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Tor Usage More Than Doubles In August
hypnosec writes that the Tor network has witnessed a massive rise in the number of users connecting to it for the month of August.
"The privacy-enhancing network is known for providing an anonymous browsing experience through the use of a series of encrypted relays, and has had as many as 500k users throughout this year so far. But if we check the latest statistics available through Tor Metrics Portal there has been a whopping 100 percent increase in the number of Tor clients and as many as 1,200,000 users are connecting to the network. The previous peak for the network was in January 2012, when it saw as many as 950,000 users."
Either way, it's a bunch of people saying "fuck you" to the NSA.
The NSA can eat shit ... and so can the USA and their "spy on the world" bullshit.
You want to understand why the rest of the world is starting to lose patience for America? The NSA and their spying is a pretty good example -- self entitled assholes who think their wishes trump everything else.
The rest of us have no interest in giving up our rights for your benefit. Just because you guys are giving up all of yours doesn't mean we need to, or should continue to respect you.
(d) some entity (NSA or otherwise) is trying to compromise the network by owning a majority of nodes
Isn't Tor unsecure if some adversary controls a large fraction of the network?
That wont work
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html
If the entirety of human history is any indicator, the governed won't see any changes in a situation like this until they're willing to use lethal force against those who govern them.
When enough of the key positions of political and economic power in a society are filled with sociopaths, the only way you can stop them is to kill them. You can't vote a replacement or try to replace them by running for office yourself because they have the power to corrupt the voting process and to filter out those who attempt to run for office who pose any real challenge to their own power. You can't stop them with protests because they have the force the police to crush any serious protests and they have the force of the media to destroy the message of such protests. The only thing that works when corruption gets really, really bad is lethal force by the governed.
So, unless you're willing to take up arms against your fellow man, you'll just have to bend down and take it. We all know this is true, and we all try to dance around this fact because we like to think we're civilized and above the use of violence, but the fact of the matter is that a small portion of the population is extremely selfish and has no compunction against using violence against you. When enough of these sorts of people get into the place where they have most of the money, power, and weapons, they *will* use those things against everyone else in order to retain their position.
Yes, violence sucks. Yes, it's bad. Yes, we should avoid it if at all possible. But there comes a point when that's all you can do, and that's when the sociopaths hold *all* the cards. How far off do we all think that is? There comes a time when violence is necessary because there are evil, selfish people in the world.
To quote one of The Founding Fathers of the USA, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
So, to answer your question of "What more do you want to see from the people of the United States?", here's an answer that will work: gather together a million like-minded, armed citizens and take the White House and Capitol Hill. Depose all the corrupt leaders by killing or imprisoning them and seizing all their assets. It won't be pretty, and you'll probably end up splitting the US into smaller nation-states, and you'll likely have to do it all again in a few generations, but it's the only way to keep the boot of the government from stepping on the face of humanity forever.
But, good luck with all that, because I hear Miley Cyrus is twerking again or something.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
I'm a US citizen that has lost patience with the American people. Anonymous Coward is exactly right. Where were the riots over this? The outrage just wasn't there. But then there are riots all over the U.S. over the Trayvon Martin verdict. Stupidest fucking thing I've ever seen. And the media trying to make this a white vs black thing, even though George Zimmerman is hispanic. Zimmerman should probably go in the witness protection program and change his identity......and there you have it right there. The U.S. government really *is* a reflection of the American people. The American people do not respect rights and due process. So neither does the government. The American people are uninformed on The Constitution, so, like the American people, the government ignores it too.
What do I want to see from the people of the United States? idk, it seems like a lost cause. How many are even aware of the NSA spying? Do they care? They probably care more about Miley Cyrus 'twerking'.
A minority of Americans have woken up (Libertarians/Ron Paul crowd -- which is growing). Will it be enough to change the direction of the country? I hope so. Julian Assange is right about libertarianism being America's last hope.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/08/10/1519211/the-pirate-bay-launches-browser-to-evade-isp-blockades
That's why.
If the entirety of human history is any indicator, the governed won't see any changes in a situation like this until they're willing to use lethal force against those who govern them.
Let's take at the history of nonviolent resistance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance
:)
In fact, if you look at, it looks as if through the entirety of human history non-violent resistance is really in these days
(In fact, never before in the history of mankind have you as an individual ever been more empowered than now).
Just tell your opinion to anyone who asks you, like you have done with this post. Some widespread protest would be nice, but to be fair it doesn't seem to happen in other countries either.
This, I do cheerfully. It's pretty easy these days to convince even non techies of the need for privacy. I send them to eff.org as a start then over to torproject.org
(posting anon due to my mod status)
I've been telling my opinion on things such as this for years, and most people have just always looked at me as extremist, paranoid, or unpatriotic when I point out government overstep on constitutional freedoms of its citizens...
Maybe the climate is changing so that people will be more susceptible to opinions, but the truth is that the average person can't be convinced that anything is true unless the talking heads tell them its true too.
And the media trying to make this a white vs black thing
More one of those murderers vs minors things.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Yes, violence sucks. Yes, it's bad. Yes, we should avoid it if at all possible. But there comes a point when that's all you can do, and that's when the sociopaths hold *all* the cards. How far off do we all think that is? There comes a time when violence is necessary because there are evil, selfish people in the world.
The only reason that time is not now is that there aren't enough like minded people to join the revolutionary army. If you look at the Declaration of Independence, most of those grievances are trifling next to what we read about in the news every day. The crimes committed by the thugs that call themselves our government more than justify revolution today. All we need are people willing to lay down their lives for freedom. Unfortunately, as you note, more people care about their bread and circuses than they do freedom and justice.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
God damn you're a fucking idiot. There's plenty of change that happened in the last 50 years that didn't involve violence - groundbreaking, fundamental change that tossed out the current power structure in its entirety. The most significant examples are probably South Africa and India. If you can't name the people involved, you have no standing in this discussion.
Furthermore, there are purely logical, sociological and philosophical problems with your approach.
Off the top of my head:
Logical: the entire point of a democracy is the non-violent change in government. You completely missed the point of democracy if you think change can only come through violence.
Sociological and economical: The cost to society of a civil war is huge. You can see it in the Middle East, you can see it in our own civil war, you can see it throughout history. Compared to that, the option of just slowly working to change the system to work more like you imagined is a fucking panacea.
Philosophical: the founding fathers fought a bloody war to give you the ability to change political systems through non-violence. They also made it quite hard to do it. Now you're proposing that all stuff was just fairies pissing in the wind, and we're going back to the middle ages.
but it's the only way to keep the boot of the government from stepping on the face of humanity forever.
What are you, 15? Anytime 3 or more people get together, you'll get a form of government. Heck, 5 year olds in the sand pit form ad-hoc governments with one kid in charge and bossing every one around. The only way to keep the boot of government from stepping on your face is to set up rules so that it's not supposed. Everything else is just some Pioneer/Rambo fantasy.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Speaking of SIlk Road -- have you ever actually looked around that site at any length?
After ignoring it for the longest time, I finally created an account there and took a good look at it, just to satisfy my curiosity.
What surprised me the most about it was the LACK of anything really exciting up there for sale! I mean, when you read the news hype and all the supposed angst from politicians and law enforcement over its existence, you expect the place to be a hotbed of sex slavery, child porn, virus/malware dealers, email spammers, and what-not.
In reality, I saw a fair number of people simply offering to exchange your bitcoin for US currency or bars of silver, a few people selling used electronics gear, and a lot of offers to sell information on how to supposedly do such things as hacking an ATM machine (reminds me of the old "G-Files" people passed around the local BBS's in the late 80's except those were free!).
Sure, there were some people offering to sell you pharmaceuticals and even small amounts of drugs like cocaine, but that's one category out of dozens - and there wasn't even a dramatic number of ads posted for them.
Mountain out of a molehill, all in all.
Two big problems as I see it:
- Money and corporate influence: The money required to run a campaign puts huge barriers in front of anyone from more 'regular' walks of life ever standing for office. It's resulted in an established political class, to which you will need to belong to even get your foot in the door of politics. On top of this (or because of this), companies and industries have a disproportionate influence on policy. Other countries have much stronger laws preventing this (restrictions on lobbying, corporate donations, political advertising, transparency of party finances etc.)
- The way Congress works and the way elections work basically result in an entrenched two-party system where no one else has any realistic influence. Compare to Parliamentary systems/preferential voting/proportional representation used by most other OECD nations that mean third and fourth parties actually matter. There is a wider diversity of opinion and wider choice of candidates. Here in the US, you only have two choices, and they are both as bad as each other when it comes to privacy/surveillance matters.
The US system needs to be reformed for the modern age and to address the above issues. Problem is, people treat the Constitution as some kind of untouchable, unchangeable thing, rather than a living document. Yes, it's the supreme law of the land ... but it's still a law, and law can (and should) change with the times. The ability to make amendments exists for a reason.
It seems that in general, it is impossible to make large-scale reforms happen in the US. The system works against it (just takes a couple of people in Congress to oppose something and it'll get held up forever). Other countries out there, in modern times, have done things like completely rewrite their tax code from the ground up. Or change the way elections are held. Or introduce new currencies. Or convert to the metric system. Grand reforms, not just tinkering around the edges with things. Imagine that kind of stuff happening in the US - seems impossible doesn't it? Look at the difficulty experienced in even getting minor changes to health care through. Even suggesting little things like getting rid of the penny seems to attract massive controversy.
Some say that the fact that Congress can get so easily gridlocked is actually a benefit of the system. It prevents politicians pushing their own agendas through and acts as a limit on government power. I can see that side of the argument and it's valid. But nonetheless, I still think we need to be more agile than we are or we'll be left behind. Change happens more rapidly now than it did when the Constitution was written.
It's not a perfect solution, but the Tor Project's attempt to answer the problems faced by Tor with their Tor Browser bundle. Basically, it's a copy of Firefox tailored for Tor usage. It's set to use Tor by default. It also comes with HTTPS everywhere, an extension the EFF makes that redirects web traffic to use SSL when possible. Some websites don't support SSL and some don't implement it well, but it helps solve part of the problem with exit nodes being able to sniff traffic. Exit nodes can still see where that traffic is going but actually looking at contents is difficult. NoScript is installed and plugins are disabled to keep javascript and plugins from leaking your IP. StartPage is used as the default search engine rather than Google because StartPage doesn't log what users do and they are based outside of the USA.
Ideally, the increased attention the Tor Network is getting will result in more people volunteering their equipment and bandwidth to serve as exit nodes.
The Gospel according to lolcat
So you overthrow the feds. And then what? Now you're beholden to your local authorities which are far worse, far more small minded, far more despotic. Overthrowing the govt is not going to result in the small-power libertarian utopia you think it will. It's going to result in a feudalistic system composed of arbitrary overlords. Read the history of England and see how it goes. The fifedoms which predated the nation state we call England were no where a libertarian wanted to be.
If you want to change things, then repeal the immunity from prosecution prosecutors enjoy. Ditto Congress. As it stands, they have zero fear because voting to defacto take away your rights isn't anything they're every going to be called to account for.
Ditto prosecutors who engage in phenomenal overreach, over charging, subornation of perjury, hiding of of exculpatory evidence as just SOP in nearly all cases, not to mention the incredible expansion of criminal laws into every aspect of life so that nearly everyone is guilty of something even if they don't know it combined with the rolling back of statute of limitations which makes it impossible to mount any kind of effective defense basically ensures that most of the population is properly intimated all the time.
The system is corrupt, but the corruption comes from a total lack of fear of consequence. If Congress had to worry that a future Congress or electorate would find them guilty of gross dereliction of duty, if the people in the TLA organizations actually had some level of fear that their actions would be subject to citizen overview if the prosecutors were forced to keep video documentation of every interaction they had over the course of developing cases and the police likewise then there'd be some sort of hesitation. As it is we ambitious sociopaths like Carmen Orttiz going snarling hog wild against our kids.
Overthrowing the government is a losers gambit because even if it's successful, you haven't done jack shit about the forces that caused the corruption in the first place. They just reconstitute themselves because in reality you're fighting some very ugly aspects of human nature - sociopaths as you termed them, which is about right.
What we have is a system that is broken but when your car is broken, you don't smash it then start with reinventing the wheel. you just fix it because that's better than starting all over again.
Remove the immunity from prosecution that Congress enjoys for the laws they pass. Remove the immunity Carmen Ortiz enjoys and which enables her to use her office to abuse due process. What controls sociopaths is fear combined with the high certainty of getting caught. Video tape everything that happens everywhere in the criminal justice system from the courts to the lawyers offices to the jails to the cops. Make that available to citizens investigatory efforts. Ditto Congress. If we're to live under TIA, then guess what comes next- so are they. We actually have a more compelling case to videotape absolutely everything they do since the potential consequences for abuse look like Aaron Schwartz. Give them no place to hide and we'll see big changes, fast.