windows

["Zinco" <zinco@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

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>"Note that Windows machines refer to themselves as "Unknown", so
>there are probably eight of them.  Closer examination reveals that
>four of the eight "Unknown" routers are unresponsive.  This suggests
>to me that perhaps Windows users are running into the problem
>observed by spy1 on #tor... and his intuition that this may be an
>effective deterrent to the proliferation of Windows Tor nodes is
>probably accurate."

I am not sure what is meant by "effective deterrent" here.  Does this
mean you guys would like to deter windows users from running servers?
 Or deter windows users period?  I understand you probably have a
dilemma it that if tor was only open to *ix and other open source
OS's you would have a smaller and probably overall more responsible
and mature community.  Restricting windows users kind of goes against
the principles of open source, collaborative effort, free speech,
right to privacy,.ect. ect.  I can see the dilemma.

Seems to me you have to go one way or the other.  I think opening it
up will have more good than bad.  I have no reason to run a tor
server on my personal home machine yet for some reason I am willing
to.  If I get an email from my ISP they will certainly here from me
and I will put as much pressure on them as I can as a customer.  If
enough do this it will start to push the pendulum back the other way.

>Matej wrote:
>But I think the real problem is becoming private sector. In US you
>don't have legislation >to protect information privacy in private
>sector (majority of legislation deals with >limiting State's power
>only), and very interesting sign of this problem is privacy in the
>workplace: since the employer owns all the equipment, it is
>absolutely reasonable he or >she monitors all the activities of
>employees. (This is not the case in Europe.)

Matej the problem in America is that the pendulum always swings back
and forth, and too far on each swing.  Initially the internet was
totally unrestricted and there was no way an ISP was going to give
out a customers info or block anything.  Now with all the problems of
spam, porn popups, spybots, viruses, the MPAA, the RIAA.ect., ISP's
are under tremendous pressure to do something about it.  Trust me our
Congress is involved.  They tell the ISP's, "hey we don't want to
regulate you but if you don't do this or that we will have no choice
but to step in."  A mother sits down with her young daughter to go to
a website and a porn ad pops up.  This creates tremendous pressure on
congress and the IT industry.  Now you are seeing the effects of it
going to far the other way.

Which is why I think it is time for us to put pressure on the ISP's
and whoever else is blocking things.  I would much rather have
control over my machine than have my ISP act as a filter.  This
however requires me to do a certain amount of work to stay educated
and use the tools out there to maintain a clean machine.  Most people
don't have the time or don't want to stay up on security issues so
they put the pressure on the IT industry.  I think you are right that
society is to blame because we overreact every time there is a
problem rather than trusting that the free market of ideas and decent
people will find a way of working it out on their own.     

Joel Rapin



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