Cheers for this, I'm the author - AMA! :) A big motivation in writing the book was to feature the voices of the people we often don't hear from in the Tor community (which is why there's a whole chapter on the people who run the relays).
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Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
41–50 of 100 posts
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#42Cheers for this, I'm the author - AMA! :) A big motivation in writing the book was to feature the voices of the people we often don't hear from in the Tor community (which is why there's a whole chapter on the people who run the relays).
Also - it's completely free open access, but you can also buy a copy here if you like spending money: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548182/tor/
> it's completely free open access
Why are the PDFs individually watermarked?
It seems antithetical to the spirit of releasing a book about Tor and "future of privacy", and to then not only watermark each PDF, but to not explicitly state that this is the case, let alone explain why.
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#43PSA: It's Tor not TOR.
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People can do things altruistically - there doesn't always need to be a bitcoin-style monetary incentive. For a few years Oniontip [1] allowed tipping Tor relay operators with Bitcoin. In my opinion that was a quite nice combination of technologies, as it allowed to anonymously tip operators of a service providing anonymity on the internet. [1]: https://github.com/DonnchaC/oniontip
Bit coin is not anonymous. It is literally a ledger of every transaction ever made. Monero is what you want if you value anonymity.
I mean, bitcoin is a lot more anonymous if you host your own wallet and don't cash out through an exchange (or don't cash out at all) - you're just a number. That's definitely not the modal use case today (where its primary use is as a vehicle for ~~gambling~~financial speculation denominated in dollars), but was a lot more common 10 years ago when that project was created.
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC there is at least one known case where a moderately major criminal was let go rather than the government disclosing how they got the evidence on him. The assumption has been that they had a way of compromising TOR that they didn't want to reveal.
One implication of that - make sure there's no available means of parallel construction, and it's ok if they catch you in some way they don't want to reveal. As long as you're not valuable enough, that is.
That's the real bar for any security, really - make it so it's not worth the while of people who could defeat it.
Because eventually, no matter what you do, if you're up against a nation state, they'll just make you dead.
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also - it's completely free open access, but you can also buy a copy here if you like spending money: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548182/tor/
> it's completely free open access Why are the PDFs individually watermarked? It seems antithetical to the spirit of releasing a book about Tor and "future of privacy", and to then not only watermark each PDF, but to not explicitly state that this is the case, let alone explain why.
And several analytics type of tracking pixels on the page as well. Not a big deal nor likely controllable by the author.
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also - it's completely free open access, but you can also buy a copy here if you like spending money: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548182/tor/
> it's completely free open access Why are the PDFs individually watermarked? It seems antithetical to the spirit of releasing a book about Tor and "future of privacy", and to then not only watermark each PDF, but to not explicitly state that this is the case, let alone explain why.
Watermark? In the original link the thread is based on, there is no watermarks, its probably something the publisher that sells is just happens to do.
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#48One thing I'm curious about Tor: What are the incentives for running a node? If there are no monetary incentives, then how does it achieves decentralization? Also, what stops a malicious actor with enough resources (a government) from controlling a big portion of the network?
Couldn't running an exit node be a cover for other activity? One that provides a reasonable doubt as to whether it was the operator or some other actor who did something unsavory from an IP address?
I thought there was a classic statement from the Tor developers that you shouldn't do this, but the closest that I found on the site is the part about not running an exit node from home (as it might make law enforcement more interested in seizing your home computer).
This question
https://support.torproject.org/relay-operators/#relay-operat...
also seems to imply that it might be useful to run a node to provide cover for your own traffic (though not an exit node in your home), but that it isn't known for sure how useful that is.
I think the core argument against your suggestion is (1) having your devices more likely to be seized is just plain harmful to you; (2) if you're personally doing something that law enforcement cares about, having your devices more likely to be seized increases you risk that they could discover that by seizing those devices; and (3) there may be traffic analysis techniques that law enforcement could use to distinguish between your own traffic and your exit traffic, like trying to correlate inbound Tor circuit activity with exit traffic, and attributing the traffic to you if it couldn't be matched up with an inbound circuit.
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bit coin is not anonymous. It is literally a ledger of every transaction ever made. Monero is what you want if you value anonymity.
I mean, bitcoin is a lot more anonymous if you host your own wallet and don't cash out through an exchange (or don't cash out at all) - you're just a number. That's definitely not the modal use case today (where its primary use is as a vehicle for ~~gambling~~financial speculation denominated in dollars), but was a lot more common 10 years ago when that project was created.
Or you just use a crypto currency with anonymity build in.
Re: Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's completely free open access Why are the PDFs individually watermarked? It seems antithetical to the spirit of releasing a book about Tor and "future of privacy", and to then not only watermark each PDF, but to not explicitly state that this is the case, let alone explain why.
And several analytics type of tracking pixels on the page as well. Not a big deal nor likely controllable by the author.
It's the mit press who's publishing it no? I very highly doubt the author has access to tracking decisions made by the org putting the work out.