Re: [tor-talk] So what about Pirate Browser?

[Matthew Finkel <matthew.finkel@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 05:20:47PM +0000, adrelanos wrote:
> Jerzy Åogiewa:
> > Hello!
> > 
> > It looks that The Pirate Bay will enter secure browser market,
> > http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-releases-pirate-browser-to-thwart-censorship-130810/ & http://piratebrowser.com/
> > 
> > I do not understand why they do the same as TBB. Anyone know?
> 
> With the limited information at hand: they don't.
> 
> TBB provides anonymity and circumvention.
> 
> PirateBrowser focuses on circumvention, dropping anonymity for other
> preferences. As long they clearly advertise it as such, I have no
> problem with that.

I think I'm confused about what they're actually trying to accomplish.
It sounds like they took TBB, replaced TorBrowser with the latest
version of Firefox portable (with the addition of foxyproxy), updated
the configs, and added some bookmarks. They also added some magic that
"allows you to circumvent censorship that certain countries such as
Iran, North Korea, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, Finland,
Denmark, Italy and Ireland impose onto their citizens."

The one thing I always think about when I hear about the comparison of
censorship circumvention vs. anonymity[0] is something I once heard (maybe
from Jake or Roger, I apologies for not having a citation), but it went
something like "When you ask someone in China why they choose to use
Tor, they do not say it is to circumvent the strict censorship in their
country. They say that they use it for the anonymity aspect, because if
the government can censor what they are doing, then that means the
government *knows* what they are doing. As a result, if they can prevent
the government from tracking them, then they are also able to access
sites that the government does not want them to access".

Assuming I recall the basis of the quote correctly, this is an extremely
important idea that must be understood when dealing with censorship.
Going back to the PirateBrowser, if they are stripping out all of the
fantastic work Mike has done to preserve a users Anonymity (and the
packaging Erinn has done) and they replace it with Portable Firefox, I
don't think it can reach the full potential of "No more censorship!"
that they proclaim. However, I do think it is worth it to look at what
magic they use in Iran and North Korea. Is it more than using Tor and a
hidden service?

Just some thoughts,
- Matt

[0] http://piratebrowser.com/#faq
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