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I'd hate to be one of those people, but I'd enjoy some kind of citation on that claim that the majority of Tor users are using it for nefarious purposes. I may

I'd hate to be one of those people, but I'd enjoy some kind of citation on that claim that the majority of Tor users are using it for nefarious purposes. I may be stretching here, but I think most of us would probably agree that monitoring or outright shutting down Tor would be OK if the nefarious usage was 100%. More interesting is, at which point do we consider monitoring morally wrong as that percentage approaches zero?

bcl 12y ago
All you need to do is look at the hidden services listed on any of the .onion directories. This is why I stopped running a node -- I just can't justify helping criminals, even if I have no way to know which data passes through my system.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  Maybe one could run an exit node or .onion proxy that only allows connections to critical sites for political dissidents like gmail, twitter, etc.
- middleclick 12y ago
  I am not disagreeing with your point of view, but how is Tor different from anything else that can be used by criminals, which includes pretty much ... everything? By that analogy, and again I am not being dense, the use of any encryption can be justified as helping criminals?
  - dspillett 12y ago
    > By that analogy the use of any encryption can be justified as helping criminals? That is certainly the view of the security services: anyone using encryption we can't break is a potential enemy hiding something we want to know. That is why there were export restrictions on encryption technology until it became obvious that was detrimental (crypto developed elsewhere wan't covered, so the restrictions put allied commercial users at a disadvantage to other countries in the industrial espionage stakes without actually affecting the people the restrictions were aimed at at all). It is also why services that offer encryption are pressured into giving authorities access to the private keys, and those that refuse (or can't due to the design meaning the keys are only in their users hands) tend to get shut down.
  - bcl 12y ago
    The difference here is that with Tor it is me who is providing the bandwidth for them to use. I want to see Tor succeed, but I just can't get past the fact that the people running .onion directories seem to feel that since it can be used for anything that everything should be promoted equally.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  Websites hosted on tor are, but aren't the majority of users connecting to the external internet?
Abraln 12y ago
He never said the majority of tor users are criminals, just that the proportion/percentagefraction is higher than non-tor traffic.
- TheCraiggers 12y ago
  I don't want to get into a semantics argument here, but: "The proportion of nefarious types (relative to the total user-base) routinely using Tor is going to be significantly higher then the proportion of such who are not..." He is claiming that nefarious usage is significantly higher than non-nefarious usage. That's the exact meaning of majority.
  - whafro 12y ago
    No, I think he meant "...who are not using Tor". He's saying that if 1% of normal internet traffic is nefarious, that he suspects that > 1% of Tor traffic is nefarious. That is to say that your odds of finding a nefarious packet is greater on Tor than on the broader internet.
    - dspillett 12y ago
      Exactly. My wording obviously could have been clearer.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    I don't think it's worded very clearly, but at the end of the day there's only one reasonable interpretation. He's saying that (numbers made up and not realistic) 10% of nefarious types use Tor, while 1% of regular folk use Tor. If nefarious folk make up 1% of the general population, they'll make up about 10% of Tor users, and thus focusing on Tor users will get you a larger proportion of the nefarious.
  - tedunangst 12y ago
    Assume 5% of Tor users are nefarious. Assume 1% of Internet at large users are nefarious. The proportion of nefarious Tor users is significantly (5x) higher. But it's not majority.
cryptophile 12y ago
It does not even matter that "the majority of Tor users are using it for nefarious purposes". Any attempt at intimidation will work out exactly the other way around. Doing anything that the NSA do not like, is "cool"; even more so in the global scene. Seriously, if you want to get people to use Tor, all you have to say is that the NSA do not like it.
gwern 12y ago
> but I'd enjoy some kind of citation on that claim that the majority of Tor users are using it for nefarious purposes. I don't know about exit nodes, but at least for hidden services that seems to be true (assuming you count torrents and drugs as 'nefarious'). See http://www.verisigninc.com/assets/labs/Measuring-the-Leakage-of-Onion-at-the-Root.pdf http://www.verisigninc.com/assets/labs/Measuring-the-Leakage... / http://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2013/papers/4977a080.pdf http://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2013/papers/4977a080.pdf / http://donncha.is/2013/05/trawling-tor-hidden-services/ http://donncha.is/2013/05/trawling-tor-hidden-services/

bcl 12y ago

All you need to do is look at the hidden services listed on any of the .onion directories. This is why I stopped running a node -- I just can't justify helping criminals, even if I have no way to know which data passes through my system.

nitrogen 12y ago
Maybe one could run an exit node or .onion proxy that only allows connections to critical sites for political dissidents like gmail, twitter, etc.
middleclick 12y ago
I am not disagreeing with your point of view, but how is Tor different from anything else that can be used by criminals, which includes pretty much ... everything? By that analogy, and again I am not being dense, the use of any encryption can be justified as helping criminals?
- dspillett 12y ago
  > By that analogy the use of any encryption can be justified as helping criminals? That is certainly the view of the security services: anyone using encryption we can't break is a potential enemy hiding something we want to know. That is why there were export restrictions on encryption technology until it became obvious that was detrimental (crypto developed elsewhere wan't covered, so the restrictions put allied commercial users at a disadvantage to other countries in the industrial espionage stakes without actually affecting the people the restrictions were aimed at at all). It is also why services that offer encryption are pressured into giving authorities access to the private keys, and those that refuse (or can't due to the design meaning the keys are only in their users hands) tend to get shut down.
- bcl 12y ago
  The difference here is that with Tor it is me who is providing the bandwidth for them to use. I want to see Tor succeed, but I just can't get past the fact that the people running .onion directories seem to feel that since it can be used for anything that everything should be promoted equally.
Houshalter 12y ago
Websites hosted on tor are, but aren't the majority of users connecting to the external internet?

Abraln 12y ago

He never said the majority of tor users are criminals, just that the proportion/percentagefraction is higher than non-tor traffic.

TheCraiggers 12y ago
I don't want to get into a semantics argument here, but: "The proportion of nefarious types (relative to the total user-base) routinely using Tor is going to be significantly higher then the proportion of such who are not..." He is claiming that nefarious usage is significantly higher than non-nefarious usage. That's the exact meaning of majority.
- whafro 12y ago
  No, I think he meant "...who are not using Tor". He's saying that if 1% of normal internet traffic is nefarious, that he suspects that > 1% of Tor traffic is nefarious. That is to say that your odds of finding a nefarious packet is greater on Tor than on the broader internet.
  - dspillett 12y ago
    Exactly. My wording obviously could have been clearer.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I don't think it's worded very clearly, but at the end of the day there's only one reasonable interpretation. He's saying that (numbers made up and not realistic) 10% of nefarious types use Tor, while 1% of regular folk use Tor. If nefarious folk make up 1% of the general population, they'll make up about 10% of Tor users, and thus focusing on Tor users will get you a larger proportion of the nefarious.
- tedunangst 12y ago
  Assume 5% of Tor users are nefarious. Assume 1% of Internet at large users are nefarious. The proportion of nefarious Tor users is significantly (5x) higher. But it's not majority.

cryptophile 12y ago

It does not even matter that "the majority of Tor users are using it for nefarious purposes". Any attempt at intimidation will work out exactly the other way around. Doing anything that the NSA do not like, is "cool"; even more so in the global scene. Seriously, if you want to get people to use Tor, all you have to say is that the NSA do not like it.

gwern 12y ago

> but I'd enjoy some kind of citation on that claim that the majority of Tor users are using it for nefarious purposes. I don't know about exit nodes, but at least for hidden services that seems to be true (assuming you count torrents and drugs as 'nefarious'). See http://www.verisigninc.com/assets/labs/Measuring-the-Leakage-of-Onion-at-the-Root.pdf http://www.verisigninc.com/assets/labs/Measuring-the-Leakage... / http://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2013/papers/4977a080.pdf http://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2013/papers/4977a080.pdf / http://donncha.is/2013/05/trawling-tor-hidden-services/ http://donncha.is/2013/05/trawling-tor-hidden-services/