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Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

metrics.torproject.org

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Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#221

Post by abdullahkhalids »

withinboredom wrote: post #134
moooo99 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about the details, but I know Hetzner has quite a backstory with their servers being abused by spammers. I don’t know how the state is today, but maybe it’s not as unlikely as it seems?

If they even think you are spamming, you get banned. Pretty much closed to individuals (according to Reddit, if they don’t even like the way your ID looks, you’re banned) while businesses get more leeway to do things.

I have an account with them for my website/email. No problems. Even asked them to open up the IP for SMTP requests and they asked how many emails I wanted to send per month, and I told them it was my personal email and less than 100/month. They happily granted me access.

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#222

Post by 19h »

„These estimates are derived from the number of directory requests counted on directory authorities and mirrors.“

Depending on how these numbers are obtained, there is a non-zero chance at least part of this increase is caused by us.. note that this number is not indicative of the amount of users or origins (i.e. physical source addresses), but only count directory requests.

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#223

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

zirgs wrote: post #214
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak to German ISPs or anyone outside of these USA. But I believe that ISPs are absolutely the weakest link when it comes to malicious botnets and other types of widespread network-based compromises. ISPs certainly have the tooling and the positioning to be able to detect C&C channels, outgoing DDOS attacks, and compromised customer premises equipment. But do they? And if they do detect any of it, do they ta…

My ISP actually sent me an email that said that one of my devices have an open TCP 445 port and advised me to fix it. Apparently Windows opens it by default and it can be exploited by some malware. But I've never received a threatening letter about piracy. ISPs in my country simply don't send those.

Many ISPs have clauses in their TOS that prohibit running any server of any kind. So it may be the case that your ISP regularly runs sweeps to detect customers who are running servers, and this warning may be a side effect of that sweep.

I often used to poke holes in my firewall and run VPN or ssh servers that were discoverable using my dynamic DNS service. My ISP never got involved with that. Of course, that was a case of me running a server for my exclusive use, rather than some sort of public web or login server that would have randos sending traffic across my link.

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#224

Post by layer8 »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #206
riedel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting question is if there is a bot net spreading in Germany since the 17th of June. What would be the likelihood of that going undetected. If you like conspiracy theory, the rise in one country could point to state actors.

> The interesting question is if there is a bot net spreading in Germany since the 17th of June. A minor addendum: Looking at the csv file, it looks to me like traffic began drifting above the mean about June 6. From there I see a ramp-up, growing at an increasing rate.

That’s when the Kakhovka dam was destroyed, shortly after the Ukrainian counteroffensive began.

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#225

Post by ncr100 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #121
curiousfab wrote: post #7

From an average of significantly below 500k to almost 2.5M users. This drives up the global number of connecting users from approx. 3M to almost 5M. Hard to imagine that so many people in Germany suddenly switched to TOR, especially since there has not been any significant event lately that may have triggered such a decision (afaik)? My personal experience with TOR (as an administrator of various websites and service…

Note that the growth is not just in Germany. Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland also show jumps (however in absolute terms they are still much smaller). I would not rule out it's people or bots connecting from third country/countries through VPNs based in Europe... for whatever reason.

Is it a bug in a client that accidentally spawns sub-clients?

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#226

Post by suction »

0xDEF wrote: post #28
netsharc wrote: post #8

Maybe related to the Proto-Nazi party AfD winning a district a few days ago. And this 5 day old news story: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-far-right-afd-securi... "Germany’s far-right AfD placed under security service surveillance" - "The party is now treated as a ‘suspected case’ for far-right extremism". I wonder if anyone can see inside the right-wing chat networks and if they've been mentioning Tor. Alth…

As a Danish person who has been to Eastern Germany (outside Berlin) I'm really not surprised by the rise of the AfD. It's common to see people on social media praise Germans for de-Nazification and criticize the Japanese for not confronting their past in the same way. Those people have clearly not interacted with Eastern Germans. In Eastern Germany the underlying neuroticism, persecution complex, and willingness to b…

[dead]

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#227

Post by systemvoltage »

nebalee wrote: post #148
systemvoltage wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Germany is blocking news from French riots. What are you on about? The riots in France are on pretty much every news site in Germany.

More here: https://www.reddit.com/r/2westerneurope4u/comments/14nx7v5/t...

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#228

Post by justinclift »

CaptainFever wrote: post #128
justinclift wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably depends on what kind of service you're providing. I (a legitimate user) get blocked on websites when using Tor quite a lot. It's a pita. :( That being said, there's no chance in hell I'd ever put a CC or similar private info though a Tor based network connection. Just in case... ;)

> That being said, there's no chance in hell I'd ever put a CC or similar private info though a Tor based network connection. Just in case... ;) For HTTPS sites, why?

Paranoia. :)

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#229

Post by ZalorCakeLord »

zirgs wrote: post #214
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak to German ISPs or anyone outside of these USA. But I believe that ISPs are absolutely the weakest link when it comes to malicious botnets and other types of widespread network-based compromises. ISPs certainly have the tooling and the positioning to be able to detect C&C channels, outgoing DDOS attacks, and compromised customer premises equipment. But do they? And if they do detect any of it, do they ta…

My ISP actually sent me an email that said that one of my devices have an open TCP 445 port and advised me to fix it. Apparently Windows opens it by default and it can be exploited by some malware. But I've never received a threatening letter about piracy. ISPs in my country simply don't send those.

My ISP will send letters or emails, but only if they get a complaint from the company in question. Usually what ends up happening is a company watches a torrent, and takes down a list of all the ip addresses downloading it. They then send boilerplate complaints to the isps associated with said ip addresses, who are legally required to do something about it. My little brother got in trouble this way lmao, they sent a letter to our house about it.

Re: Drastic increase in Tor clients from Germany

#230

Post by Andrex »

maze-le wrote: post #113
concordDance wrote: post #104

Does anyone understand the mass flagging and downvotes going on in this comment section? I'm very confused as I've never seen anything like it.

Just the usual political flamewar that happens here from time to time, not sure why it escalates on some threads and not on others though.

Probably the posters involved. Blessing and a (minor) curse that HN doesn't use avatars. Harder to avoid commenters you know you don't like.
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