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> If this onion service is now the official way to access Facebook via Tor and direct access doesn't work well, then this is slowing things down. my take on th

> If this onion service is now the official way to access Facebook via Tor and direct access doesn't work well, then this is slowing things down. my take on the post was that it was presented as an option, and for users taking the time to access a site via tor, speed may not be the only (or even primary) consideration. i say that as someone who does ~95% of my browsing--both work and personal--via Tor. > But such lists tend to be incomplete or behind e.g. the "exit" flag doesn't mean what you'd intuitively expect, so it's sometimes possible for Tor traffic to turn up from an IP that is not identified as an exit. Doesn't the onion address solve this problem? > I'm not sure this is much of an upgrade over just regular SSL CA + HSTS pinning. Depends on your threat model, but I think it's a useful option and congratulate the Facebook team for offering it to users. I'd love to see Google, Twitter, and others start to compete on the extent to which they support TBB users.

mike_hearn 12y ago
Yes, you're right, it's just an option and presumably access via the regular web address will still work. It may be that the hidden service is a way to identify Tor traffic, but it shouldn't really be necessary to do that if Tor had the right support in it. And of course you cannot assume everyone who uses Facebook via Tor will know about this service, unless TBB itself is adjusted to force usage, in which case you're now changing Tor and could as well make exit identification 100% reliable.
neltnerb 12y ago
You effectively use Tor 95% of the time? This surprises me, actually. I think if I used it that much I would unavoidably lose my anonymity. Here is my worry -- Tor looks easy to use, but requires habit changes to actually be effective for anonymity. The habit changes that I am led to believe are required for any effective anonymity through Tor scream "NO NO NO NO NO!!!" at the idea of logging into javascript requiring, cookie placing, Facebook. This seems to me like a situation where the illusion of anonymity might be worse than the reality of non-anonymity. Granted, it lets you bypass censorship. Granted, if you are very careful and, say, only use your Tor Browser to connect to Facebook and nothing else whatsoever... maybe. I just don't think I could trust myself to do it properly. And while I'm no Edward Snowden, I'm also not dumb.

mike_hearn 12y ago

Yes, you're right, it's just an option and presumably access via the regular web address will still work. It may be that the hidden service is a way to identify Tor traffic, but it shouldn't really be necessary to do that if Tor had the right support in it. And of course you cannot assume everyone who uses Facebook via Tor will know about this service, unless TBB itself is adjusted to force usage, in which case you're now changing Tor and could as well make exit identification 100% reliable.

neltnerb 12y ago

You effectively use Tor 95% of the time? This surprises me, actually. I think if I used it that much I would unavoidably lose my anonymity. Here is my worry -- Tor looks easy to use, but requires habit changes to actually be effective for anonymity. The habit changes that I am led to believe are required for any effective anonymity through Tor scream "NO NO NO NO NO!!!" at the idea of logging into javascript requiring, cookie placing, Facebook. This seems to me like a situation where the illusion of anonymity might be worse than the reality of non-anonymity. Granted, it lets you bypass censorship. Granted, if you are very careful and, say, only use your Tor Browser to connect to Facebook and nothing else whatsoever... maybe. I just don't think I could trust myself to do it properly. And while I'm no Edward Snowden, I'm also not dumb.