Re: Reduce hops when privacy level allows to save Tor network bandwidth

[Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Andrew Lewman <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> People who don't want strong anonymity should use VPNS, single-hop proxy
> providers, or setup an ssh tunnel somewhere.

I thought there were plans to offer officially offer a length-two mode?

In particular the current routing is annoying for hidden nodes and
exit enclaves as they get an extra hop.

The alternatives you suggest have advantages including improved
performance, decreased probability of being blocked, less load on the
TOR network, and possibly lower chances of funny business by unethical
exit operators.

But the user loses an opportunity to contribute to the TOR anonymity
set and further pigeonholes TOR into niche, borderline, and outright
socially harmful use cases.

There are a great many people who have merely encountered one too many
examples of the ubiquitious tracking on the Internet. For example,
Google's abuse of JS fake out the link target display and intercept
outbound links on search has been driving me nuts lately as it makes
it impossible to copy and paste links from the search results. This
makes me aware of and irritated by Google's surveillance.  If I take
up using TOR in response, I add to the anonymity set, I add to the
justifiable use cases, and I add a voice against inhibiting TOR
(either governmental inhibition or internet site operators blocking it
because its a frequent source of problem users).

I'd expect the performance impacts of casual users to be
self-limiting: People who don't really need TOR's properties are the
first to turn it off as it becomes slower.
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