Earlier quoted context omitted.
Title of that novel please, sounds interesting!
See smcl comment. Very recommended, BTW.
Anathem is also fantastic, once you get into it.
Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
161–170 of 170 posts
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
a person's motivations need to be considered But how can we know a person's actual motivations? Those are internal to the individual, we can't see them. Heck, in many ways the individual himself doesn't really understand his own motivations. Trying to consider motivations is thus completely fruitless. We only have the history of a person's actions, and to a lesser extent, the history of his statements, to guide us.
Stop being naive. What is a used car salesman's motivation? It's reasonable to assume that their motivation is to get you to buy a used car. What is a crack addict's motivation? It's reasonable to assume that their motivation is to get more crack. These are somewhat extreme cases, but you can almost always tell what a person's motivation is by observing them. What is a married man's motivation for not wearing his rin…
so let's say motivation of the majority of Tor contributors' is helping Web users stay anonymous.
but there is also minority who wants to surf child pornography undetected.
and then there is really small minority who are there so that NSA can have a better look at what's happening.
what then will be the end result of the code produced and deployed do you think?
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was curious about this, so I started googling for how to do this. Sure enough, it's a bitch and the only way to really do it easily is to use a GUI like Tork. Not to mention I can't seem to figure out how you find his nodes in order to BadExit them, and I very seriously doubt his nodes will get listed in anything official. Anyone got good instructions on how to actually BadExit his nodes? I want to post them so peo…
Why would you even want to BadExit his nodes? Using Tor you're vulnerable anyway. Any exit node can snoop on your traffic or even change it. Enumerating some bad nodes does not substantially improve this. The above can only be prevented by using something like SSL plus a trusted certificate on top of Tor.
> Why would you even want to BadExit his nodes?
To further malign him of course.
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ad hominems are totally alright in my book, especially since everyone loves doing them to me and then bitching when they're done back. For example, your post doesn't have a single link giving counter evidence. You'd think you could bring some of that out but so far, in this entire thread, there hasn't been one link with counter evidence. There's been links to our twitter conversation, links to things supporting Tor i…
> Ad hominems are totally alright in my book Zed, find a therapist, please. You are a talented person but your mind needs debugging.
Ad hom arguments aren't mental illnesses. They're logically fallacious, which matters a great deal in ritualized forensic arguments but not so much in informal or general argumentation, where the attributes (particularly: credibility and authority) of particular stakeholders can often be very relevant.
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#165Ad Hominems are a-ok now are they? Well here's Zed's thought process: a) Read Greenwald Salon article accusing Wired of having shady connections. b) Roll that basic premise into a set of wild accusations and things we already know about Tor. c) Sit back and enjoy the whole chaos of the troll. When someone attacks bring out the usual sockpuppets and sycophants to say "but Zed does all this great coding", "Zed is not l…
What he is talking about is not Ad Hominem but Conflict of Interest. For example, a judge is required to recuse him or herself from a case in which he or she has a personal interest, such as a business relationship with the plaintiff or defendant. This is probably why Zed has the words "Conflict Of Interest" as a section heading in a very large font.
A COI argument is a form of ad hom argument. In ritualized debate, what should matter is the intrinsic value of the evidence each side brings to bear, not the identity, influences, or motivations of the sides themselves.
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ad hominems are totally alright in my book Zed, find a therapist, please. You are a talented person but your mind needs debugging.
Ad hom arguments aren't mental illnesses. They're logically fallacious, which matters a great deal in ritualized forensic arguments but not so much in informal or general argumentation, where the attributes (particularly: credibility and authority) of particular stakeholders can often be very relevant.
My advice is a friendly one. If Zed has issues that drive him to behaviour that's considered problematic, that costs him jobs and good will, I say he should try to look into himself with some professional help. Zed is a very talented programmer and I hate to see him in situations like the "Rails is a Ghetto" thing.
And, Thomas, "ritualizing" may be the only way to keep forensics sound. When you prove something, you want it to remain proved.
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, it's pretty much impossible to have any rational conversation these days. The majority of the technology speech these days is manipulative, flat out wrong, very anti free speech, and hyperbolic. When you start from that, there's just no point trying to be reasonable.
While I agree, you started the conversation by breaking Godwin's Law. I don't think Applebaum paid particularly close attention to your piece, but I probably wouldn't either in his position. A cursory skimming of your post reads as, "would you eat a sandwich from Hitler? No? Then why do you use software from Applebaum?" I don't think that's a fair distillation of your argument, but it is reasonable to think that some…
You not only got that backwards, but Godwin's law is not one that can ever be 'broken' — just because you haven't used Hitler in an analogy yet doesn't mean you aren't asymptotically approaching such a comparison.
Using der Fürher in an internet argument is a realization Godwin's law, not a violation of it.
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Appelbaum actually works on Tor then just BadExit'ing his nodes is obviously not enough. Even a clean compile (for the paranoid: do you trust your compiler?) from a fully audited (do you have the resources?) source code is not enough. In order to use Tor you gotta trust the other nodes, including the code that runs there.
I doubt Jacob is hacking his own code, he'd have way too much to lose and I do believe he actually loves the project. If he were to do anything it'd be handing interesting traffic off various exit nodes he and friends control to Wikileaks. That'd be about all I or anyone else could allegedly claim.
Especially since bad actors (including governments) have been running exit nodes and sniffing the traffic — Wikileaks got its start by doing it, and the Chinese got access to a bunch of embassy webmail accounts that way.
Tor exit nodes are already extraordinarily untrustworthy, one run by anyone associated with Wikileaks might as well be a chinese room with Hitler inside!
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thomas is very right, but I was more interested in my reasons why I don't use Tor based on all the crap I see going on around it.
Do you avoid software like FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, and all other software that fits the criteria of your post? Point is, you have shitty reasons and probably aren't consistant in your application of them. Government funding and a committer you don't like preclude the usage of a huge amount of software. curl -s http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/CREDITS | grep gov E: becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov E: snyder@fnald0.…
Funniest thing of all is that we seem to completely forget who "invented the internet":
Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn noted that, "as far back as the 1970s, Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system [and security regime]. -wikipedia [added]
Re: Zed Shaw: Why I Don't Use Tor
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ad hom arguments aren't mental illnesses. They're logically fallacious, which matters a great deal in ritualized forensic arguments but not so much in informal or general argumentation, where the attributes (particularly: credibility and authority) of particular stakeholders can often be very relevant.
My advice is a friendly one. If Zed has issues that drive him to behaviour that's considered problematic, that costs him jobs and good will, I say he should try to look into himself with some professional help. Zed is a very talented programmer and I hate to see him in situations like the "Rails is a Ghetto" thing. And, Thomas, "ritualizing" may be the only way to keep forensics sound. When you prove something, you w…
And, BTW, I wouldn't recommend that if I hadn't done it myself. Therapy is a very enlightening tool.