Instead of only bashing tor, why not discuss the alternatives?

stef s at ctrlc.hu
Tue Jul 19 10:17:25 PDT 2016


On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 08:34:05AM -0700, Rayzer wrote:
> >> 1. What are alternatives to tor (possibly with less functionality)?
> > from the top of my head:
> > dissent,
> > riffle,
> > i2p,
> > mixminion
> > pynchon-gate
> > percy++
> 
> NONE of these are intended for the same target audience as tor. IOW NONE
> of the above could CONCEIVABLY be used by a journalist or
> computer-illiterate dissident in Tanzania right NOW.

this was not my interpretation of "alternatives to tor", and surely some come
with much reduced functionality, percy++ just being a library. there's much
more use-cases than using a browser anonymously, in some of these use-cases
tor can indeed be replaced by these technologies. also i still consider that
some people on this list are actually building stuff, instead of being overly
verbose, and for those, at least pynchon gate and percy++ should be
interesting building blocks.

a real alternative to tor would tackle the GPA issue, for that i think the
only solution is high-latency, that means also that browsing the web will be
quite a different experience with such.

btw david chaums cmix is also an interesting inspiration for a replacement in
certain use-cases, but surely not in general either. and not for dissidents in
tanzania now (which was no explicit requirement anyways). but then those
dissidents probably have also problems with computers in general including
tor.

> And honestly, imho, I2P is probably just a compromises as tor, but it's
> so much more fucking obuscurant, to hide that possibility. I tried using
> it for a while. Fucking useless and continues to be so.

we agree on this one. however this was not the point of the question i
believe, and as such fits as an answer.

-- 
otr fp: https://www.ctrlc.hu/~stef/otr.txt



More information about the cypherpunks mailing list