[tor-talk] Facebook brute forcing hidden services

[odinn]

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Reflections..

grarpamp wrote:
> I would never use this unless you were actually censored from 
> accessing facebook via clearnet. All it will do is serve to
> officially tell facebook that you are a tor user that FB can then
> further discriminate against as a class in the future once they
> start to lock down clearnet against exit nodes, travelers, etc or
> whatever their scheme is or will be.


I agree.

I tried out the FB Tor hidden service.  I was censored / banned from
accessing FB at all, and FB demanded a "government ID" in order to
take off the ban ~ I refused to do so.  (not that I wanted to use it,
but after a while I was curious what some distant family and friends
were doing in terms of their activity on FB).

The Tor hidden service allowed me to get far enough into the login
process that I was able to squeeze out a 2FA and complete login,
something I could not do before due to the ban.  It's clear that part
of FB censorship involves discrimination against persons they disagree
with based in part on IP addresses.

> 
> Remember, FB's official policy is still: - Real Names required

FB's centralized platform and ubiquitous selling of people's data is
problematic enough, and their discrimination against people who
identify differently (or who engage in trans-identical expression) is
telling.  It's not a service I want to use, but I've explored in the
past chatting with those who use it, by way of use of the Empathy
program.  (FB is now blocking many users of Empathy as well, btw)

> - Phone Numbers / ID required - DOB required - Gender required -
> Email required - Etc required - Users are the product that is being
> mined and sold and shared.

Exactly ~ none of this should be required.  As wide as its use is, FB
should be viewed as a doomed / dying platform based on its extractive
and oppressive model.  Of note, however:
- - At least 72 percent of online adults use social media, with around
18 percent using twitter, based on 2013 numbers
http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/08/05/72-of-online-adults-are-social-networking-site-users/
- - 42% of online adults use multiple social networking sites, but
Facebook remains a platform of choice, based on 2013 numbers
http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/12/30/social-media-update-2013/
- - A 2014 review of social media marketing indicates that Facebook is
the single biggest social media platform used by marketers (another
reason not to use it, but also makes it obvious that a lot of people
currently find it profitable to use)
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport2014.pdf

These findings seem to indicate that when people are designing
applications that are oriented on the peer-to-peer, decentralized
model, in order to be successful, the applications should be very
simple to use, and provide for ample opportunity for engagement, if
they hope to challenge the well-established centralized models.  As an
example, I've suggested to OpenBazaar team (which is about to release
a new beta version) that they work at making the application "lighter"
as well as easier and friendlier to use in a mobile version, so that
it would have the feel of depop.com
example:
http://www.depop.com/en/francescahall1987/authentic-mulberry-purse-for-sale
Coupling interesting, easy to access listings and posts tailored for
mobile users with easy-to-use commmunication that has broad appeal is
a goal that should be added (or at least, emphasized a lot more) in
p2p development.

> 
> Such non optional elements, and choices, powers and rights removed
> from the user, are in direct opposition to the principles of Tor
> and anonymity. Normally support for onion/i2p is good thing, but
> when still backed by crap like this it's largely meaningless.

Agreed. And the more one posts content to FB as a platform, the more
you give them to mine and profit from.  It should be avoided.

> 
> 
> 
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8538281 
> http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/10/31/1545231/facebook-sets-up-shop-on-tor
>
> 
http://www.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/2kvnbw/facebook_accessible_by_onion_address/
> http://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/2kvl8r/facebook_now_officially_available_as_a_tor_hidden/
>
>  [Some posters already seem to be getting locked out for using
> onion but of course cannot truly know why because FB does not state
> their metrics.]
> 

- -- 
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn
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