On 10/20/2015 05:09 PM, Juan wrote:

On Tue, 20 Oct 2015 15:41:43 -0700 coderman wrote:

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On 10/20/15, grarpamp wrote:...

I've been meaning to ask this for a while...coderman and grarpamp are the same person? (I'm assuming the answer is 'yes')

Hard to say. But I doubt it. On the other hand, you do come off as a sock ;)

On 10/20/2015 07:26 PM, Juan wrote:

On Tue, 20 Oct 2015 19:06:42 -0600 Mirimir wrote:

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On 10/20/2015 05:09 PM, Juan wrote:

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On Tue, 20 Oct 2015 15:41:43 -0700 coderman wrote:

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On 10/20/15, grarpamp wrote:...

I've been meaning to ask this for a while...coderman and grarpamp are the same person? (I'm assuming the answer is 'yes')

Hard to say. But I doubt it.

Really? Both use virtually the same robotic, military-like language, full of pseudo technical garbage.

That's true. But there are many militaries. And although much of their technical allusion is over my head, what I do get makes sense.

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On the other hand, you do come off as a sock ;)

Go figure. And I counted you as an ally of sorts. So tell me, whose 'sock'?

I do consider you an ally, of a sort. And your perspective is valuable. But your unremitting nihilism has been getting to me. And it smells like sock to me. In particular, I also have concerns and reservations about Tor. It's true that the US military funded its development. And it's true that they probably still use it. But maybe think of it this way: we have military-grade anonymity. And in any case, as far as I know, it's the best anonymity tool we've got.

On 10/21/2015 12:09 AM, Juan wrote:

On Tue, 20 Oct 2015 19:55:02 -0600 Mirimir wrote:

<SNIP>

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On the other hand, you do come off as a sock ;)

Go figure. And I counted you as an ally of sorts. So tell me, whose 'sock'?

I do consider you an ally, of a sort. And your perspective is valuable. But your unremitting nihilism has been getting to me. And it smells like sock to me.

Oh, I'm pretty nihilistic about anything good ever coming from the US government, both from the 'public' part of it and from the 'private' part like facebook, intel or any other american firm. Granted, the rest of the 'free world' is hardly better.

I used to have a more 'mainstream' and bening view of the US 'private' sector. But I know better now.

But I'm not nihilitic about everything...yet =P

Me neither. Sometimes, though ...

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In particular, I also have concerns and reservations about Tor. It's true that the US military funded its development.

I think the proper verb tense is present.

True.

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And it's true that they probably still use it.

that they use it is clearly stated in torproject.org

"who uses tor : military and law enforcement"

Well, that's what the website says. I have no way to verify that ;)

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But maybe think of it this way: we have military-grade anonymity.

You have 'military grade' anonimity depending on who's your adversary (to use their military jargon)

True.

If your adversary just happens to be the military who created tor you only have problems.

Tor is open-source, and collaborative. Arguably, anyone with requisite skills and resources can subvert it. But it is true that the Five Eyes have the best resources for traffic analysis.

And frankly, do you think the US military would shoot themselves in the foot by creating something that 'aids' 'terrorists' and that they can't subvert? There's no reason for them to do that so it's safe to conclude that they didn't do it.

It's hard to say. Only idiots use tools with backdoors.

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And in any case, as far as I know, it's the best anonymity tool we've got.

Tool for what? If, for instance, you want to publish documents, isn't freenet a better alternative?

I don't believe that either Freenet or I2P are large enough to provide strong anonymity. And both (along with most P2P systems) require that nodes be discoverable. That complicates using them with VPNs and Tor. It might be possible to run Freenet nodes as onion services. That works well enough for Tahoe-LAFS. I've been meaning to test that. Also IPFS.

Freenet is truly p2p (unlike tor), the storage is decentralized (unlike tor) and the developers don't get millions of dollars from the pentagon (as far as I know).

Well, adversaries can use malicious P2P nodes. It's true that Freenet is about the same size as Tor (http://www.asksteved.com/stats/ vs https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html). But with Tor, what's relevant is the number of possible circuits. With ~1700 entry guards, ~1000 exit relays and ~2300 non-entry/non-exit relays, about four billion distinct circuits are possible.

Now, I wouldn't actually recomend freenet because I haven't done much homework regarding it, but at least it deserves a mention I think.

Yes, it does. But neither it nor I2P provide anonymous access to the general Internet.

On 10/22/2015 01:46 PM, Juan wrote:

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 01:37:54 -0600 Mirimir wrote:

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On 10/21/2015 12:09 AM, Juan wrote:

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Tor is open-source, and collaborative. Arguably, anyone with requisite skills and resources can subvert it. But it is true that the Five Eyes have the best resources for traffic analysis.

That's the thing. So maybe 'subvert' wasn't the best choice of word here, but the idea is that if you take into account anglo-american surveillance, then tor doesn't perform as advertised.

The Tor Project doesn't claim that Tor protects against targeted attack by global adversaries. I could go on at length. But instead, please see https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/adversaries-and-anonymity-systems-the-ba....

Using passive analysis they can undermine the tor network without actually 'subverting' a single coma in the code.

(plus, they prolly can make analysis more efficient by tampering with traffic, again without touching the code)

I don't doubt that.

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And frankly, do you think the US military would shoot themselves in the foot by creating something that 'aids' 'terrorists' and that they can't subvert? There's no reason for them to do that so it's safe to conclude that they didn't do it.

It's hard to say. Only idiots use tools with backdoors.

That really depends on the nature of the backdoor. It's certainly risky to backdoor something, but it's less risky if the people who create the backdoor (say the nsa) are the same and only people who have the resources to access it. And the 'backdoor' may be simply a less-than-ideal system...like tor.

It's possible.

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Freenet is truly p2p (unlike tor), the storage is decentralized (unlike tor) and the developers don't get millions of dollars from the pentagon (as far as I know).

Well, adversaries can use malicious P2P nodes. It's true that Freenet is about the same size as Tor (http://www.asksteved.com/stats/ vs https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html). But with Tor, what's relevant is the number of possible circuits. With ~1700 entry guards, ~1000 exit relays and ~2300 non-entry/non-exit relays, about four billion distinct circuits are possible.

But faster relays are used more frequently no?

Anyway, my point was that as far as publishing documents go freenet looks like a a better and more serious design than tor.

Maybe, but different goals. Me, I like Dissent. See Feigenbaum and Ford (2015) Seeking Anonymity in an Internet Panopticon. Communications of the ACM 58:10, 58-69. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.5307. <SNIP>