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Is Tor still safe to use?

blog.torproject.org

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Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC there were a lot more options by the time of the Truecrypt-Veracrypt shift. Truecrypt was around when drive encryption was otherwise an expensive enterprise software thing, but I think Bitlocker was included with Pro versions of Windows by the time of Veracrypt so that probably became the easiest free option - and probably with better compatibility as well.

How's it free if it's not available in the Home edition of Windows? In fact it's pretty much the only difference between Home and Professional editions of Windows these days, so I'd price it as the difference between the two (about $60).

IIRC the Home editions of Windows now do have drive encryption at least if signed into with a Microsoft account, but they have almost no features for managing that encryption beyond turning it off or getting the recovery key from the MS account.

At the time I was talking about, Bitlocker drive encryption on Windows 7 required either Enterprise or Ultimate, and for a 2-5 person office with no domain and a couple laptops they wanted encrypted outside the office Truecrypt was a perfectly viable option.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#572
post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What jury? Only 2% of criminal cases go to trial. The goal is to give them nothing they can use to bring you up on (false) charges. Using Tor isn't a chargeable offense in free countries.

I think the point was that you aren't being "charged" with using Tor, you are being charged with buying drugs online. You have Tor installed and unfortunately a very small percentage of people have Tor installed. That might be enough to convince a jury, or be enough pressure for you to plead down to a lower crime to reduce that risk.

There first has to be some actual evidence that you were buying drugs online. If the cops search you and find drugs, it isn't going to matter a lot one way or the other whether you have Tor installed.

If you weren't actually buying drugs online then there shouldn't be any evidence that you were (or the cops planted it and then we're back to it not really mattering whether you have Tor installed). And then what are they charging you with that would even make it to a jury instead of being dismissed by the judge for lack of evidence?

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, sure. And while we're at it pigs should fly. Pigs have significantly higher density than birds and lack wings. Getting them to fly under their own power would be quite a challenge. By contrast, installing Tor Browser is actually pretty easy. > Your actual communications can be secure, but that doesn't stop a bad actor/government from picking you up and beating you with a wrench until you talk - if they get…

> Visit HN using Tor Browser. No one comes in the night to put a bag over your head. HN used to often not create new user accounts when connecting from Tor. Twitter doesn't let a new user account to pass the prove you're human AI challenge. It says it passes but then shows an error message that there was a technical issue. By using Tor I'm cut off from Twitter. Twitter is my social media of choice. By using Tor I'm c…

You can sign into Twitter with an existing account via Tor. Go to a library or coffee shop with public wifi once and create an account.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#574
post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was that you aren't being "charged" with using Tor, you are being charged with buying drugs online. You have Tor installed and unfortunately a very small percentage of people have Tor installed. That might be enough to convince a jury, or be enough pressure for you to plead down to a lower crime to reduce that risk.

There first has to be some actual evidence that you were buying drugs online. If the cops search you and find drugs, it isn't going to matter a lot one way or the other whether you have Tor installed. If you weren't actually buying drugs online then there shouldn't be any evidence that you were (or the cops planted it and then we're back to it not really mattering whether you have Tor installed). And then what are th…

Drugs are sent to you and intercepted. You claim, though your lawyer, someone was just using your house as a drop and you have no idea who ordered them. They get your computer, you have Tor installed. Prosecutor argues Tor is only used for CP and drugs. Is that enough to convict? Maybe.

If Tor was ubiquitous obviously not, but its very niche, and looking at a chart of use, its pretty much only used for drugs and CP. There are privacy use cases, but just like using crypto as a currency and not a speculative gambling investment, its in the small minority of uses.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#576
post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There first has to be some actual evidence that you were buying drugs online. If the cops search you and find drugs, it isn't going to matter a lot one way or the other whether you have Tor installed. If you weren't actually buying drugs online then there shouldn't be any evidence that you were (or the cops planted it and then we're back to it not really mattering whether you have Tor installed). And then what are th…

Drugs are sent to you and intercepted. You claim, though your lawyer, someone was just using your house as a drop and you have no idea who ordered them. They get your computer, you have Tor installed. Prosecutor argues Tor is only used for CP and drugs. Is that enough to convict? Maybe. If Tor was ubiquitous obviously not, but its very niche, and looking at a chart of use, its pretty much only used for drugs and CP.…

The trouble is that the alternative is worse. They come to your house, you don't have Tor installed and then, because you haven't been using Tor, they pull your search history and trawl through it looking for things to take out of context.

Why did you do multiple searches for std::vector? Are you worried about sharing needles? You also read an article about caffeine, which is often used as a cutting agent. You've been participating in internet discussions about using Tor, which the prosecutor argues is only used for CP and drugs.

> If Tor was ubiquitous obviously not, but its very niche, and looking at a chart of use, its pretty much only used for drugs and CP.

Nobody really knows what Tor is used for, by design. But the media likes to rile people up, and "Tor used by privacy activists to read Facebook" isn't a headline that does that.

It's all too easy to lie with statistics. For example, some people have looked at which hidden services are most often looked up. That's not going to tell you about real usage, because bots do lookups at a much faster rate than real people, and government agencies run automated crawlers. Then you get statistics that say a significant percentage of the lookups are for CP and drugs, but not what percentage of those lookups were made by law enforcement running crawlers 24/7 specifically looking for CP and drugs.

Here's another example:

https://www.sciencealert.com/only-a-small-fraction-of-the-da...

> "In countries coded as 'free', the percentage of users visiting Onion/Hidden Services as a proportion of total daily Tor use is nearly twice as much or ~7.8 percent."

> In other words, people living in liberal democracies are more likely to exploit the dark web for malicious purposes, whereas users living under repressive regimes in non-democratic countries might be more likely to use Tor to circumvent local censorship restrictions and access free information on the internet.

Tor is used to bypass censorship. This use case happens more often in countries where there is censorship, and less often in countries where there isn't, because obviously. Reaching from there to "people living in liberal democracies are more likely to exploit the dark web for malicious purposes" is ridiculous. A higher ratio of B to A because of a smaller need for A does not imply a greater occurrence of B.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, sure. And while we're at it pigs should fly. Pigs have significantly higher density than birds and lack wings. Getting them to fly under their own power would be quite a challenge. By contrast, installing Tor Browser is actually pretty easy. > Your actual communications can be secure, but that doesn't stop a bad actor/government from picking you up and beating you with a wrench until you talk - if they get…

I use TOR in the US... You're not actually making a very compelling argument here. My statement is pretty clear - using a privacy tool can single you out. Am I afraid of that in the US? Nope, not really. Would I be afraid of that in, say, Iran? North Korea? Russia? Israel? China? Probably. > If you live in an authoritarian country and actively oppose the government, you are already doing something that will get you p…

> My statement is pretty clear - using a privacy tool can single you out. Am I afraid of that in the US? Nope, not really.

Which does imply that the "singles you out" argument doesn't really apply to anyone who is in the US or any country with a non-authoritarian government.

> Would I be afraid of that in, say, Iran? North Korea? Russia? Israel? China? Probably.

But in those cases your problem is the alternative. If you don't use Tor then you're trapped between the oppressive option of self-censorship or the even more dangerous option of not censoring yourself while also not using any privacy technology.

Moreover, the more people use it the less using it singles anyone out, and the more people contribute to making it harder to detect etc. See also Hofstadter's theory of superrationality.

> You know a clear way to avoid this risk entirely? Don't trust your communications to a public network.

"Just build your own internet" is frequently not a realistic proposal.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#578
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you feel if a stranger came up to you in the street and said they appreciated the wiki article you were reading last night? I think everyone wants “privacy by default”, they just don’t make the connection between this hypothetical and real life. In real life you’re still spied but nobody confronts you directly.

Why is that any different to my neighbour leering over the fence and saying he could hear me and my wife last night “having a good time” I mean he probably could hear it, and I hope no one on HN who heard their neighbour would bring it up on the street ! We do not have secrecy. We have privacy which is merely the politeness of our neighbours (which is of course a social construct of behaviour). The internet has given…

This is a bizarre take. Of course, no person is completely unknown to other individuals. While my neighbour may have access to that which allows him to make crude comments in the street, this is a physical limitation. It is not at all desirable that my house has information leakage. If it were feasible/cost effective to make my house completely soundproof I likely would.

The internet is different. There are trade offs to privacy just like the real world, but it is not physical. Encryption exists. It protects real people from real governments that feature oppressive regimes. It protects them _now_, not in some distant future where N protests, elections or uprises have toppled all government entities that abuse their power. This seems to be a lofty ideal that we should all trust each other, our governments, our isps, our web services.

I think the crucial part is choice. You are welcome to blog every wikipedia article you visit, or live stream every activity you partake in over Twitch. But this is not a requirement to use the internet.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would help negate that interference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

I get scared reading that wiki page. The fact that the Australians are powerless[1] to stop US operating Pine Gap on their own soil, says something about how important the stuff the NSA & co. is doing there. (Surveillance) Horrors beyond our understanding. 1: A good video explaining history & status quo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHMa-Ba-2Mo

Thanks, that's a fun video.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#580
post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drugs are sent to you and intercepted. You claim, though your lawyer, someone was just using your house as a drop and you have no idea who ordered them. They get your computer, you have Tor installed. Prosecutor argues Tor is only used for CP and drugs. Is that enough to convict? Maybe. If Tor was ubiquitous obviously not, but its very niche, and looking at a chart of use, its pretty much only used for drugs and CP.…

The trouble is that the alternative is worse. They come to your house, you don't have Tor installed and then, because you haven't been using Tor, they pull your search history and trawl through it looking for things to take out of context. Why did you do multiple searches for std::vector? Are you worried about sharing needles? You also read an article about caffeine, which is often used as a cutting agent. You've bee…

Yes, all good. My point was that you aren't being charged with having Tor in the scenario that was described. The existence of Tor on your computer might work as connecting the user to a drug sale.
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