Tor Stinks re Traffic Analysis and Sybil (as do other networks)

Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net
Sun Nov 24 21:13:05 PST 2019


On Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 03:25:03PM -0700, Mirimir wrote:
> On 11/24/2019 04:00 AM, John Young wrote:
> > Critique of Tor applies equally, perhaps moreso, to the whole Internet
> > for monetization, technology, personnel, administration, operation,
> > funding, seducing the public, NGOs, dissent. So too, to crypto,
> > anonymization, cypherpunks.
> > 
> > Perennial question is how to sort through the tsunami of claims and
> > counterclaims, sponsored hacks, slyly appealing "free" SM, search
> > engines, FOIA enterprises, Wayback and Wikipedia, paid and volunteer
> > informants and agents, hot shit mail lists and get-it-now podcasts,
> > star-studded conferences and outlaw-celebrity lectures, incarcerated
> > Julians and Jeremys, fans and evermore fans of unexamined underwriters.
> > 
> > Has there ever been more people eagerly declaring in public their likes
> > and hatreds, convictions and doubts, hoping to gain advantage over other
> > people by pretense and deception. Actually, yes, there has been since
> > talking, singing, dancing, education, civilization was invented to
> > entrap prey.
> > 
> > Prey quickly learned from predators to reverse the panopticon. Usually
> > by offering their gullible, edible kids, cohorts and mates as
> > irresistable bait to fatten the enemy into overconfidence, sloth,
> > braggrdy, imagined supremacy. Tor, like Trump, is hardly novel in this
> > suicidalism, nor the crusading, diabolical internet of everything data.
> 
> For sure.
> 
> Figuring out who/what one can trust is arguably impossible. Or at least,
> it's far too unreliable.
> 
> Bottom line, I think, it's foolish to trust anyone/anything.
> 
> So the challenge is prudently using whatever resources are available.


Trusting no one - a life in effective if not physical, isolation.

Those granite walls admitting as their entry price no tests of
loyalty, yet "protecting" from betrayal, may leave barren the heart,
a dry, lifeless, stony courtyard of certainty.

  "The baffled king, composing Hellelujah.."


Technology is no succour for the Soul.  Our messy and oh so human
journey of discovery discloses fragility, insecurity, and leaps of
faith sometimes crushed under a steamroller, at others elevated to
the heavens in moments one might live this whole life again just for
a fleeting repeat

Our tapestry is woven not only of those pre ordained molecular
interactions, the nurture of our parents, schooling and acquaintances,
but also of those choices and actions wrought from our individual
suffering, yet lying within the bounds of our capacity to express
that freedom which is our birth right, brought forth by will and
bearing the fruit of each consequence.

Would you have your life a crystalline never changing ever unshakable
certainty of known dominoes?


Go well fellow travellers, and may we each find that which Soul seeks
for us and for those we love,




> > At 06:39 PM 11/23/2019, you [Mirimir] wrote:
> > 
> >> On 11/23/2019 04:23 PM, Punk-Stasi 2.0 wrote:
> >> > On Sat, 23 Nov 2019 15:39:55 -0700
> >> > Mirimir <mirimir at riseup.net> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> The villains here are writers of the Tor Project website. They
> >> bullshit
> >> >> users, overselling Tor. Why, I don't know. Maybe it's all a
> >> honeypot. Or
> >> >> maybe they're just idiots.
> >> >
> >> >       Notice that they get paid as long as tor exists. So even if
> >> tor was not a honeypot, and they are not idiots, they still have a
> >> fundamental incentive to oversell it. Their paychecks.
> >>
> >> Yeah, good point.
> >>
> >> After those FOIA documents came out, I lost all respect for the Tor
> >> Project. I get how conflicted they were. Needing government support.
> >> Keeping the cops happy. Maybe having their jobs threatened. But selling
> >> out is selling out, no matter how many excuses one has.
> >>
> >> >       Also, syverson and co. are complicit in overselling tor,
> >> despite the fact that their papers for the 'technical intelligentsia'
> >> spell out the limitations.
> >>
> >> Agreed.
> >>
> >> >> I've wondered whether it's just that they need lots of users for cover
> >> >> traffic. That _was_ a major factor in opening Tor to the public,
> >> instead
> >> >> of restricting it to government users. But that seems unlikely, now,
> >> >> given that the NSA etc could easily run enough bots on hacked servers.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >       My guess is that the main reason for them to get as many users
> >> as they can is to justify funding. Hell, maybe they even get a
> >> percentage of funding directly proportional to number of users/network
> >> size.
> >>
> >> Makes sense.
> > 
> > 
> > 


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