[tor-talk] Agnostic Tools: Code Dev and Support For

[grarpamp <grarpamp@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I'm interested in helping you guys with Tor development. I don't really care
> what I work on, except I do not support .onion websites (though I am willing
> to be convinced otherwise) so I would prefer not to participate directly in
> their development. I have plenty of experience with writing code

Folks in convo before have covered some of these areas
and more that one could surely find or think of...

Philosophical...

Why does someone want to support and develop for Tor, or any other
overlay p2p anonymity network, or crypto, for that matter?
When even a fix to the manpage could be read and used by onion users
and operators, same for metrics, lists, or any other part of the ecosystem.
Does one fear "bad" things, association, or support "good" things?
Does freespeech, anonymity, privacy, human rights sound "good"?
What is "bad"? Censorship? Theft, Dictatorships, Police States,
whether one's own, that of the Enemy, or that of the Oppressed?
Cryptocurrency, anonymity, free markets, privacy, messaging... "bad"?
"Good" [only] when used to defeat "bad" things inside or outside
of [mal]functional democracies that assert majority force over
minorities who have forced no one? Ricochet, Signal, GPG... "bad"?
New technology that forces change over old entrenched ways... "bad"?
Are anonymous forums where professional therapists give pro bono
counseling to even the most reviled, depraved, criminal, socially
scarlet lettered and outcast... "bad"? Materials and talk of religion?
Are datamining, traffic archiving, exploits, cleartext... "good"?
Tor has exits... do people realize how much of both what they like
to "support", and abhor, travels over those exits? The variety of
traffic there is no different than onions. Should exits be unsupported?
What about the internet, or printing presses, should those tools
be unsupported? Are they "bad", get their makers looked askew?
Onions, exits, internet, presses, hammers... all simply agnostic
tools. Tools can be used to build great things, to defend, or to
wield in bloody murder.
And what of biases over certain agnostic tools instead of over the
separate "good" or "bad" uses of them? Do other tool builders and
users have to wonder if their tools are being compromised by those
with such biases?
What of when those with biases end up needing the tools themselves,
what will be the tool quality, or their ability to do "good" with them?
Have people taken the time to explore the onion space to find and
participate in all the "good" things they like therein, to create and
grow them, or even engage in counsel and advocacy against the "bad"?
What tools would be needed to do that?

Yes, people are free to work on what they like...
including giving deep thought as to what they like and don't, and
why, and how supporting agnostic tools can actually fit with that.

Are not your pens tools?
Who likes those?
Who supports those?
What if they didn't?
Pens... write code.


Tech, fun, politic...

Amounting to consideration feature X may prevent or diminish a
better archictecture on balance for some higher importance feature Y.
That should be covered open devops as usual.

Or if the *technology* or *code* of eg: eepsites onions, or other
subsets of various projects are not in their interest or knowledge
practice area. Ok.

Or if the features provided by any overlay network or tool are
deemed flawed, and the technical or political effort to get them
fixed, or rearchitecture, or correctly advertised, or called out
within as bunk, is too high, therein it may be better to abandon
them and or speak out freely as such.
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