> I am a political blogger in a sensitive country and I would like to > try out TOR to make my blogging anonymous, as recommended by Reporter > Without Borders (RSF) in their handbook. I understand that with TOR, > there is little chance of the government tracing my original IP > address when blogging. However, I have reasons to believe that my > Internet connection is under constant surveillance and since my > "blogging" from my PC to blogger.com is sent in clear text, what would > TOR help me in this case? Is RSF assuming that the government has no > access to its citizen's connection? I setup http://livelyblog.com/ with SSL from http://cacert.org/ which means that you are not sending plaintext when blogging. But it is easy to see that you have a connection to that site (but not what is transferred), so you should use it in combination with Tor. But you don't need to use mine, there are plenty of other good services, just make sure it's small and free-speech friendly. Blogger.com IS NOT. Refer to this thread: http://911blogger.com/node/4260 for information about the Google-owned Blogger.com service censoring blogs. As for your Internet connection being under constant surveillance, this is likely true and quite common in criminal tyrannical regimes like Norway - and something commonly done to activist in the rest of the countries within the NATO alliance. Now, if you assume your Internet connection is monitored, you should consider everything related to your computer-security in the context of being under total surveillance. For example, a normal telephone can and are being used as microphones with it's on the hook (This technology was developed by Swedish Ericsson in 1984, this is nothing "new"). So if, for example, you're using Skype and that connection is secure (computer security) then it really does not help much if government nazi are listening to you using your regular telephone while on the hook, using a parabolic microphone (the government terrorist only need to be in the building across the street and aim it at your window to listen to you) and on and on. Tor will make it impossible for someone who are looking at your internet connection to find out what websites you are going to, including services like the CIA-connected http://infowars.com/articles/bb/google_in_bed_with_gov_cia_says_former_agent.htm service Blogger.com. It does sound like you should use Tor for your blogging. But be very aware of all the other real world attacks you likely will be subject to outside of the strict field of your internet connection, where Tor does help. Tor does not help if the government nazi break into your home and place a tap inside your computer keyboard, or install a keylogger program on your computer, and on and on. One last little detail; you shouldn't use Tor for sending plaintext at all, because the operators of the Tor exit nodes can see and snoop the unencrypted text going from the exit nodes to the sites you visit. A rule of thumb is to only use Tor for unencrypted connections where you don't send anything (when you are normally browsing the web..), only use Tor to send passwords over SSL - and other encrypted - connections. Good luck. I used Tor when the criminal Norwegian government were monitoring my Internet connection, like in your situation. And even though it helped for that specific MINOR issue it did not help against all the other MAJOR issues typcially present when crimial regimes want to silence you, which is why I eventually fled that country (I'm not saying you should leave your country, leaving your friends, family, everybody, everything is .. quite sad, but .. sometimes it is the only alternative to government torture and harassment) --xiando(tm) 911 inside job. (Democrats + Republicans) == CFR http://killtown.911review.org/ http://st911.org/
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