Anonymity Networks and Developer Determination

[Karl]

On Sat, Sep 5, 2020, 6:36 PM coderman <coderman at protonmail.com> wrote:

> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> On Saturday, September 5, 2020 5:07 PM, Karl <gmkarl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This email is shared from a place of forthrightness (and hope).
>
> https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/37
>
> Just to add, I suspect the reason that the state of public anonymity tools
> is not stronger is that the existing international powerholders, whose
> power could be reduced by widespread accessible anonymity, take diverse
> action to slow the release and hinder the effective use of the research.
>
>
> ... see also:
> """
> Dear @seanlynch <https://github.com/seanlynch> you are belligerent. I am
> in fact not saying that Tor or I2p aren't worth using. Come off your
> platitude for a few minutes and think about people who may be in a more
> high risk situation than yourself. For those people Tor isn't good enough
> because their adversary may well be the NSA and the FBI and GCHQ and so on.
> I am welcome to put forth my efforts into mix networks but not because you
> say so speaking from a place of belligerence. I am a fan of Tor and I do
> not go around telling people they can't have any protection. Your
> delusional caricature of myself is offensive and alarming. Check yourself
> before you wreck yourself."""
> - https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/37#issuecomment-687661383
>
> :P~
>
>
> TL;DR: for the IPFS Tor support issue:
>
> IPFS wants a security audit before merging Tor support.  Tor support was
> volunteer effort - no paid security review possible. Thus - IPFS does not
> support Tor :/
>

The above relation was shared by someone who appears to be a new ipfs
developer, over two years after the Tor integration work started, after it
was _completed_ and _used_ in other forks.  A lead ipfs developer named
whyrusleeping had collaborated with the Tor development and supported it
throughout that thread.  whyrusleeping's name is all over the source code
everywhere; the turn-down due to security-auditing concern was expressed by
a guy who's name I do not recognise, and whyrusleeping made no further
comments.

Possibly they had a dev meeting without Tor representation and haven't
revisited the issue.  (It's also possible some random guy just made a
comment that ended the discussion, too, from my perspective, since I
haven't looked them up.)

It looks like all parties are taxed and upset at this point.  Obviously we
need both Tor and new tech to be usable and supportable.  I wish I knew how
to contribute.

(I have problems forming certain kinds of new memories that started before
I learned golang, so I was pretty frustrated with my ability to contribute
when I first commented on that issue years ago.  I just don't understand go
sourcecode.  It's so weird.  I could do it with a lot of slow effort and
tutorials, or maybe a quick reference that translated to another language
and libraryset)


>
> best regards,
>

Thank you for your modeling of anonymity.  We all need to do this, to
protect each other and our important work, and spread behaviors that do
that.
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