t intrinsically mean anything. The government might not be able to prove what, if anything, I did - but I'll still probably look pretty dang guilty just for having it. The other downside would be how trying to be secret can shine a spotlight - kind of like the bomb threat at that school (I’m forgetting the name). The student used Tor, but was quickly identified… because nobody else on the school network used Tor. (Make no mistake - I’m glad the student was caught - I’m just taking about how trying to increase your privacy can backfire.)
- vorticalbox 3y ago
  I'm not sure it would that's like going "he owns a car he could have used it to speed"
  - JadeNB 3y ago
    > I'm not sure it would that's like going "he owns a car he could have used it to speed" I think these and other rebuttals fall into the category of completely logical arguments that should, but won't, convince a non-tech-savvy judge or jury.
  - captainbland 3y ago
    True but we're talking about juries who are essentially random members of the public and are far from guaranteed to spot a fallacy or buy that it is a fallacy even when pointed out. I think a big difference to them could be how cars are socially normalised but tor is not. There's a good chunk of the population who would hear the car version and think "that's ridiculous, I drive a car!" but hear the tor version and think "that's a strange and alien thing to me, definitely something a suspicious person would do".
    - NoGravitas 3y ago
      > True but we're talking about juries who are essentially random members of the public and are far from guaranteed to spot a fallacy or buy that it is a fallacy even when pointed out. In the US, at least, juries are generally less sophisticated than a random sample of the general public; anyone who displays significant world knowledge or critical thinking during jury selection will be removed.
poisonborz 3y ago
You're not more "in the bin" as with some fellow knife users who stick them into humans - or a better parallel, recent community favourite Mastodon, which, according to it's federated nature, has also a massive CSAM problem(1). In the digital world, either you have complete freedom (also meaning choose your own server/fellow bin companions) or complete censorship - not much in between. https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23806093/mastodon-csam-study-decentralized-network https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23806093/mastodon-csam-st...
- JadeNB 3y ago
  > You're not more "in the bin" as with some fellow knife users who stick them into humans Except that the law has come to terms (outside the UK) with the possibility of peaceful knife ownership, whereas the law around Tor and such things is still in the "probably non-technically savvy judge has heard scary terms around Tor and wants to be on the safe side" stage.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    There are many places outside of UK that don't allow to carry knives with certain features (e.g. fixed blade or assisted opening) or with blade length above a certain limit. In US, this is often covered by municipal bylaws.
- sitzkrieg 3y ago
  the csam problem is a fediverse problem. not just a mastondon problem, let me just say i am one of the most vocal critics of mastodon after running an instance for 5 years and running. but its unfair to call it a mastodon problem, mastodon is just a fediverse client. the csam can come from any fediverse peer. but it is indeed a problem, and mastodon mirrors all remote content that is in your federation network and now you have csam splattered across the connections of mastos w only blacklists if entire instances to recourse. its a bad approach but they've buried head in the sand years ago. things like pleroma do not do this by default
- anthk 3y ago
  False. Mastodon blocks those CSAM instances (speccially the Japanese ones) in masse. It's the opposite of you say. Twitter and FB have a harder problem on that because they are single-net based.
WindyLakeReturn 3y ago
If privacy is really private, and not merely a promise from a benevolent entity they won't look at your details, not that they can't, then you will always find in your company those who need privacy because they are hiding from all of society that hate them. Even if we were to go 100,000 years into the future where morals are entirely different and alien to modern day ones, if privacy exists at all, you'll find it most popular among those whose behaviors are the most morally repugnant to the futuristic society. Privacy is good even when you have nothing to hide, but it is imperative for those who do need to be hidden. The ethical issues I generally see people concerned with are ethical issues with privacy itself, not a specific implementation.
- holmesworcester 3y ago
  There's also a very long history of ideas that were fundamental to scientific and societal progress being morally repugnant to a majority, initially. Heliocentrism, democracy, etc. Without some degree of freedom to violate the majority's morality (or even one's parents' morality!) without judgement, we should expect society to stagnate due to arbitrary lock-in of the status quo on any sufficiently controversial issue. Privacy is great because it lets groups violate the majority's morality invisibly, without flagrantly disrupting the sense the majority has of there being a moral order. Privacy gives you the upside of social innovation without the downside of a generalized, diminished belief in the morality of others (which can be a downward spiral for societal self-organization.)

holmesworcester 3y ago

A common misconception about Tor is that by using Tor as an end user you are also hosting and relaying stuff on the Tor network for other users. This is not the case, unless you explicitly set up a relay node or volunteer to run a Snowflake bridge. True, you're mixed in with other users from the point of view of websites that might treat you as spam, say. But you aren't taking on any liability unless you run an exit node, and even that is fairly well-established as safe in at least some jurisdictions.

vorticalbox 3y ago
Snowflake as far as I am aware only helps people connect to tor, it doesn't route any traffic after that point.
captainbland 3y ago
I think even as a user, the risk then is that law enforcement agencies want to unmask/correlate users which leads to the possibility of them screwing that up and conflating people's identities. Arguably this is more of an issue with trust in those performing/acting on the analysis but on an individual level still factors into the "do I want to use tor?" mental model.
- twosdai 3y ago
  Couldn't you make the same argument about https requests over the clear net? You're request is being processed by intermediaries through your isp which three letter agencies could incorrectly correlate with you. I know there are deep fundamental technical differences, but I could see an outcome where the end result is the same across both services. I'm not trying to justify to use tor as well, just that I don't think the argument of guilt through incorrect association is solved by not using tor.
  - DANmode 3y ago
    I was going to say, this person is making the exact same argument I'm making about the mainstream Internet in general, today. Just morality-lacking trash, at best.
foobiekr 3y ago
Well, you are _absolutely_ taking on the potential liability implicit in becoming a person of interest in any case involving the exchange of materials that you are facilitating. You may not _lose_ but you may find yourself with your life seriously disrupted.
- LocalH 3y ago
  What exactly do you mean by "facilitating", outside of a person explicitly running an exit node?
  - foobiekr 3y ago
    That is literally what I mean.
    - DANmode 3y ago
      Browsing Tor isn't running a Tor node or relay, as many others in this thread have corrected.

kmeisthax 3y ago

In the case of Tor, the government you're trying to hide from actually made the bins and handed them out all over the world so that CIA agents would have somewhere to dead-drop files in.

optimalsolver 3y ago
IIRC the US Gov still funds the Tor project.
- holmesworcester 3y ago
  For perspective, the same entity, Open Tech Fund (OTF), has funded many projects in the tools-for-activists space, including Signal, NoScript, Wireguard, Tails, Mediawiki, OpenVPN, Filezilla, Psiphon, Tahoe-LAFS, Briar, Lantern, and Qubes.[1] Quite a lot of serious projects in this space are US-government funded. OTF does somewhat focus on needs in regions that are geopolitical priorities for the US, but since most of these projects (like Signal or Wireguard) are building general purpose tools, it seems pretty good for the world overall and not nefarious. Germany recently started a similar fund and hopefully more countries will too! [2] (I know people involved in both OTF and Sovereign Tech Fund I work with a user researcher who's funded by a small grant from OTF on my project Quiet.[3]) One funny historical note is that OTF grew out of Radio Free Asia, a program started after the Tiananmen Square massacre to broadcast AM, satellite and shortwave pro-democracy propaganda in Mandarin into China.[4] So the mission of funding general purpose anti-censorship and privacy tools kinda makes sense! 1. https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/ https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/ 2. https://sovereigntechfund.de/en/ https://sovereigntechfund.de/en/ 3. https://tryquiet.org https://tryquiet.org 4. https://www.opentech.fund/about/our-history/ https://www.opentech.fund/about/our-history/ & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia

A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago

I can understand that argument due to the nature of Tor, but if you use it as a communication medium only, how is different from using non-Tor internet or a cell phone. Yet, no one seems to argue that you are one of those nefarious internet or cell phone user. I think the argument is solid. The fact that is is not commonly used makes it a niche application. If it was more widely adopted, all those 'bad things' would likely be on par with regular phone/net issues in terms of volume.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

Imagine if I was under investigation for drug trafficking, or tax fraud, or whatever have you. “He had Tor on his computer to access the Dark Web” is extremely strong jury bait even though it doesn’t intrinsically mean anything. The government might not be able to prove what, if anything, I did - but I'll still probably look pretty dang guilty just for having it. The other downside would be how trying to be secret can shine a spotlight - kind of like the bomb threat at that school (I’m forgetting the name). The student used Tor, but was quickly identified… because nobody else on the school network used Tor. (Make no mistake - I’m glad the student was caught - I’m just taking about how trying to increase your privacy can backfire.)

vorticalbox 3y ago
I'm not sure it would that's like going "he owns a car he could have used it to speed"
- JadeNB 3y ago
  > I'm not sure it would that's like going "he owns a car he could have used it to speed" I think these and other rebuttals fall into the category of completely logical arguments that should, but won't, convince a non-tech-savvy judge or jury.
- captainbland 3y ago
  True but we're talking about juries who are essentially random members of the public and are far from guaranteed to spot a fallacy or buy that it is a fallacy even when pointed out. I think a big difference to them could be how cars are socially normalised but tor is not. There's a good chunk of the population who would hear the car version and think "that's ridiculous, I drive a car!" but hear the tor version and think "that's a strange and alien thing to me, definitely something a suspicious person would do".
  - NoGravitas 3y ago
    > True but we're talking about juries who are essentially random members of the public and are far from guaranteed to spot a fallacy or buy that it is a fallacy even when pointed out. In the US, at least, juries are generally less sophisticated than a random sample of the general public; anyone who displays significant world knowledge or critical thinking during jury selection will be removed.

poisonborz 3y ago

You're not more "in the bin" as with some fellow knife users who stick them into humans - or a better parallel, recent community favourite Mastodon, which, according to it's federated nature, has also a massive CSAM problem(1). In the digital world, either you have complete freedom (also meaning choose your own server/fellow bin companions) or complete censorship - not much in between. https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23806093/mastodon-csam-study-decentralized-network https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23806093/mastodon-csam-st...

JadeNB 3y ago
> You're not more "in the bin" as with some fellow knife users who stick them into humans Except that the law has come to terms (outside the UK) with the possibility of peaceful knife ownership, whereas the law around Tor and such things is still in the "probably non-technically savvy judge has heard scary terms around Tor and wants to be on the safe side" stage.
- int_19h 3y ago
  There are many places outside of UK that don't allow to carry knives with certain features (e.g. fixed blade or assisted opening) or with blade length above a certain limit. In US, this is often covered by municipal bylaws.
sitzkrieg 3y ago
the csam problem is a fediverse problem. not just a mastondon problem, let me just say i am one of the most vocal critics of mastodon after running an instance for 5 years and running. but its unfair to call it a mastodon problem, mastodon is just a fediverse client. the csam can come from any fediverse peer. but it is indeed a problem, and mastodon mirrors all remote content that is in your federation network and now you have csam splattered across the connections of mastos w only blacklists if entire instances to recourse. its a bad approach but they've buried head in the sand years ago. things like pleroma do not do this by default
anthk 3y ago
False. Mastodon blocks those CSAM instances (speccially the Japanese ones) in masse. It's the opposite of you say. Twitter and FB have a harder problem on that because they are single-net based.

WindyLakeReturn 3y ago

If privacy is really private, and not merely a promise from a benevolent entity they won't look at your details, not that they can't, then you will always find in your company those who need privacy because they are hiding from all of society that hate them. Even if we were to go 100,000 years into the future where morals are entirely different and alien to modern day ones, if privacy exists at all, you'll find it most popular among those whose behaviors are the most morally repugnant to the futuristic society. Privacy is good even when you have nothing to hide, but it is imperative for those who do need to be hidden. The ethical issues I generally see people concerned with are ethical issues with privacy itself, not a specific implementation.

holmesworcester 3y ago
There's also a very long history of ideas that were fundamental to scientific and societal progress being morally repugnant to a majority, initially. Heliocentrism, democracy, etc. Without some degree of freedom to violate the majority's morality (or even one's parents' morality!) without judgement, we should expect society to stagnate due to arbitrary lock-in of the status quo on any sufficiently controversial issue. Privacy is great because it lets groups violate the majority's morality invisibly, without flagrantly disrupting the sense the majority has of there being a moral order. Privacy gives you the upside of social innovation without the downside of a generalized, diminished belief in the morality of others (which can be a downward spiral for societal self-organization.)