i believe there is a real need for secure communications but as a new user to tor it seems the common entry points to the network are rife with criminal activity.

the torproject website lists users as friends and family, military, business owners etc - use cases that make sense to me, but i've yet to find any stories or ancedontal evidence to suggest this is really the case. instead i find core.onion linking to "adult" content that has little to do with adults and "market sites" that deal with illegal trade in weapons and drugs.

so far it has me wondering if tor is really used for the humanitarian purposes the technology has the potential of aiding. i would really appreciate hearing real stories and highlights of how has helped in the use cases torproject lists.

Tor is used for a lot of different things. Sure, the kiddy pron, drug and chan waste and all the talk about those things is disgusting to see infiltrating everywhere. But with nothing to do about it you just have to ignore it. Yes, it would be cool to see stuff like EFF, EPIC, ACLU, Red Cross and whatever else makes you happy all be multihomed into the anonymous space. But really, if you can't get to them on the clearnet, or via Tor exits, you probably have worse problems on your hands, like finding work, food, shelter and not getting shot. Nor do they see it as being all that helpful to them. On the plus side, lots of people use Tor for totally benign and boring everyday stuff, I certainly do. Think about it... IRC with friends, dating, reading the paper, contributing to forums and various projects, blogging, doing your banking and school stuff, email, internet and systems work, looking for work, writing freely with random people, buying stuff. Whatever it might be that people do. It all feels just a bit better knowing your ISP. employer or government doesn't really have such an easy task anymore of cataloging or quoting you, tracking your home/work/travels, turning you into a statistic, optimizing your online experience, or any other such things you might not want to happen. These certainly aren't examples of 'working for the greater global good of humanity' or whatever, but it all adds up. Kindof how anti-spam systems reduce the profitability of spam. And in a way, gaining back some of the anonymity by default that everyone had before everyone and everything went digital, online, databased, monetized and controlled in the 90's. It's unlikely you'll find those who really need Tor for their activities standing up and saying here I am with their use cases in hand. They simply have better things to do and that would entail risk. You're more likely to find relay ops and coders evangelizing to the good. They are the interfaces to the use cases and know what's out there. Just seeing packets flow through the occaisional relay I prop up makes me happy knowing at least some of them weren't full of the aforementioned trash... even if they are just our boring daily stuffs. _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE