Re: [tor-talk] Tor as ecommerce platform

[Juan Garofalo <juan.g71@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 12:01 PM 8/10/2012 -0700, you wrote:

>Tor is a relatively new and underdeveloped technology, used exclusively
>by early adopters, technophiles, weirdos, and people who really really
>need it. We don't advertise. We're not in stores. This is because we're
>pretty much still in the prototype stage.
>
>As with most new and underdeveloped technologies, we're going to have
>our demographics dominated by those early adopters and weirdos rather
>than our target demographics.
>
>For example, in terms of number of users, I'd wager a top current
>demographic is "Paranoid Schizophrenic". If it's not #1, it's gotta be
>top 5. The more general category "Antisocial tendencies" is probably
>another top 5. "People who secretly view fully legal porn" is almost
>certainly up there, perhaps vying with the schizophrenics for the #1
>position.
>
>The early Internet (even as late as the mid-90s) was also dominated by
>these same classes of people. Eventually it became usable by the
>normals and the demographics shifted quite dramatically.
>
>We all work on Tor every day so that it sucks a little less each day, so
>that those demographics *can* shift. However, right now, it's only the
>extremes and certain niche elements of society who will suffer through
>using it: Dissidents, journalists, law enforcement, militaries, and the
>antisocial weirdos/crazies.


        I don't think I follow.

        Who do you think would be the 'mainstream' and 'normal' users of Tor?




>The Tor users page is in my mind a reflection of what our demographics
>will look like as we improve our technology enough to be useful for
>everyone who wants Internet privacy. We leave out the antisocial
>creeps/weirdos/crazies because they are not our target userbase, and
>their relative dominance right now is merely a reflection of our
>relatively early development status.


        But you actually are working...for whom?

        For the american military, cops and the fascist american 'public'? 

        I don't think those people need Tor - at all.




>No offense to the weirdos, though. You guys are my people :).


        Really? You don't come across as very friendly to the 'weirdos'.






>> > We have a FAQ (as you pointed out) to answer the obvious questions
>> > about criminal usage of Tor. We're fully aware criminals can and do use
>> > Tor.
>> 
>> So why not answer those questions honestly, and not pretend that users
>> are stupid? As I said, it detracts from the project's credibility.
>> Anyone who installs Tor (or I2P, for that matter) and explores the
>> hidden services, immediately sees the overwhelmingly illegal (mostly,
>> since it depends on jurisdiction) content. Anyone who runs an exit
>> node immediately sees that a sizable portion of the traffic is of
>> questionable nature. [1]
>
>Even today, this statement is not accurate wrt exit traffic. The handful
>of papers you and others have linked show that even with our current
>userbase, illegal and questionable traffic takes up a small percentage
>of the Tor exit traffic, unless you count all forms of pornography as
>questionable.
>
>In fact, the paper you linked even has an "Illegal/Questionable"
>category, and guess what, it's #42 at 0.15% of the traffic:
>http://planete.inrialpes.fr/papers/TorTraffic-NSS10.pdf
>
>I don't know what you're looking for, but perhaps your own desire for
>everyone to use Tor for "illegal and questionable" stuff is biasing what
>*you* find?
>
>
>-- 
>Mike Perry
>
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