Re: [tor-talk] Tor and Google error / CAPTCHAs.

[Alec Muffett <alec.muffett@xxxxxxxxx>]

Actually, I just want to hammer this point home with a really _large_
sledgehammer.


Compare:

a sizable number of sites will always block anonymous traffic simply
>> because they can not monetize it with targeted ads?
>
>

Contrast:


> 2) for the compliance people you are turning the fact someone is using Tor
> from an amorphous "ZOMG DARKWEB MURKINESS SOMEWHERE OUT THERE ON THE
> NETWORK" - into a simple boolean signal which they can factor into their
> decision matrix, so that they get to keep their jobs when the regulator
> asks them "what they are doing about the darkweb which [the regulator] read
> about in Wired two months ago..."
>
> Having built this thing for your compliance people, you've also had an
> opportunity to explain how important Tor is for people who _really_ need to
> access your site, so it could turn into a huge "Block Tor!" thing, but it's
> more likely to turn into "let's just switch off the stuff we're worried
> about, for compliance reasons" - when someone accesses the site over Tor.
>


When the Tor community go around saying "We are Legion - Innumerable, and a
Threat to Advertising Revenue!"

...the truth is, folks:

a) Tor Users Are Totally Numerable - exit nodes are well-documented, sites
can just switch off ingress from Tor if they want.

b) Tor Users Are Not A Threat To Ad Revenue - because there are relatively
so few* of you.

However: if you Tor users go around _claiming_ that you are a threat to
ad-revenue, then memes like that get recycled and turn into Wired and
DailyDot articles which are read by "regulators" and "compliance officers",
who will then recycle this understanding as harassment or blocking of Tor
users, on the grounds of _zero_ evidence.  This is unhelpful.


The world's mindset needs to be shifted:

1) Tor is a network used by a few million people - which, globally
speaking, is a small number - to access sites with some degrees of extra
anonymity, extra integrity, extra certainty, extra security.

2) It's an open network, so quite a lot of bad stuff flows through it too;
but then that's true of the Internet at large, so the only possible real
distinction is the density ratio of "badness" to "goodness"

3) If people criticise Tor because of that ratio, the easy solution is to
help more "good" people use Tor.  :-)


So stop talking about Tor in terms of it being "A Strike Against
Corporatism / Advertising / THE MAN !".

Really, in that space, Tor is a drop in the ocean, and you are just scaring
a bunch of non-geeks from whom you will subsequently try to demand special
treatment for Tor in some weirdly co-dependent fashion.

Talk about Tor instead as an "enabler" of "better than HTTPS"
communication, especially for people who are in need, or who face
communications blocks.

    - alec



*but so important? :-)

-- 
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