Dishonest Tor relay math question - tor-talk is to lazy

efc at swisscows.email efc at swisscows.email
Thu Apr 6 10:12:22 PDT 2023



On Thu, 6 Apr 2023, grarpamp wrote:

> On 4/5/23, efc at swisscows.email <efc at swisscows.email> wrote:
>> So you wouldn't say that Tor is good since it is the least worst way for
>> people to browse?
>
> Users getting jailed or murdered by the State's traffic
> analysis and sybil systems is for them perhaps the worst
> way to die. Does voting for least worst politicians get you
> much of anything in your lifetime, vs ignoring, defunding,
> routing around and removing them all permanently.
>

I think want does not exclude the other. I could vote for the least worst, 
at the same time I could tax plan aggressively and route around. I don't 
work at the moment, but I have managed to plan my way down to around 9% 
taxes or so.

The same goes for users. Some do get jailed but at the same time I am 
convinced that low profile targets benefit even though it is not perfect.

But I do give you this much, no one should use this service in the belief 
that it is a foolproof way to hide your tracks and I think the project 
should be very clear about that. I like the principle "free, informed, 
consent" and if there is no information, there can be no free, informed 
consent.

>> It is definitely not perfect but perhaps it could generate more noise in
>> which to bury the few signals that are out there?
>
> The real solution is to both fork tor, and also to
> design and compete entirely new network overlays.
>
> "Tor Stinks  -- NSA, vulns known since before 2012"
>

I was not aware of this, so thank you very much for informing. When it 
comes to forking tor there is another problem though, and that is all the 
infrastructure. Like FB, tor has some strong networking effects so 
starting from scratch would be tough. I do hope that someone does fork 
though, and that a new, stronger and less woke project might take over 
instead.

As a fun side note though, I do know how quirky the tor guys can be. Many 
years ago I tried to reach out to persuade them to develop an "addon" or 
separate project utilizing parts of tor that would be a global, 
decentralized DNS system without the hops to reduce latency.

I was met with complete silence, so I would not be surprised if things get 
ignored. ;)



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