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This article seems seriously confused about how Tor works ("only the ISP used along with it can ascertain what activity takes place on Tor"), such that I don't

This article seems seriously confused about how Tor works ("only the ISP used along with it can ascertain what activity takes place on Tor"), such that I don't trust the rest of what it's saying. There is probably no story here.

sheetjs 12y ago
You clicked link, they got page views -> mission accomplished! (the sad state of affairs of tech "journalism")
- atmosx 12y ago
  lucky me I read the HN comments first :-p (moving to the next article).
  - jMyles 12y ago
    I often do this (and did in this case). I wonder how frequent a phenomenon this is becoming and how it affects media consumption / retention?
    - sroerick 12y ago
      And how often do you think comments are manipulated as part of marketing and damage control? To be fair, this is a dumb error and I wish they would issue an honest correction rather than simply removing the incorrect part.
fru2013 12y ago
Likely a technical misunderstanding by the author. It is possible for an ISP to detect tor traffic[1], but not determine the contents of the traffic. My guess is that the author is not aware of this. http://www.netresec.com/?page=Blog&month=2013-04&post=Detecting-TOR-Communication-in-Network-Traffic http://www.netresec.com/?page=Blog&month=2013-04&post=Detect...
- dmix 12y ago
  Considering the entire blog is about 'deep web' you'd hope the author is aware of this difference and made an error. But clicking on his bio it seems to be this authors first post there, so who knows.
- derefr 12y ago
  > but not determine the contents of the traffic. Not even this much, actually. Tor doesn't do any sort of protection on the traffic; it just routes it cleverly. The packets themselves are still plaintext if you're not using an encrypted protocol (e.g. HTTPS) on top of Tor. In practice, most people use Tor through the browser bundle, which includes an HTTPS-Only extension. But if you're routing random other protocols through Tor (e.g. XMPP, BitTorrent, etc.) be aware that Tor is not doing any protection of your plaintext; that's the responsibility of your client/protocol.
  - schoen 12y ago
    You're right with respect to the exit node, but here the story is about the entry node. The entry node would not be able to see the traffic contents, because they're encrypted with the exit node's key. I helped make this diagram to demonstrate these details: https://www.eff.org/pages/tor-and-https https://www.eff.org/pages/tor-and-https
  - panarky 12y ago
    Not exactly. Tor encrypts your traffic within the Tor network. Even if you don't encrypt, Tor does automatically so your ISP cannot see your content. If you don't encrypt, your content will be visible to the exit node, but not to your ISP. https://www.torproject.org/about/overview https://www.torproject.org/about/overview
sroerick 12y ago
Well, simultaneous to that, it also describes Comcast asking the customer what it is exactly they were using Tor for. Since then, it does appear that phrase has been redacted. It would be nice if they published a correction, though.
thefreeman 12y ago
Yea, it's a bummer because I would love any reason to flame comcast. But this entire article seems to be based off random complaints by people on reddit. There is nothing to go on here.
smoyer 12y ago
Not a very friendly web-site either ... My first-generation iPad does show anything.

sheetjs 12y ago

You clicked link, they got page views -> mission accomplished! (the sad state of affairs of tech "journalism")

atmosx 12y ago
lucky me I read the HN comments first :-p (moving to the next article).
- jMyles 12y ago
  I often do this (and did in this case). I wonder how frequent a phenomenon this is becoming and how it affects media consumption / retention?
  - sroerick 12y ago
    And how often do you think comments are manipulated as part of marketing and damage control? To be fair, this is a dumb error and I wish they would issue an honest correction rather than simply removing the incorrect part.

fru2013 12y ago

Likely a technical misunderstanding by the author. It is possible for an ISP to detect tor traffic[1], but not determine the contents of the traffic. My guess is that the author is not aware of this. http://www.netresec.com/?page=Blog&month=2013-04&post=Detecting-TOR-Communication-in-Network-Traffic http://www.netresec.com/?page=Blog&month=2013-04&post=Detect...

dmix 12y ago
Considering the entire blog is about 'deep web' you'd hope the author is aware of this difference and made an error. But clicking on his bio it seems to be this authors first post there, so who knows.
derefr 12y ago
> but not determine the contents of the traffic. Not even this much, actually. Tor doesn't do any sort of protection on the traffic; it just routes it cleverly. The packets themselves are still plaintext if you're not using an encrypted protocol (e.g. HTTPS) on top of Tor. In practice, most people use Tor through the browser bundle, which includes an HTTPS-Only extension. But if you're routing random other protocols through Tor (e.g. XMPP, BitTorrent, etc.) be aware that Tor is not doing any protection of your plaintext; that's the responsibility of your client/protocol.
- schoen 12y ago
  You're right with respect to the exit node, but here the story is about the entry node. The entry node would not be able to see the traffic contents, because they're encrypted with the exit node's key. I helped make this diagram to demonstrate these details: https://www.eff.org/pages/tor-and-https https://www.eff.org/pages/tor-and-https
- panarky 12y ago
  Not exactly. Tor encrypts your traffic within the Tor network. Even if you don't encrypt, Tor does automatically so your ISP cannot see your content. If you don't encrypt, your content will be visible to the exit node, but not to your ISP. https://www.torproject.org/about/overview https://www.torproject.org/about/overview

sroerick 12y ago

Well, simultaneous to that, it also describes Comcast asking the customer what it is exactly they were using Tor for. Since then, it does appear that phrase has been redacted. It would be nice if they published a correction, though.

thefreeman 12y ago

Yea, it's a bummer because I would love any reason to flame comcast. But this entire article seems to be based off random complaints by people on reddit. There is nothing to go on here.

smoyer 12y ago

Not a very friendly web-site either ... My first-generation iPad does show anything.