Re: Hacker strikes through student's router

[poncenby smythe <smythe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> [sarcasm begins]
>
> What do you think? As you probably know, before we started working on
> Tor, there was almost no such thing as computer crime or abuse.
> Everybody could be easily tracked down by their IP addresses, so
> anybody who tried to get away with naughtiness had to deal with their
> ISP and their local police almost immediately.
>
> There was practically no fraud, no defacement, no flooding, no abuse,
> no illicit access, no data theft, no harassment, no fraud, no nothing.
>
> [sarcasm ends]

so glad you tagged your sarcasm, I don't think I would have picked up  
on it :(


> I don't think these are "impossible questions"; I think they're
> answerable with a little thought, a little history, and a little
> technical knowledge.

As to knowing what the likely disruption to people would be if Tor  
didn't exist, I am not sure just thinking about it could answer this  
question, which is probably why I alluded to the question's  
impossibility.

as to history and technical knowledge, I am aware of freely available  
anonymous  proxy lists that people can bounce through, or even their  
own compromised network of machines, however I guess I meant the ease  
of which a Tor client is installed and ready to use - it is the  
beauty of Tor that with such ease comes an extremely powerful method  
of hiding.  An average user of computers will have no problem using  
Tor, however they might have a harder task tracking down open proxies  
and/or compromised hosts.  This is what I meant by causing disruption.

thanks for being condescending though, really helpful and encouraging.

poncenby