Re: [tor-talk] access sites

[Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Apr 05, 2012 at 03:57:55AM +0300, Maxim Kammerer wrote:
> Table 2 (with Germany at the top) in [1] does seem to suggest that
> ?Privacy enthusiasts? represent a significant proportion of Tor users.

Notice that this paper is quite old. Since then Iran, has hit the "#2
country using Tor" mark:
https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html#direct-users-table
So I expect the ratios will be different.

>  I would also place human rights activists
> somewhere at the bottom of the list.

One of the important security properties of Tor is that is blends users
together. So if there are 10000 people in Saudi Arabia using Tor today,
and 5000 of them are using it to look at pictures of unclothed ankles,
that actually helps the other 5000 who may be using it for more diverse
(and potentially more risky) activities.

> The ?Militaries? section on the
> ?Tor users? page is most likely completely phony, though.

For what it's worth, it's the phrasing of assertions like this that make
people call your posts here trolling.

I am periodically invited to do talks for law enforcement about Tor,
and at basically every talk somebody there tells me they use Tor every
day for their work. See for example
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/talking-german-police-stuttgart for an
early report on such a talk.

I've heard from dozens of soldiers and intelligence analysts who use
Tor for their work. Is it such a stretch to imagine that they would want
privacy online too, even if the adversaries they worry about aren't the
same ones you worry about?

This diversity of concerns is part of what makes Tor strong.

--Roger

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