DuckDuckGo now operates a Tor exit enclave

[Michael Scheinost]

Hi all,

thanks a lot for your answers.
I did some additional reading and now have a vague idea how tor exit
enclaving works.
As far as I understand, enclaving doesn't break tor anonymity and
privacy. Quite contrary to this, anonymity may be even enhanced by it
(https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#WhatisExitEnclaving).

On the other hand, there are still some points coming up with the post
of Eugen that remain unclear to me:

1. Eugen is posting this text from
http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/08/duckduckgo-now-operates-a-tor-exit-enclave.html
without any comment to this mailinglist. This blog enrtry looks alot
like an adveritsment to me. Eugens intentions are hidden. So perhaps he
is connected to duckduckgo.com in some way or perhaps he is not.

2. Why is it offering HTTP
If duckduckgo.com really cares for the anonymity and privacy of its
users, why do they offer unencrypted HTTP?
Even if tor users are encouraged to use HTTPS, some of them will forget
doing so.

3. "This site requires JavaScript."
In my opinion this point is the worst: When I entered
https://duckduckgo.com with NoScript enabled (my default) I can read the
message "This site requires JavaScript." just below the search box. So
duckduckgo.com wants its user to turn on java script. But with java
script enabled your anonymity is nearly switched off.

Perhaps duckduckgo.com's primary intention is not offering anonymous
services. Probably they just want to offer another alternate search
engine. And perhaps they just think offering a tor enclave is a nice
addon. So perhaps in conclusion, they didn't think much about anonymity
and privacy. I don't know it.
But why was this ad posted to the tor mailinglist?

just my 2c, Michael
-- 
Michael Scheinost
michael at scheinost.org
Jabber: m.scheinost at jabber.ccc.de
GPG Key ID 0x4FF8E93B

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 262 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/attachments/20100815/73d64e7f/attachment.pgp>