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Well, for starters, I don't consider the Tor browser to be anonymizing. It only offers protection against outside attackers, it offers almost no protection agai

Well, for starters, I don't consider the Tor browser to be anonymizing. It only offers protection against outside attackers, it offers almost no protection against the websites you may browse to (how could it?) Pseudo-anonymization is snake oil because it's not that hard to reverse. All you have to do is combine the "anonymized" data with data from other sources and you can identify people. It doesn't even take that much data from other sources. True anonymization is possible: it requires the collector to just keep general aggregate statistics and to immediately delete the individual telemetry reports. But few entities do that, and we have to just trust that the ones the claim they do are being honest and competent about it. But the track record is extremely poor so trusting in such claims is, in my opinion, very foolish.

nikitaeverywher 1y ago
> it offers almost no protection against the websites you may browse to (how could it?) > All you have to do is combine the "anonymized" data with data from other sources I'm struggling to understand why. Can you give a very specific example of how I, using Tor browser to browse web, can still be tracked as an individual? What are "other sources"? Each session of Tor browser has a randomized IP and user agent, and moreover if JavaScript requests for instance the "screen width" of the device, it gives some random numbers. Letterboxing, anti-fingerprinting in action: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/maximized-torbrowser-window/ https://support.torproject.org/tbb/maximized-torbrowser-wind... > True anonymization is possible: it requires the collector to just keep general aggregate statistics and to immediately delete Most businesses store all that "raw" data (pageview and other events) to process it later. It's reasonable – hard to build and unify it otherwise, but at the end of the day it gets aggregated. To add, they have their own data retention policy. So the best and minimally required one can do IMO is to use aka "incognito mode" when browsing, if it matters.

nikitaeverywher 1y ago

> it offers almost no protection against the websites you may browse to (how could it?) > All you have to do is combine the "anonymized" data with data from other sources I'm struggling to understand why. Can you give a very specific example of how I, using Tor browser to browse web, can still be tracked as an individual? What are "other sources"? Each session of Tor browser has a randomized IP and user agent, and moreover if JavaScript requests for instance the "screen width" of the device, it gives some random numbers. Letterboxing, anti-fingerprinting in action: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/maximized-torbrowser-window/ https://support.torproject.org/tbb/maximized-torbrowser-wind... > True anonymization is possible: it requires the collector to just keep general aggregate statistics and to immediately delete Most businesses store all that "raw" data (pageview and other events) to process it later. It's reasonable – hard to build and unify it otherwise, but at the end of the day it gets aggregated. To add, they have their own data retention policy. So the best and minimally required one can do IMO is to use aka "incognito mode" when browsing, if it matters.