From: Georgi Guninski <guninski@guninski.com>
   To: cypherpunks@cpunks.org
   Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2016 1:44 AM
   Subject: Instead of only bashing tor, why not discuss the alternatives?
   >Instead of only bashing tor, why not discuss the alternatives and move
   >to something allegedly better?
   Tor reminds me a bit of the Clipper chip, that brief attempt to
   implement a DES (56 bit key),
   key-escrowed chip for encrypted telephones that was tried in 1993.
   [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
   If the USG had simply abandoned the plan for key escrow (giving the
   government the keys), the world would
   arguably have been better off  (compared to no encryption at all) for
   awhile if they'd implemented 56-bit DES.
    But, that was distasteful, in large part because it would have been a
   shame to build a system that was less
    secure than it could have been with then existing technology.
   However, I think the main impediment to implementing secure phones in
   that time frame (1993) was that it would
   have been necessary to transmit data rates over the POTS (Plaint Old
   Telephone System) that weren't really
   practical:  Modems had gotten to about 14.4kbps by then, as I recall.
   Tor, likewise, should not be less secure than it could be.  Multiple
   transfer hops (as opposed to the current one-hop),
   decoy (a given packet 'explodes' into multiple packets, maybe only one
   is 'real') transfers,  padded with adjustable filler traffic, etc,
   should have been added by now.  Why the delay?
            Jim

References

   1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip