Slashdot Mirror
University Professor Chastised For Using Tor
Irongeek_ADC writes with a first-person account from the The Chronicle of Higher Education by a university professor who was asked to stop using Tor. University IT and campus security staffers came knocking on Paul Cesarini's door asking why he was using the anonymizing network. They requested that he stop and also that he not teach his students about it. The visitors said it was likely against university policy (a policy they probably were not aware that Cesarini had helped to draft). The professor seems genuinely to appreciate the problems that a campus IT department faces; but in the end he took a stand for academic freedom.
Another typical Slashdot "editing" job. Was the university mentioned? Nope.
All these words were wasted to tell us about what happened, but a significant detail such as the name of the university was never mentioned, even though such a mention would help tremendously in putting pressure on the unnamed university to reverse their policy.
I can't believe people get paid to do basically nothing.
The guy says he infrequently uses tor. I wonder what he would use it for - if it was anonymity paranoia, he'd use it all the time.
It's useless for anything but light web browsing, so it's not like he's downloading MPAA movies on torrents with it.
I guess he uses it for child porn like everybody else.
I too wish I had 'tenure' and could get all indignant and talk about some goofball "right" to do whatever I want when I'm a guest on someone elses (my employers) network.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
but in the end he took a stand for academic freedom.
I wasn't aware that "Academic Freedom" meant sucking up as much resources as you can use. I suppose that's what you get when people think that "oil freedom" means driving a car that gets 10MPG and we just have to have wars to support it. Don't be brainwashed Irongeek.
So, what you're saying is that rather than work and have a portion of my pay go to supporting everyone else at my company's medical problems, I should have to work and give a portion of my pay to supporting the medical problems of every jobless waif in the damned country? No thanks.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Well, the fact is that TOR is also used by less-than-savory netizens.
Here's how I first found about TOR: A friend's website used a well-known (and well-exploited) forum app. As expected, it was exploited well. Going through logs for him, I traced the activity to a TOR node. From that moment, knowing nothing else about TOR (except its allegedly legitimate use as described by wikipedia), I'd have loved to simply deny any and all access to any requests originating from TOR nodes. First impression == bad! Just like a network admin narrows down bandwidth-abuse to Bit Torrent clients/ports.
Just as people cry and whine that Bit Torrent is very often used for legitimate purposes and shouldn't be controlled/throttled/discriminated against, there's also a significant portion of that kind of traffic which is dedicated to illegal activities of one kind or another. The creators of TOR couldn't have possibly missed this, and anyone who complains should remember that when you lie with dogs, you may wake with fleas. You're going to have to take the bad with the good.
Go ahead and mod me down. I've got karma to burn.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
All you freenet and tor, and other 'share each others ip for anonymity' dudes, chew on this for a bit:
You may not be browsing child porn. BUT I GUARANTEE THAT SOMEONE IS BROWSING CHILD PORN USING YOUR IP IF YOU ARE SET UP AS A ROUTER ON TOR OR ARE USING FREENET. In that situation, you are enabling, and promoting child abuse.
Or, a cop could see a request for child porn spew out of tor, followed by your order for viagra that you were so ashamed about. Have fun talking your way out of that.
All you United States Postal Service dudes, chew on this for a bit.
You may not be sending or receiving child porn. BUT i GUARANTEE THAT SOMEONE IS SENDING OR RECEIVING CHILD PORN USING YOUR MAILBOX IF YOU ARE SET UP TO USE THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE. In this situation, you are enabling and promoting child abuse.
Or, a cop could see a request for child porn spew out of your mailbox, followed by your order for viagra that you were so ashamed about. Have fun talking your way out of that.
The "professor" probably wants a good excuse for when he gets caught looking at kiddie porn or selling technology to Iran:
"But it's not me, it's someone using my connection over Tor"
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Wow. I hope if you ever find yourself jobless that the people around you who are working have a better attitude than yours.
If your Jackoff-in-Chief wasn't throwing away half-a-trillion a year on a failed war (see today's NIE report) there would be more than enough money to provide health care to uninsured Americans, even with the HMOs and insurance companies making obscene profits. And if we put a little thought into our Health Care System (besides just saying "Let the Market Do It"), we might actually have enough to provide health care for 300,000,000 million Americans. Have you ever given any thought to the teachings of Christ? He's pretty clear on how we're supposed to treat the poor and sick. But I'm sure you're too busy being a Right-Wing Christian to concern yourself with the actual teachings of Christ.
Asshole.
[note to mods: You is not flamebait, it's a goddamn FLAME]
You are welcome on my lawn.
By "preparing the youth of the country for their future lives" you really mean "indoctrinating them into your way of thinking while giving them a basic understanding of minor concepts you're told to", don't you?
"TIME FOR GO TO BED..."
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand