Thus spake Maximum Camera (mk@xxxxxx): > On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 10:01 PM, Mike Perry <mikeperry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > 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. > > The problem is that such selective focus detracts from the project's > credibility. Most Tor users, although they might not understand the > technical issues, are not stupid. They will browse .onion sites, and > see that the most active ones are related to drugs and pedophilia. > They will try to run an exit node, and see the abuse (and perhaps feel > the abuse when they are raided by LE). They will see that many sites > block Tor IPs, and understand that Tor is often used for uploading > questionable content. > > Americans probably quickly adapt to that discrepancy, saying: ok, I > see â the âusersâ page is actually what they want, and talking about > the actual situation is politically incorrect; this is just like > photoshopping black guys into pictures [2]. But most international > users will be genuinely surprised. And it's not like it is that > difficult to be honest: these are the people who we develop Tor for, > these are the users who provide traffic cover, these are the current > users, this is the reason for the early adopters composition, this is > how we expect the userbase to shift through the following years, etc. Right. People who want to read a book on the topic can just read the mailinglist archives, I guess? Or maybe just read our FAQ? > > 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 > > That Table II is actually very interesting, and is the main reason > that I linked that paper (it's not on AnonBib, by the way). All the > entries in that table, except for the last two (âIllegal/Questionableâ > and âIllegalDrugsâ) are either non-existent or almost non-existent in > .onion-land (at least wrt. site activity). The last two entries, > however, are very well-represented. So if there was a way to get > .onion access statistics, then I would expect to find those two > categories (CP and drugs) completely overtaking everything else. .onion is another thing that is tragically failing to reach its potential because no one tries to make it useful for normal stuff. I rather intensely dislike the way it is being used now, but I also know that good use cases exist, and amazing ones are possible. Anonymized communication endpoints have the potential to revolutionize how people communicate. The ability to transmit a message to a hidden endpoint inside an overlay network allows for chat, email and social network sharing mechanisms that do not disclose your social network activity to observers or to infrastructure maintainers. This is an incredibly awesome and powerful tool. I worry deeply we'll lose it before it has a chance to develop away from just being used for thoughtcrime. Also, for a point of clarity, Silk Road doesn't exist because of Tor. It exists because of bitcoin. Not that I have any problems with the idea of private crypto-currency, but it's worth clarifying. > > 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? > > Actually, I just don't like propaganda. I am sure that no one would > make up all those make-believe descriptions of Tor users if Tor was > still a technical project, and wasn't being promoted by various policy > people (i.e., EFF, etc.). They're not make-believe, they are all real users. It seems for some reason, you just want us to *also* add "Lunatics", "Paranoids", "Hackers" and "Criminals" to that page, and we think that material is better off in the FAQ instead. Go advertise that stuff for your own tools, Mr. Maximum Camera. We think it's better suited for the FAQ rather than the main use case page. -- Mike Perry
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