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Is Tor still safe to use?

blog.torproject.org

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Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#391

Post by dunghill »

arktos_ wrote: post #309
voldacar wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started a tor relay on a spare vps about a month ago and it got guard status around 2-3 weeks in, so that info seems to be out of date.

Pardon my ignorance, but I thought it fruitful to ask: Are there any issues that can arise by doing this on a VPS? I ask because I know of stories of law enforcement sending inquiries to owners of, say, exit nodes requiring certain information about given traffic. I don't know if this happens for middle-nodes (or whatever they're called). Moreover, are there any issues with associating a node to, you know, your name…

There was a recent HN topic where person running exit nodes run into quite a lot of issues because of it.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#392

Post by dunghill »

alphan0n wrote: post #304
throwaway37821 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75% [0] of all Tor nodes are hosted within 14 Eyes [1] countries, so it would actually be quite trivial for the NSA to de-anonymize a Tor user. It baffles me that Tor Browser doesn't provide an easy way to blacklist relays in those countries. [0] Here, you can do the math yourself: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#aggregate/all [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Fourteen_Eyes > Edit: For all the cynics…

This entirely ignores the fact that traffic to and from onion sites never leaves the Tor network, never utilizes an exit node. It doesn’t matter if a bad actor has control of every exit node if your communications are within the network unless the underlying encryption protocols have been compromised.

But not all traffic goes to onion sites.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#395

Post by School-Cotton »

jancsika wrote: post #206
duskwuff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be irresponsible for it to do so. Ad blocker lists can inject scripts into web pages which could compromise user privacy.

In that case we're talking at cross-purposes, so I'll reserve judgment. I'm concerned with what let's call Gorhill's Web-- that is, the experience glued together by gorhill's Ublock Origin that is viewed by the vast majority of HN commenters on a day to day basis. What you're describing is the Web-based Wasteland that is experienced by the vast majority of non-technical users who view the web without an ad blocker. E…

I don’t think it’s true that the vast majority of HN users use ad blockers. I don’t, and I don’t find the web “practically unusable”.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#396

Post by pushupentry1219 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #373
ec109685 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just hit onion services that don’t require exit nodes.

How is that even possible? Unless you keep to hidden services underneath you do need an exit point to talk to the regular internet.

Comment is saying: never use regular internet ONLY use hidden services so you never need to exit the network through an exit node

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#397

Post by toby- »

deviantbit wrote: post #290

No. It is not. More than 1/3 of the Tor servers are run by US Federal Govt as does other members of the Five Eyes. Israel has a large number as well. Cases are built backwards or in parallel that are from the fruit of the poisonous tree. If you don't know what that term means, look it up. Use Tor with extreme caution.

>More than 1/3 of the Tor servers are run by US Federal Govt

Source? People repeat this claim and nobody every provides evidence.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#398

Post by USiBqidmOOkAqRb »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #137

I am interested in the “legitimate” uses for tor. I have not kept up with this but I understand it was designed by US Navy to make it hard for oppressive regiemes to track their citizens use of web. What do we want Tor for except as a hope that Russian citizens might be able to get to the BBC site? I am asking honestly - and would prefer not to be told my own government is on the verge of a mass pogrum so we had bett…

NAT traversal, on both sides!

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#399

Post by ciiiicii »

lapphi wrote: post #260
ciiiicii wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think many people seriously think that terrorists planning attacks to maim and kill people, and pedophiles sharing child sexual abuse imagery with each other, have an absolute right to privacy in such communications, nor that doing so is an example of free speech. Really it's a good thing that the "global adversary" is - almost certainly - keeping tabs on Tor traffic and tracking down who is responsible for t…

You sound like a stalin era communist. The secret police are spying on you for your own good!

Not sure what you mean. Gathering evidence is a vital part of investigating criminal activity. In the age of the internet, this includes evidence generated on computer networks, such as connection metadata from distributed systems like Tor.

Why, in your view, is this akin to Stalinism? It's just standard police work adapted for modern technologies, not an indication of totalitarian governance.

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