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If you value Tor, please make a donation

blog.torproject.org

21–30 of 31 posts

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#21

On iOS, Tor used to recommend using the Onion browser (they probably still do, I haven't checked). Some time ago, the onion browser changed how it connects to the Tor network to use Orbot instead of connecting directly. I can not help but see this as a malicious change. Orbot directs all traffic from my phone through the Tor network. If an iPhone is secretly pinging some backend server for telemetry / looking for aut…

btw, note that certain Apple services (like App Store and OS telemetry) bypass any VPN that's enabled on the iPhone.

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#22
post #5
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to https://donate.torproject.org/cryptocurrency/ it doesn't seem like they support BAT at all.

Fair enough. I tried.

Swapping is (should be?) trivial.

You may even be able to give it directly to a contributor.

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#23

Am I wrong to assume that Tor is effectively a US government project at this point? It may allow people to bypass local internet controls (in some cases including government-imposed internet controls), but I would assume it is not truly anonymous.

"At this point"? It was always a US military/intelligence project, it just happened to be useful for their purposes to launder their traffic by making it available to civilians. It's never exactly been a secret, and the project has seen a fair amount of scrutiny for this fact.

Yes but isn't the previous poster more concerned about ownership of the infrastructure that IIRC might allow to identify users and not of the code base which is openly linked to the US government?

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#24
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're the kind of guy who worries about the kind of entities who can ask Apple for information and get it, you probably should not be using an iPhone to begin with.

I hate this response. Not wanting your belongings to leak private information about you is not a desire only elite global hackers have. It should be the norm, especially when law enforcement routinely abuses their authority, double especially when the third party doctrine lets them get the data without a warrant, and triple especially in the age of global mass surveillance.

This is all true, but then if that's your desire then why are you using an iPhone? The only reason this is an issue is because you can't control what random data an iPhone might send out.

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#26

On iOS, Tor used to recommend using the Onion browser (they probably still do, I haven't checked). Some time ago, the onion browser changed how it connects to the Tor network to use Orbot instead of connecting directly. I can not help but see this as a malicious change. Orbot directs all traffic from my phone through the Tor network. If an iPhone is secretly pinging some backend server for telemetry / looking for aut…

> If an iPhone is secretly pinging some backend server for telemetry / looking for automatic updates / etc, then all those pings will now happen from the Tor exit node, effectively completely deanonymizing the user.

Tor picks different exit nodes for different destination servers.

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#27

Am I wrong to assume that Tor is effectively a US government project at this point? It may allow people to bypass local internet controls (in some cases including government-imposed internet controls), but I would assume it is not truly anonymous.

[dead]

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#28

Am I wrong to assume that Tor is effectively a US government project at this point? It may allow people to bypass local internet controls (in some cases including government-imposed internet controls), but I would assume it is not truly anonymous.

"At this point"? It was always a US military/intelligence project, it just happened to be useful for their purposes to launder their traffic by making it available to civilians. It's never exactly been a secret, and the project has seen a fair amount of scrutiny for this fact.

There was a contract from US government to develop the software that is now known as Tor. That was 20 years ago. The project has been ran in the open by a non profit ever since. No doubt the US agents still use the network but saying it's a "US military/intelligence project" at this point is silly.

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#29

Am I wrong to assume that Tor is effectively a US government project at this point? It may allow people to bypass local internet controls (in some cases including government-imposed internet controls), but I would assume it is not truly anonymous.

Yes you are wrong.

Re: If you value Tor, please make a donation

#30
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"At this point"? It was always a US military/intelligence project, it just happened to be useful for their purposes to launder their traffic by making it available to civilians. It's never exactly been a secret, and the project has seen a fair amount of scrutiny for this fact.

Yes but isn't the previous poster more concerned about ownership of the infrastructure that IIRC might allow to identify users and not of the code base which is openly linked to the US government?

The government uses TOR itself so it has some incentive to both operate infrastructure and also try to make sure it actually delivers on its anonymity claims. If they screw that last part up, their HUMINT sources die.
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