Slashdot Mirror
Tor Anonymity Network Reaches 100 Verified Nodes
James A. Y. Joyce writes "Tor is an onion routing anonymous network. It routes your data transfers through a series of encrypted links between random nodes in the network; the greater the number of nodes, the greater the anonymity afforded. To commemorate the 100th verified node in the Tor network, the EFF are putting up a request for other organisations and personal users to start up Tor nodes of their own. (Tor has been mentioned on Slashdot twice before.)"
Normal web browsing is fine, albeit quite a bit slower than you're used to. Then again, that's the price of anonymity, I suppose.
As far as contributing, if I had the bandwidth to spare, I'd set up a Tor server and contribute. I do have Tor linked from my web site, though, for what that's worth.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Something "bad" gets onto the network. Something that the authorities don't want out there.
The authorities find out.
The network has 100 nodes.
The authorities arrest the operators of all 100 nodes.
....profit?
Should be tor.eff.org.
At least it isn't as bad as Freenet, right?
I'd be interested in seeing where this falls on the TOS of internet providers. I have a fat unmontiored (non-student) university pipe.... ;)
Also, the imageshack links aren't working...?
While I think Tor is a great idea, I also think it makes it way too easy to be a bad netizen.
With Tor, you can flood sites and services such as IRC, web boards, instant messaging, and so forth. You could possibly use it to spam as well. All of this would be done by seemingly random IP addresses. In essence, it is an inflated case of Open Proxy Syndrome. The only remedy that the victims have is to block all Tor sites by using some of the RBLs that exist for doing just that. I'd really like to allow legit use of Tor on my services, but there are some jackasses that flood from within Tor that make it impossible.
With anonymity comes a lack of recourse. I understand that this is the point of anonymity and Tor, but it isn't always good.
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
Can't post to slashdot using Tor, and a couple servers have been banned by slashdot entirely, for flooding the site.
Tor? What about Ext? you can't have Tor without Ext?!?!?
Only true math nerds need to reply.
Zero Knowledge systems made their anonymizng network pseudonymous instead of truly anonymous, and (here's the good part) you had to pay for a pseudonym.
If you acted like a jerk people would block you, your pseudonym would become useless, and replacing it would cost actual money.
I don't know how they avoided making the nyms traceable via the payment system. There is high magic in the crypto world that might have made it possible to break that linkage.
BTW I bow with respect toward your low user id.
There are many questionable issues to deal with when you run a Tor server..
Child Pornography
I dont know if you are legally responsible, but do you want to help the anonomous distribution of child pornography, especially if the children are actually being harmed?
Terrorism
Networks like this would make it easy and untracable for terrorists to send their commuinications without being traced to a location. Do you want to be unwittingly helping Osama bin Laden send out messages and hide his location?
Spam
Do you want to be responsible for people who use Tor to spam (not just email, which I believe is blocked by default)?
This also applies to any other illegal activity.. Do you want to help people commit crimes?
The point of this post seems to be that TOR now has 100 verified nodes. But the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Routing that this points to says they had 100 nodes as of February 2005. Is TOR no longer growing, or is the math off somewhere?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
While I can see the need for people to be able to be "anonymous" online, I think there are more down- than upsides to this. As it is, I already feel that the internet suffers from too much anonimity rather than too little. There is no accountability and both law enforcement and ISP's are not interested enough in taking needed steps against abuse. When people can still DOS sites without consequences, flood newsgroups without as much as a slap on the wrist, and make death threats that get laughed off at by the police, I say that we need more responsibility and not more anonimity.
Here, I'll try and do it again right now.
then how do we know there are a hundred nodes?
Seriously, think about it for a moment: If it's completely anonymous, then how can we count the nodes. By counting a node, we now know where it is, virtually speaking, and can translate that into a physical location.
So either we don't know where all the nodes are, or this isn't really anonymous.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I suspect it will work.
And what I did was to turn on my proxy settings in Firefox and then go to an IP check site. My current IP is being reported as other than any in the range of my ISP.
I guess this is why most Slashdot articles don't link to wiki pages....
Wait for a sign from Gozer the Traveler; he will come in one of the pre-chosen forms.
During the rectfication of the Voldrani, the Traveler came as a large and moving Tor.
Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the Machetrik Supplicants,
they chose a new form for him -- that of a Giant Slor!
Many Shevs and Zuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day I can tell you!
OLPC Australia
Hey, at least it wasn't another informative image of anal expansion? If you read the page history; you'll find this vandalism has been ongoing. Someone really doesn't want the article text read.
Ok, ya'll gonna think I'm crazy, but the link to Wikipedia, "Onion routing" gave me a nice big picture of a woman's vagina, with the clitoris, labia minora, and the vaginal opening clearly identifed.
2 /Clitoris-Vivero-Becker.jpg o -Becker.jpg
... Edit history for the article shows that there is some vandalism taking place, but I'll still post this, mostly because of the "your mom" comment, which I think is ace.
...
I don't need any of that information (just ask your mom!), but I think someone is playing a trick, because when I reloaded (while holding down Shift) it was gone and replaced with the right article.
Information about the image (from Firefox):
Location:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3
Description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Clitoris-Viver
All right
I will post anonymously, though
the onion routing entry have been replaced by adult content - go there at your own risk
Particularly related to situations where my node ends up last in the chain for given http hits.
From a low enforcement point of view, I am accountable for any and all outbound http hits from my network.
At worst case, if my node does the actual http hits to sites like www.some-secret-kiddie-pr0n-site.com or www.some-phishing-victims-bank.com, then in all likelihood I'll be getting a visit from the police.
In such a case, there's no acceptable outcome:
If I encrypt my disks and refuse to hand over keys, I'm looking to do time for accessing the sites.
If I tell cops about the Tor node, and mount a 'plausible deniability' defense, there's the possibility of 'accessory' or 'contributory negligence/liability' charges.
Even if I beat all these charges and escape conviction, I still have to suffer:
- stress from police harassment
- time wasted in police interviews and court appearances
- loss of my PC for a year or more, while computer forensics cops go through my hard disks with a fine tooth comb
None of these outcomes are very appealing.Any thoughts on this?
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
I think that may be what that "I'm using an open proxy, ban me!" posts were about. Getting open proxies banned.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
And screw the chinese. It amazes me how people still drag out this inflamed and rancid red herring every time there is a discussion of anonymity on the net.
Remember when it was SUPPOSED to be about freedom of speech? Yeah even when it's the "bad" kind. Look how they keep these kiddie porn pictures locked away where only a tiny few detectives and the pervs who obsessively seek out the images can find them. When they FINALLY admit defeat and roll out a few carefully altered pictures worldwide in an unprecedented "have you seen this place" (still cannot see the kid who probably could have been identified much quicker) they find out the guy was locked up and the girl has been safe now for YEARS!
How many years did she go on being abused because the friends and neighbors of this kid never had the chance to identify her?
Now, having said that let me remind you of something else: "child porn" is a moving target and especially in the US there is a VERY heavy footed march toward defining anyone under the age of 18 as a "child."
And the primary motivation for this is NOT to stop at "child porn" but to stamp out every modeling site and every ADULT porn publisher by overloading them and binding them with red tape and overzealous, politically correct "laws" brought about through uniting the most intrusive elements of the right wing religious nuts and the left wing feminist nuts. The door was thrown open decades ago when the court said "intent" was good enough for prosecution even in cases of pictures where no "harm" was done to the children and that was all about one thing: punishing people for beiung who they are and not punishing them for their actions.
I've said this before here and people go "oh they can';t get away with tat we have the supreme court" well yeah, it was the SCOTUS that sent down the first ruling and did so even in a much more liberal atmosphere, think of how that might go today. Better yet just look around, watch the news over the next few weeks and you will see it being played out right before you.
In germany magazines target at 13 to 15 year olds have frontal nudity and articles on buying condoms and giving head. They prepare kids for adulthood and recognize their right to their own bodies and their own sexuality. In the US and UK the political machination is moving in the exact opposite direction, seeking to strip away even adults from their inalienable liberty of self.
Just watch... you'll see soon enough.
And dont forget the TOR DNSBL, since you know TOR is just itching to be abused.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
1: political groups trying to hide from censorship
2: diplomatic/spy-agency messages
3: P2P
4: criminal/terrorist/pedophile activity
I think most people would agree that the great benefit of such a network is number 1. Number 2 is well accepted practice over the last 100 years, so I think there are not much objections against that. Number 3 might be the biggest selling point of this technique, allthough somewhat ethically debatable. I think this problem will be solved in the next 10 years by either the collapse of the content industry or the availibility of better alternatives. That leaves number 4. Is there anything that can be done against that or must this be seen as 'collateral damage'?
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
The problem I see running a Tor node is that when someone is using Tor to hide their p2p traffic and gets routed thru you as the last node, the RIAA/MPAA is likely to see you as the up/downloader and sue you.
I have thought about using Tor to be the bad netizen your post refers to.
Like many University instead of free speech my university has a PC based speech code that threatens expulsion (or reeducation) if what you say is judged to be politically incorrect. Ironically, the speech codes are not there to allow free exchange of ideas, but there to keeps the University safe FROM ideas.
Also, we know that to get a good grade in many essay based classes you need to figure out the professor's philosophy and parrot it back to them. For example, I had an English class where the best way to get an A was to relate everything to death. In Freshman English every paper had to be about how the women of the piece were oppressed. I got good grades in both classes.
I have been forced to post in class related forums and have read my professor's blogs. Often I have thought "Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say something that I believed in." I would like the anonymous protection Tor offers. I run my own website at it would be trivial for these people to find out who I am from the IP address of the post. And, I have seen disagreements with these people's ideas lead to physical attacks, keying of cars, ostracizing, bad grades, and of course, the ever popular violation of the speech code charges.
The use of systems like Tor would allow what some people may characterize as bad netizen behaviour.
So does this mean that I can have my porn and .. Eat it too?
I use tor routinely. I'm using it right now. I have it on my laptop, too. It goes browser>privoxy>tor>website. There are only a tiny few sites where I go around this chain (slashdot here is one of them, but not the "affiliated" sites). Is it because I have something to hide?
Yeah, I do. Just like I put on pants before I leave the house, the same way I keep my money in a wallet and not on a chain around my neck.
I have a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy and this allows me to have some of that. When I am on my laptop on the filthy campus network I don't have to worry someone sitting across the hall with a packet sniffer on his laptop is eavesdropping on my browsing. And if I want to go haul in something off edonkey or even the evil mean and nasty freenet I can do so from anywhere on campus even behind the firewall that filters out all p2p traffic to the commons areas.
But to say people are going to use this to ddos sites is just stupid. Use the network before making such claims and see for yourself how it works. People who ddos sites don't need tor and wouldn't bother, it's too slow, too easy to trace via timing analysis, and the convenience factor alone means it will probably remain slow due to contantly being overloaded.
The people who ddos sites are going to run a scanner on a couple of irc servers, track down the same poorly configured and/or rooted out proxies all the script kiddies sharing movies and wanking in front of webcams are trying to hide behind, and set up a few chains with some decent bandwidth to stage an attack...
I'd say
How can you verify you have nodes on an anonymous network if they're anonymous and can't be seen?
Sheesh silly people. I bet the 101th is just hiding there.
But then again... I know better.
You have been warned.
I've a friend, a Mac freak, who'se in Beijing on an intensive Chinese language course. I suggested he try tor out, expecting to have lots of hassles walking thru his first ever configure / make / install cycle. Eventually he tried it out & got it working without any help from me - just let me know he was using it, it was working fine, and to remind him to give a donation to the EFF (I'd mentioned making a donation myself a few weeks earlier.)
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Let me guess, everyone's handle is "Tor"? "Sorry officer, you'll have to tell us which Tor you're looking for."
it is 100 verified nodes. To become "verified" is to be "blessed" wiht a certain level of trust. It means your node is held somewhat accountable, it can be trusted to not be intercepting packets. Although every packet is re-encrypted at each node and it knows only the IP of the next and last in the chain, honeypots could do some damage because there is likely to be some incriminating content inside the packet itself - cookies, usernames, etc. So the tor net is setup by default that the first and last hops go through "trusted" nodes but traffic in the middle may go through untrusted nodes - and anyone can setup an untrusted node and, in fact, tor comes OOTB ready to run as an untrusted server if it detects you have a decent connection to do so. So in this respect the TOTAL number of nodes is constantly changing as people enter and leave the network. The total number of nodes is separate and not directly related at all to the number of TRUSTED, registered nodes.
Since people like to blame each other for anything these days, here's an interesting thought:
1. RIAA/MPAA starts to sue file-sharers, thus increasing the worldwide number of "criminals" by several million, while nobody asks for the reasons why filesharing is so popular and how to prevent people from "pirating" by, for example, lowering prices.
2. Millions of newly declared criminals need a way to protect themselves; they create anonymous P2P networks and/or participate in them. The decreased trust in the music/movie industry encourages piracy even more, so these networks get highly popular.
3. Real criminals profit from the anonymous networks.
So, in the end, why not blame the MPAA/RIAA for making terrorism and distribution of illegal pornography a lot easier?
But instead of trying to fight the reasons for IP-theft, they're just gonna respond with new laws that'll prohibit any form of anonymous communication, which will lead to even more criminal activity; more and more restrictive copy protections will be developed that won't be tolerated by customers who will refuse to buy it and download it instead. The response will be harder laws. It's a vicious circle that can only be broken by re-enforcing trust between the industry and their customers.
Parent is an idiot.
Reminds me of the girl who was arrested for possession and distribution of kiddie porn with pictures of herself.
Please explain to me again how throwing a teenage girl in jail, and making her become a registered sex offender for the rest of her life, does something positive and helps her.
How can somebody be both the victim and the abuser?
You're arguing freedom is worth any price, without considering what the word freedom means. Do the Chinese possess the human right to criticize their government freely, to talk to their fellow citizens without worrying about secret police, etc.? Absolutely so--and that the Chinese government insists on interfering with this human right is proof, in my book, that the Chinese government is illegitimate.
But we cannot buy human rights for people in China at the expense of the human rights of people in America or Europe. I have the exact same right to speak my mind freely, to make effective use of public forums to disseminate my ideas and my views. The original poster was remarking, quite correctly, that the total lack of accountability which Tor facilitates leads directly to a radical diminishment of his ability to effectively and freely communicate.
So you're saying that the right of Chinese dissidents to speak their minds freely is more important than my right to speak my mind freely? That I should be forced to endure a diminishment of my ability to express my views on the Internet, in order to ensure that Chinese dissidents can get their views out?
Congratulations: you're a character in a George Orwell book. The book is Animal Farm, and you're the character that tells the farm animals all pigs are created equal, just some of them more equal than others.
It is immoral to buy one person's freedom with another person's freedom.
The only moral way out of this which I can see is to devise protocols which guarantee everyone's freedom--the freedom of Chinese dissidents to criticize their government without the secret police knocking, and my freedom to have the Internet available for me to publish and disseminate my own information without dealing with a crapflood of spam.
All I've seen this used for is to hide irc bot origins. This is good in WHAT way?
If you're anonymous, than you're not speaking freely. Sure, it has it's place in allowing those who are in a position to provide a pointer to society in the direction of evil which may then be discovered when that person doing the pointing would othersie lose his privilege to said information by revealing his presence. Beyond that, it's counter productive in building liberty.
this is goatse
I've been using tor for about six months now; not for all browsing, but for times when I want to be anonymous. It is a bit slower, but I personally value my anonymity for certain things. As someone below has pointed out, it's like leaving the house without wearing trousers.
:-)
I've been running a verified server node for the last couple of months- it's a good way to give back to the community. It's really easy to set up and makes you feel good
Note you don't need to verify your node- you can just run it anyway. I didn't verify it until I received a nice friendly email from the EFF/tor people asking if I would register - from a human - and I did.
The more tor routers there are, the faster the service may become.
http://blog.grcm.net/
The link given in the summary was http://eff.tor.org/ , but that leads to some site that... well, Im not sure what it is (one link leads to a list of what appears to be footraces, the other link goes to some photos.)
I beleive they meant to say http://tor.eff.org/
the tor url is http://tor.eff.org/ not http://eff.tor.org/
http://tinyurl.com/bk7x2
Hi,
A while back I was involved in a bizzarre accident. I lost my arms and
legs in it. Yet I do try to keep a positive outlook even though my arms
and legs aren't the only things I lost. Actually, I'm just a head being
kept alive in a university lab. Of course, you can tell this will mean
that petting and fucking are out of the question, but I give great blowjobs
(if you grab my ears and move me around) and I LOVE having my neck kissed.
Also, for the women, if you doubt my talents at using my tongue... how do you
think I am typing this post?
I'm sure, judging by what I've seen on this group, that there are guys
out there who will be interested in dating a disembodied head and I'll
get lots and lots of mail. Hopefully some of you lurking women will
write too.
I'm not interested in cybersex, but I'll be glad to invite you up to the
lab. Just bring a bowling bag (without the ball in it) so you can sneak
me out.
Love and kisses,
Heddy
I have put together something similar to Metropipe's VPM, except that it's based on Tor. It includes iptables configured to only allow Tor traffic to enter/exit, a custom dns server that resolves addresses via Tor and all applicaitons preconfigured to connect with Tor. The package is called "Tor Desktop" and it sells for $45 with shipping on a 128MB Lexar USB JumpDrive. Also, some of the proceeds will help fund new Tor servers.
5: Ordinary citizens who don't want their private information viewed/used against them either by hackers or by law enforcement personnel who abuse their power
The more law enforcement is simply trusted to do the right thing, the more you will have bad apples who don't. The phrase "power corrupts" describes a very real phenomenon.
Kythe
I am usually all for anything the EFF does, but...
As an op, I've had to ban parts of tor because a lot of flooding, spamming, etc comes from that domain. Despite the EFF's push to create an "anonymous haven" it's basically turned into a thieves paradise which allows one to carry out attacks without fear of being detected.
Later, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Wikipedia is currently blocking many Tor server IPs from writing (reading still works), because they haven't figured out internally how to deal with the fact that they want to provide open access but they also have no ways to control abuse to their website. We're working with them to resolve this.
Using your analogy, i guess we need to ban ( or monitor - 'safeguard' ) the rest of the internet too. Since there are '100's of bad uses'.
Hell, with your menatlity we should also ban ( or monitor ) guns, sticks, cars, streets, shoes... books...
We have a right to privacy. Regardless of how SOME incorrectly use that right. THEY should have that right restricted, not the rest of us.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Because she's spreading that filth! Every time she sends out another vile picture of herself, she's abusing herself all over again. Who is going to protect her from disgusting monsters like her?
(and now the obligatory violent send-off of kiddie porn posts) Her eyes should be poked out slowly with needles and then she should be strung up by the balls and slow roasted over a fire. That's the only way to deal with people like her who harbor such disgusting, perverted thoughts!
Im sure there will be plenty of complaints 'but its slow, it sux'.
Having a anonymous network or a fast one are mutually exclusive.
If you want to be anonymous you have to give up speed, its the trade off.
If you want speed, then you give anonymity up.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The crapflooding doesn't prevent you from speaking at all. At worst it makes your speech harder to find, but it in no way prevents those who want to hear you from listening, or you from speaking.
The most bizarre part of your argument, however, is the assumption that lack of anonymity cannot possibly hurt your ability to speak. I'll grant you that the western world does a much better job of allowing you to say what's on your mind than China does, but if you believe that no censorship happens here, you're sadly mistaken. Consider SLAPP suits, for one example.
Anonmyous communication helps those with suppressed views in the west just as much as it helps those with suppresed views in China. It also helps those who just like to flood the world with crap. The solution is better filtering and ways to reduce the incentive to spam, not eliminating anonymous speech.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You don't have a right to expect other people privately using a protocol-linked inter-network (public by mutual implied consent) to act in ways that are personally convenient to you. If somebody does you actual harm, or trespasses into your property, go after them. But you have no "freedom" to require others not to do things for their own reasons that coincidentally make harm or trespass easier. That's what's known as "tough luck". Suck it up, or switch off your modem.
> it's like leaving the house without wearing trousers
I don't know, whenever I walk around naked the size of my dick is usually enough to scare most folk off.
Anonymous communication is likely to be the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY for citizens to coordinate thoroughly enough to, say, PEACEFULLY OVERTHROW THEIR GOVERNMENT. Citizens could avoid the bloodshed associated with regime change. It could be used by citizens to re-align their government when it gets too far out of whack. Actually, when you think about it, anonymous communication may ITSELF be the most perfect and least intrusive form of government.
That's not true, the professor in question has also made threats against those who people who disagree with him or came forward with unflattering evidence against. Such evidence includes plagiarism, falsification of credentials on his resume/application (claiming to be a native american when in fact he is not)...added to that is the fact he was granted tenure outside the normal tensure process (not his fault so much as CUs)--what he said and free speech are not the issue with the guy...that fact that he is a liar and a grifter is. Ward Churchill is the professor should anyone want to search what all the fuss is about.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I use Comcast, and want to run my own server, but Comcast blocks the ports you would need. Do you think Tor could be used to get around this?
That is all apologia and propaganda. The only reason the man is on the radar is because of what he said. If he is fired he will be fired because of what he said no matter what the CYA paperwork says. And if the university buckles - many academics, myself included will think twice before going there, and think twice about the research coming out of there...
One hundred nodes is a drop in the bucket. I wonder just how anonymous it is, say, compared to script kiddies that just use a stranger's compromised home PC, where there is a much larger pool of machines from which to choose. That's a "zero knowledge" system, since the host often isn't even aware of the fact.
I also wonder how many of these nodes are already in my spammers list, where I've got 2,200+ blocked addresses and subnets already.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Here's a typical firewall log of what happens when I post to SlashDot as AC:
It may have put him on the radar and I agree unfairly just because people didn't like what he said (I was actually "for" him when it was just a freedom of speech issue), but like a plane if you've been spotted your 'id' is going to be checked and it looks like most of his "ids" and ideas are not his own, but more of a fabricated flight plan. This makes him look more like the very people he despises (the "Adolf Eichmanns" of the world) in own his writings/diatribes--perhaps a way of dealing with his own deceitful issues and trying to convinvce himself that he is a better Eichmann. He has reached a point where he has repeated his lies enough that even he believes them to be true.
And based on how CU has been run the past several years I would tell anybody to think more than twice when considering CU.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
They're making sure that your computer isn't an open HTTP proxy. If it is, the post is rejected. It helps to prevent crapfloods.
Preserving your right to privacy.
As a friend once said, just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean you can't hide it. It is still your nothing, not theirs.
Do I have to wear an ID tag at the mall with a uniform that never changes so I am always identifiable? Do I have to file an itinerary ahead of time and stick to it? No. In whatever street clothes I'm in for the day, wherever I go and whenever, I'm anonymous unless I tell someone who I am. None of their business.
Is there anything amazing in my e-mails to my family that I need to hide? Nope. Does this mean I don't have the right to hide them? Nope. My yard is boring and I have nothing to hide there. Do I tear down my fence? Nope. Do I sleep under the stars when camping instead of a tent just in case some agency wants to train their satellites on me? Do I stop wearing baseball caps and sunglasses? Nope.
Do I invite the public into my home and on my journeys to peruse everything I have and do? Nope. None of their business.
You may have nothing to hide, but it is still your nothing and if you allow the very ability to keep your own business private then you might as well move to the next step and keep a detailed by the second journal of everything you do, see, say, etc. and hand it over to the authorities, the news media, and the reality entertainment slime so you can report on yourself.
If we allow our fear of what criminals might do with a thing to instantly overpower any rational thoughts considering what we might do positively with the thing, then we might as well adopt a police state right here, right now because that is what we're asking for when we reject our own naturally existing human freedoms based on FUD.
If you'll excuse me, I have to IM and e-mail some people you don't know about subjects I'm not divulging to you through channels I don't feel like disclosing. I'm sure you'll probably be doing the same. If you don't tell me, that's just as anonymous and secretive as this system.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
You're totally wrong.
"Free speech" is about getting the content of the message out, not about the local conditions under which the speaker is forced to live.
A person who is using a Tor-like system to send a message may currently be in prison or living in an oppressive society, yet still able to get his chosen message to its destination. The mechanism has given him free speech, despite him not being personally free.
Indeed, you're so totally wrong on this that it's trivial to illustrate it: just notice that the very concept of "free speech" becomes meaningless when everyone is free to speak any message they wish anywhere without repercussions. So, if "free speech" were as you define it, there would be no need for it. The only reason why we need a mechanism for delivering speech anonymously is BECAUSE speakers are not free to speak in the first place.
MOD PARENT UP
The real litigious bastards...
In some countries, possibly including the USA*, knowingly running a mixmaster that's open to the public while simultaniously knowing people who use mixmasters are significantly more likely to be engaging in illegal activity could be construed as aiding and abetting, which can get you some serious jail time.
If a suspected terrorist or other undesirable is under survellance and the cops see he connects to TOR node 1.2.3.4 and the cops know what TOR is, the owner of that machine can expect to be investigated, and if he lives in an oppressive regime, arrested. The resulting publicity would spread a chill across that country's TOR users and servers.
Defending, and even enabling, civil liberties is not without risk. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those who are not prepared to defend civil liberties don't deserve them.
*in the USA this is not yet the case, but if a terrorist used TOR to plan an attack, all bets are off.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Hmm, I've heard that the right to be heard is no guaranteed in the context of using someone elses platform to do your talking, but when using your own platform, the right of anyone who choses to listen (and therefore your right to be heard) should be unobstructed should it not?"
Isn't that the whole point of blogs?
Only if you assume that "causes and effects" need to be in absolute form before we start considering them valid.
http://napshare.sf.net/
The question is which is safer and which is faster?
They probably assume having a dick that small is contagious and run away to avoid direct contact.
Since I started using Tor last week (after it get mentioned right here), I've been banned from Slashdot three times for abuse of the RSS system. I'm using Safari on OS X 10.4, set to check for headlines every half hour.
lol