Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

blog.torproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 151 posts

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#21

Post by mark_l_watson »

I am tempted to onionize my site for political (if that is the correct word) reasons.

I am almost done reading The Surveillance Economy and it feels like almost an obligation to push back. (Using ProtonMail, use a large leased server in Germany at Hetzner for my routine work and writing, and using private browsing tabs when I must use Twitter or Reddit.)

It looks like Onion domain hosting services are $5-$8/month, but going through their checklist and making one of my VPSs approved would be educational.

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#22

Post by zelly »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #21

I am tempted to onionize my site for political (if that is the correct word) reasons. I am almost done reading The Surveillance Economy and it feels like almost an obligation to push back. (Using ProtonMail, use a large leased server in Germany at Hetzner for my routine work and writing, and using private browsing tabs when I must use Twitter or Reddit.) It looks like Onion domain hosting services are $5-$8/month, bu…

> It looks like Onion domain hosting services are $5-$8/month

You don't need a special host. You just need to run Tor and connect to the network.

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#23

Post by jsf01 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #21

I am tempted to onionize my site for political (if that is the correct word) reasons. I am almost done reading The Surveillance Economy and it feels like almost an obligation to push back. (Using ProtonMail, use a large leased server in Germany at Hetzner for my routine work and writing, and using private browsing tabs when I must use Twitter or Reddit.) It looks like Onion domain hosting services are $5-$8/month, bu…

Using a centralized service which, ultimately, you have to take at their word seems to me like it should not be necessary in this age of trustless networks and innovation in decentralized technology. Speaking in particular about ProtonMail here. Are there any email services that are provably private?

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#24

Post by lend000 »

jsf01 wrote: post #23
mark_l_watson wrote: post #21

I am tempted to onionize my site for political (if that is the correct word) reasons. I am almost done reading The Surveillance Economy and it feels like almost an obligation to push back. (Using ProtonMail, use a large leased server in Germany at Hetzner for my routine work and writing, and using private browsing tabs when I must use Twitter or Reddit.) It looks like Onion domain hosting services are $5-$8/month, bu…

Using a centralized service which, ultimately, you have to take at their word seems to me like it should not be necessary in this age of trustless networks and innovation in decentralized technology. Speaking in particular about ProtonMail here. Are there any email services that are provably private?

Frankly this is one of the few non-financial areas where blockchain-like technologies make sense: anonymously creating and routing connections. Right now, you can encrypt the contents of your email, but there is no hiding who is the recipient and who is the sender, certainly not from the mail service on either end. Until you solve that problem (for example, by posting encrypted versions on a public blockchain), you never get a truly end-to-end secure communication channel.

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#25

Post by Nextgrid »

zelly wrote: post #22
mark_l_watson wrote: post #21

I am tempted to onionize my site for political (if that is the correct word) reasons. I am almost done reading The Surveillance Economy and it feels like almost an obligation to push back. (Using ProtonMail, use a large leased server in Germany at Hetzner for my routine work and writing, and using private browsing tabs when I must use Twitter or Reddit.) It looks like Onion domain hosting services are $5-$8/month, bu…

> It looks like Onion domain hosting services are $5-$8/month You don't need a special host. You just need to run Tor and connect to the network.

Running an Tor Hidden Service doesn't require a specific host. As far as I know the traffic it generates will not be malicious. You only need to worry about malicious traffic and Tor-friendly ISPs if you plan to run an exit node (and at this point you need to consider the legal implications as well).

Furthermore if you are not hosting any illegal/objectionable content and don't need to hide from law enforcement or state-sponsored attackers, a lot of the security concerns around anonymizing the server no longer apply either.

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#26

Post by memexy »

lend000 wrote: post #24
jsf01 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a centralized service which, ultimately, you have to take at their word seems to me like it should not be necessary in this age of trustless networks and innovation in decentralized technology. Speaking in particular about ProtonMail here. Are there any email services that are provably private?

Frankly this is one of the few non-financial areas where blockchain-like technologies make sense: anonymously creating and routing connections. Right now, you can encrypt the contents of your email, but there is no hiding who is the recipient and who is the sender, certainly not from the mail service on either end. Until you solve that problem (for example, by posting encrypted versions on a public blockchain), you n…

How does a blockchain solve the anonymity and routing problem? If I post anything on a public blockchain it will be cryptographically verified to have come from a specific account because all transactions are signed: https://blog.signatura.co/using-the-blockchain-as-a-digital-....

> Bitcoin uses digital signatures (ECDSA) to prove ownership of funds, so sending bitcoins requires the owner of them to digitally sign authorizing the transfer. This transaction is sent to Bitcoin’s public network and later recorded in Bitcoin’s public database (blockchain), so anyone can verify it by checking its digital signature.

If everything is signed and verified to come from a specific account then that's by definition not anonymous. To be anonymous it would need to be the case that no one could figure out who sent the transaction (making the sender of the transaction anonymous), i.e. it couldn't be tied back to any specific account.

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#27

Post by mark_l_watson »

lend000 wrote: post #24
jsf01 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a centralized service which, ultimately, you have to take at their word seems to me like it should not be necessary in this age of trustless networks and innovation in decentralized technology. Speaking in particular about ProtonMail here. Are there any email services that are provably private?

Frankly this is one of the few non-financial areas where blockchain-like technologies make sense: anonymously creating and routing connections. Right now, you can encrypt the contents of your email, but there is no hiding who is the recipient and who is the sender, certainly not from the mail service on either end. Until you solve that problem (for example, by posting encrypted versions on a public blockchain), you n…

I understand.

Still, I feel better using ProtonMail than FastMail, and I consider FastMail to be preferable to gmail.

I also feel better only touching Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook in a private browsing tab. I understand that they can to some extent still use my data to make money for themselves and not share any back with me. I understand that even limiting the data collected in me, I am still subject to nudging, herding, and conditioning - but I hope to impede these actions against me.

I am an author and I rely on social media a few times a year to notify readers of new books, updates, etc. Otherwise I would be happy disconnecting, as I have disconnected from corporate news services.

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#28

Post by giantrobot »

lend000 wrote: post #24
jsf01 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a centralized service which, ultimately, you have to take at their word seems to me like it should not be necessary in this age of trustless networks and innovation in decentralized technology. Speaking in particular about ProtonMail here. Are there any email services that are provably private?

Frankly this is one of the few non-financial areas where blockchain-like technologies make sense: anonymously creating and routing connections. Right now, you can encrypt the contents of your email, but there is no hiding who is the recipient and who is the sender, certainly not from the mail service on either end. Until you solve that problem (for example, by posting encrypted versions on a public blockchain), you n…

Look up remailers, think Tor for e-mail. No blockchain necessary.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk_anonymous_remaile...

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#29

Post by ciarannolan »

jmkb wrote: post #11
daenz wrote: post #2

I'm pro decentralizing the internet, but these movements really need some marketing chops. ".onion" TLD? (Yes I know it has been around for awhile) Think of how a normal person will view a ".onion" domain name. It's nonsensical to the uninitiated.

Last century "network" and "web" were metaphors that meant nothing to the uninitiated -- I feel that ".onion" has a shot.

"Web" definitely meant something to people as a metaphore, for long before the internet (ex. "web of lies").

"The 'internet' is like a spider's web, but each point in the web is a different computer."

vs

"Tor is like an onion, where each layer of the onion represents a computer acting like a relay, in a giant network of computers, which your traffic is routed through....."

Re: MoreOnionsPorfavor: Onionize your website and take back the internet

#30

Post by jakereps »

daenz wrote: post #2

I'm pro decentralizing the internet, but these movements really need some marketing chops. ".onion" TLD? (Yes I know it has been around for awhile) Think of how a normal person will view a ".onion" domain name. It's nonsensical to the uninitiated.

A normal person won’t be able to access an onion site, let alone care about the pop up they’re getting about its availability. I’ve watched people navigate web pages with the half screen cookie banner still open.

Tor is not targeting a “normal” person, as the media has already told the “normal” people that the only things available on the “dark”/“deep” web are illegal.

Post reply on HN