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The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

open.nytimes.com

11–20 of 205 posts

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#11
post #10

And they're using an Extended Validation certificate from DigiCert for it CN = nytimes3xbfgragh.onion OU = Technology O = The New York Times Company Object Identifier (2 5 4 15) = Private Organization along with some other addresses DNS Name: nytimes3xbfgragh.onion DNS Name: graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.dev.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.stg.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name…

What does this mean in regular human terms?

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#12
post #11
post #10

And they're using an Extended Validation certificate from DigiCert for it CN = nytimes3xbfgragh.onion OU = Technology O = The New York Times Company Object Identifier (2 5 4 15) = Private Organization along with some other addresses DNS Name: nytimes3xbfgragh.onion DNS Name: graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.dev.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.stg.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name…

What does this mean in regular human terms?

You get a green bar to know you're connecting to the NYT and the cert is issued for many additional addresses showing large coverage of their services and hinting at future use.

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#13
post #8

Hmm don't you have to pay to access the full newspaper? How does that mix with Tor anonymity?

Haven't tested to see how they are doing, but that's kinda orthogonal to using tor. Standard cryptography like https uses is meant so any eavesdroppers don't know WHAT you are talking about. But they still know that Alice is talking with Bob. Onion routing, that tor uses, is meant to so eavesdroppers also don't know who is talking to whom. But that's on the eavesdroppers part. If Alice and Bob are talking completely privately, it's completely fine if they are exchanging all the information they want between themselves. The big idea is that attackers don't know what you are doing.

Tor can also hide where Bob's servers are, but not sure if the New York Times would need that bit.

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#14
post #8

Hmm don't you have to pay to access the full newspaper? How does that mix with Tor anonymity?

They show the countdown of remaining articles but they have virtually no way of identifying your browser over Tor so all you need is clear cookies and continue to browse anonymously.

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#15
post #11
post #10

And they're using an Extended Validation certificate from DigiCert for it CN = nytimes3xbfgragh.onion OU = Technology O = The New York Times Company Object Identifier (2 5 4 15) = Private Organization along with some other addresses DNS Name: nytimes3xbfgragh.onion DNS Name: graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.dev.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.stg.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name…

What does this mean in regular human terms?

EV certs provide more than just encryption that a DV (domain validation) cert provides. DV just checks to make sure the domain is under control of whoever is asking for the cert.

EV ensures that the entity (person, corp, org, whatever) is in fact in control of the domain and is who they say they are.

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#16

So is it now "guaranteed", that TOR is secure? And how many "guarantees" does one need in order to be "guaranteed" security whilst browsing? [...]and they provide additional guarantees that readers are connected securely to our website.[...]

Disable Javascript. Enabling it makes you traceable. Run a Temporary profile in Firefox - otherwise cached images will make you traceable. Connect from your neighbors wifi (the further from your home the better, really) with a spoofed MAC address running from a write-locked USB live distro - this ensures you're protected from the unknown unknowns.

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#17
post #8

Hmm don't you have to pay to access the full newspaper? How does that mix with Tor anonymity?

The two things are not directly dependent: for instance, Facebook allows you to connect to your account through Tor. You still have a separate individual authentication (email & password, 2FA) once the connection is established. I believe I have a paying NYT account so I might try if you are interested.

It’s possible that Tor makes it harder to enforce the rule that you can’t read more than X articles per month (which I believe is enforced using cookies and your IP address) but at this early stage, I’m not sure that’s key: people who know how to use Tor generally can easily go around that limitation on https.

If too many people use that loophole to read without a subscription, that means NYTimes would have been instrumental in making Tor mainstream. That would be a major achievement in itself. Enforcing similar consumption limits through Tor would probably be rather experimental, but sounds hardly difficult (especially with the goodwill NYTimes would have most likely gained from Tor developers & supporters).

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#18
post #14
post #8

Hmm don't you have to pay to access the full newspaper? How does that mix with Tor anonymity?

They show the countdown of remaining articles but they have virtually no way of identifying your browser over Tor so all you need is clear cookies and continue to browse anonymously.

I'm pretty sure you can clear your cookies on a normal browser and reset the number of remaining articles for the month.

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#19
post #17
post #8

Hmm don't you have to pay to access the full newspaper? How does that mix with Tor anonymity?

The two things are not directly dependent: for instance, Facebook allows you to connect to your account through Tor. You still have a separate individual authentication (email & password, 2FA) once the connection is established. I believe I have a paying NYT account so I might try if you are interested. It’s possible that Tor makes it harder to enforce the rule that you can’t read more than X articles per month (whic…

> It’s possible that Tor makes it harder to enforce the rule that you can’t read more than X articles per month (which I believe is enforced using cookies and your IP address) but at this early stage, I’m not sure that’s key: people who know how to use Tor generally can easily go around that limitation on https.

Their current X (which I think is 10) articles per month limit is enforced via cookies. If you're like me and have your browser set to automatically clear all cookies and persistent state on close, you never even notice it exists.

Re: The New York Times Is Now Available as a Tor Onion Service

#20
post #10

And they're using an Extended Validation certificate from DigiCert for it CN = nytimes3xbfgragh.onion OU = Technology O = The New York Times Company Object Identifier (2 5 4 15) = Private Organization along with some other addresses DNS Name: nytimes3xbfgragh.onion DNS Name: graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.dev.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name: *.stg.graylady3jvrrxbe.onion DNS Name…

EV is mandatory for .onion HTTPS certificates - since onion hashes (the 'domain name') are even less meaningful as a form of identity than regular domains.

There's a couple of other differences with .onion certs too: https://certsimple.com/help/tor-support

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