Re: exit counts by port number over 61 days

[Paul Syverson <syverson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 02:19:28PM +0200, Sebastian Hahn wrote:
>
> On Apr 19, 2009, at 10:21 AM, Tripple Moon wrote:
>>> Your list doesn't include for example 22 (ssh), which
>>> is absolutely essential for many of us.
>> Well see...from my point of view SSH is abuse of the tor-network, namely 
>> aiding in hacking other systems. (see my other posts for my logic)
>> To use SSH you need an account thats under normal circumstances is known 
>> on the other side, thus eliminating the need to anonymize your connection.
>> So yea i will advice all that read this to reject that port whole 
>> heartly...
>>
>> IMHO, the intentions of the tor-network are to provide anonymity for data 
>> connections where the other side does not _need_ to know who the 
>> originator is.
>> If i'm wrong there i'm sure it will be told so by many instead of one...
>
> Tor is _not_ just about hiding who you are to a service provider, but also 
> about hiding where you go from a local observer (your ISP, other people on 
> the same network, etc). Also, access of blocked services certainly is a big 
> aspect here. Same goes for hidden services - I might be the only person who 
> knows the address of my hidden service, and it's still a valid use case.
>

Right, just to underscore the point, this was a central use case that
we had in mind when we invented onion routing and when we designed
Tor. Also, if I want to, e.g., ssh from a hotel room while traveling
or maybe even a local Starbucks somewhere into my system "back home"
but don't want to announce to any local observers who/where my remote
system is.  The nutshell way we've expressed this since '96 is to say
that the purpose of the network is not to provide anonymity per se but
to separate identification from routing. If you want to be anonymous
from the remote server, that is a related but separate technical
problem to solve from the fundamental service of an onion routing
network. HTH.

aloha,
Paul