OnionShare Tor

[Steven Schear]

Isn't that why networks like i2p exist?

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 8:19 PM jim bell <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Friday, October 18, 2019, 09:56:12 AM PDT, Greg Newby <
> gbnewby at pglaf.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 02:54:37AM +0000, jim bell wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >    On Thursday, October 17, 2019, 05:43:04 PM PDT, Punk <punks at tfwno.gf>
> wrote:
> >
> >  On Thu, 17 Oct 2019 20:16:28 +0000 (UTC)
> > jim bell <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > >> The way I see it, there are at least two ways to promote TOR.
> > >> 1.   Openly promote TOR:   "TOR is great".  "TOR is secure enough".
>  "We don't need an improvement to TOR".
> > >> and the second is:
> > >> 2.  Oppose potential improvements or augmented systems other than
> TOR.   List their potential problems.  Ignore their possible benefits.
> > >> I think there are clearly people who are choosing to do the second
> kind of promotion of TOR.
> >
> >
> >  >   I think a key aspect of the tor mafia is that getting a few million
> dollars from the pentagon each year allows them to outcompete anybody who
> could challenge them. They don't even have to 'oppose' anything. Just fail
> to fund it.
> >  That sounds quite correct.  Somebody needs to challenge them.
>
>
> >It seems that TOR could be as a starting point, if it were possible to
> validate the software before building upon it. I'm not sure it is, though.
>
> >Jim's proposal would seem to require a few important things:
> 1. free software (of course) that is open to inspection
> 2. verifiable functionality
> 3. trustable deployment
>
> >#1 implies the full stack, from network, to hardware, to OS, to
> libraries, to application. This is harder as you dig more deeply into what
> needs to be validated.
>
> >#2 and #3 are also hard, whether using TOR or something completely new.
>
> >Are #2 and #3 easier if we start with the TOR base software or design?
> With 600K+ lines of code, TOR is unwieldy to validate. The design could be
> a starting point.
>
> >I'll make some obvious statements that I haven't seen in this thread yet
> (apologies if I missed them):
>
> >Verifiable functionality means that the software, wherever it's deployed,
> can be trusted (to whatever extent is needed). This is challenging for any
> software, and more challenging when you need to worry about the entire
> stack including the hardware.
>
> >Trustable deployment means that we can validate the nodes in the mesh, to
> whatever extent is needed. This is a perpetual issue with TOR, because
> players can do things antithetical to the design (such as collusion or
> surveillance).
>
>
>
> I think it's important to put up and run SOMETHING, a network separate
> from TOR, even if it must initially use pre-existing software that hasn't
> been completely verified. (yet)   There's an enormous difference between a
> mere promise (it's coming "real soon now", as Jerry Pournelle used to say)
> and an actual useable system.
>
> A currently-useable system would ignite far more interest, including
> donations perhaps, than a mere promise, especially if the software was all
> open-sourced and potentially verifiable, with the knowledge that it would
> be verified or replaced in the future.
>
>              Jim Bell
>
>
> Interesting historical interest:
>
>      In about 1979 when I was studying at MIT, I was logged onto a
> computer system. (It might have been either network node "70" or "134".
> Strange that I remember that!)   I did a WHOIS command, listing the other
> users of the system.  Some other student, looking over my shoulder, said,
> "Hey, that's Jerry Pournelle!", because one of those logged in was
> "pourne".   I, never having been a science fiction buff, didn't know who
> "Jerry Pournelle" was.    So, the fellow student explained it to me.
>
> Cut to about 1983, when my small company, SemiDisk Systems, was at the
> West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco, manning the booth.  A man came
> up to the booth, and he said "I'm Jerry Pournelle".  I responded, "Hey, I
> know who you are, but it's not the way you might think!".
>
>
>
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