Fwd: [tor-talk] Tor in the media - request for unsung positive narratives

[Cathal Garvey]

I don't mind saying publicly that I use Tor to access websites censored
in Ireland; The Pirate Bay, chiefly. I upload some of my own work (3D
printable models, most recently) and I also find and download Free
Culture stuff from well seeded torrents.

Certainly, it's a trivial use of Tor, and I use it for other stuff too.
But it's easily forgettable that one of Tor's primary uses is
circumventing censorship, and censorship is alive and well in Ireland
thanks to former junior minister Sean Sherlock's "Irish SOPA".

It's important not to forget i2p when discussing darknets, and I see
many more positive uses of i2p than Tor hidden services; straightforward
social networks, search engines, etcetera. The developers curate a
simple list of "positive" eepsites for the preinstalled router, so it's
got a good community spirit. I've used it for email, microstatus and a
few other things besides, and there's a lot more diversity of hidden
services by other users because of the ease of setting hidden services
up (indeed, every user has one preconfigured by default).

On 01/10/14 23:04, coderman wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Patrick <apexcp at gmail.com>
> Subject: [tor-talk] Tor in the media
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Over the past few weeks, I've talked with a number of Tor people about how
> the project is portrayed in the media. As a reporter on this beat, the many
> legitimate criticisms the community have had strike pretty close to home
> for me. I don't think I need to tell this list why Tor's portrayal in the
> media is important, now more than ever. So, with the blessing and
> encouragement of a couple of official Tor people, I've got a question to
> ask of tor-talk (secure contact info follows at the bottom of the message):
> 
> -- What untold but important stories about Tor are you willing to share?
> 
> When writing about Tor, it's relatively easy to write about, for instance,
> popular hidden services (and I've admittedly done it plenty). The drug
> markets that advertise themselves and run a business are often more than
> willing to talk to reporters. They're even proactive about it.
> 
> It's much tougher for a reporter to nail down important Tor stories about,
> as another example, domestic abuse victims using the software or political
> activists protecting their lives with it. That makes perfect sense, those
> people rely on anonymity in a much different way than enterprising drug
> dealers, but this reality makes it trickier for reporters to tell the full
> story when it comes to Tor. The trick, then, is to be proactive as well.
> 
> I recently took a swing at writing precisely the kind of article I'm
> talking about--an untold but important story about how Tor is used in the
> wild--here:
> http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/10393/tor-transgender-military-service/
> ... I was inspired in large part by articles like this:
> http://betaboston.com/news/2014/05/07/as-domestic-abuse-goes-digital-shelters-turn-to-counter-surveillance-with-tor/.
> The BetaBoston article is very good, obviously, but it's a too-rare breed.
> 
> I'd like to hear from anyone who might be willing to talk about (on the
> record or off) untold but important Tor stories that can shed light on the
> way the software serves its users. By design, I'll never get the full
> picture, but we can surely do more than surface scratching.
> 
> If you have a story to tell, if you know someone who might, if you can
> think of others who I should be talking to, or if you have a good direction
> to point me in, I would love to hear from you. Or if you just want to talk
> more about Tor in the media, that's a topic I'm really interested in as
> well to be honest, so I'm happy to talk about that.
> 
> If you're interested in talking (again, on the record or off, it's still
> valuable to hear stories I won't write about), you can find my contact info
> and PGP key at http://www.patrickhowelloneill.com/contact , you can email
> me here (my personal email), or at pat at dailydot.com. Obviously we can also
> work out other ways of communicating if need be.
> 
> Thanks!
> 

-- 
Twitter: @onetruecathal, @formabiolabs
Phone: +353876363185
Blog: http://indiebiotech.com
miniLock.io: JjmYYngs7akLZUjkvFkuYdsZ3PyPHSZRBKNm6qTYKZfAM
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