Without knowing anything about the specific data generating the Tor usage graphs, they seem to follow expected patterns of human interest in big news stories. A large, sudden increase, then a sharp decline that levels off. Once the initial shock of an event is past, many people lose interest. Plus, media coverage declines - onto the next story. Going by many forms of current media coverage, some would hardly know the US is still engaged in 2 wars. At lower levels than several years ago, but still engaged and spending tons of money.
Plus, a lot of negative publicity and anti Tor propaganda, whether accurate or not, probably turns moderately interested users away. A lot of people are probably surprised and encouraged by the remaining increase in users from the pre-Snowden period until now.
# 2: Depends partly on how small a number are connecting to Tor and number of users accessing a site at a given time. And on the laws and government practices in your country. If you're the only user connecting to Tor network via your ISP @ 8:00 PM and there's only one connection to site XYZ.com from a Tor exit relay at 8:00 PM, it's a good bet it was you. That assumes an entity w/ the ability and desire is actually gathering the data at both ends, and that they care about the specific activity. In that scenario, if you're doing something illegal or it's illegal to use Tor *at all* in your country & the government is actively monitoring, could be a problem.
If they're only interested in users accessing what they consider anti-government, illegal or subversive sites, but you only access Disney.com, they may not care. That's one issue for Tor users in certain countries - you can't be positive how many Tor users are accessing a site at a specific time. This is a _very simplified, incomplete_ explanation of some concerns about using Tor.
#4 The Tor Project is pretty clear that Tor Browser by itself is probably not enough to provide reasonably reliable anonymity. Especially against advanced adversaries with large resources, and if you're doing something they are keenly interested in. If users' lives or freedom would be jeopardized by using Tor - at all or for a specific purpose, they need to study carefully other methods and practices to go along with Tor. Much is discussed on Tor Project help / documentation / FAQ pages. There's not a quick, easy to follow recipe to protect all Tor users in all cases, that I know of.
On 9/5/2016 5:32 AM, Andri Effendi wrote:
Hi all, 1. I was wondering why there is such a huge drop in Direct TOR Traffic? 2. Does a country/government with only a small number of directly connecting users pose a threat to the people using it in those countries? 3. Where is the most reliable source to find out how secure and trusted the TOR Network is? i.e. whether then network or browser has any known vulnerabilities. 4. Is TOR safe to use on it's own, do we need to use other tools along with it? Users from Australia directly connecting to the TOR Network appears on the steady decline, at least according to the metrics data. <https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2016-01-01&end=2016-09-05&country=au&events=off> Does this mean TOR Users in Australia will be under more scrutiny and danger? Here is the metrics on users directly connecting to TOR from Iran. Since January it has fluctuated significantly. <https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2016-01-01&end=2016-09-05&country=ir&events=off> 5. Can I still recommend TOR for people in Iran, or would that be dangerous and irresponsible? 6. Is there a visual display of the TOR Network as overall? (similar visuals to what vidalia use to provide) Thank you for your replies :) If you wish to reply to me directly PLEASE ENCRYPT your messages. Kind Regards,
-- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk