[tor-talk] Tor and Financial Transparency

[Juan Garofalo]

At 11:33 AM 8/30/2013 -0400, Paul S. wrote:

>> >> 1. Respect our efforts on this front. We're doing our best with
>> >> what we have 2. Provide citations to support your conspiracy
>> >> theories of Tor's subversion
>> > 
>> > Tor is funded by the US government. Your own sources.
>> 
>> Indeed, it is.
>
>Right. And since no doubt at some point Juan Garofalo or someone else
>in this discussion will yet again "discover" 


        But I didn't claim I discovered anything, and if you think I learned about Tor's history yesterday, you are mistaken. 

        The fact that I chose to comment on Tor's politics yesterday doesn't mean I haven't been aware of those issues for a (far) longer time...

        I'm also making the general point that Tor is not useful against 'nation states', which go figure, happen to be the biggest threats to freedom - especially the US state. Is that no news at all? It isn't. And yet it sems to me it needs to be underscored.

        

>what we make every effort
>to be as open and pretty loud about as is practical, Tor isn't just
>funded by the U.S. government it was designed by U.S. government
>employees and contractors based on technology invented by
>U.S. government employees. You might see my "A Peel of Onion" for the
>history.  It's on my homepage http://www.syverson.org/
>
>> 
>> > Tor doesn't work against a 'global adversary'(that is the US
>> > government). Your own sources.
>> 
>> Note quite global, but at important places. Not sure how fine-grained it is.
>> 
>
>For the latest developments in making the adversary models and 
>network models as fine-grained as possible and the subsequent analysis
>you can see our forthcoming paper
>"Users Get Routed: Traffic Correlation on Tor by Realistic Adversaries".
>It's not on anonbib or my own homepage yet, but one of my co-authors has
>posted the pdf. See http://ohmygodel.com/
>And note that some of the issues identified have already resulted
>in changes to implemented Tor versions. And no Tor isn't perfect.
>Design improvements are ongoing. Constructive help would be nice.


        Thanks for the Johnson pointer.         

        I'm not sure if/why you're expecting technical help from me, or if it's a rhetorical trick along the lines of "either start coding or shut up" 




>> > Biggest 'hidden' server on the network apparently taken down...by the
>> > US government.
>> 
>> As it seems this was not the fault of the 'hidden service system', most
>> likely one hidden-service failed due to the software that was used,
>> which lead to the takedown of all hidden-services affiliated with the
>> one that failed.
>> 
>> > But you know what? I never said tor was 'subverted' by the US
>> > government. Tor isn't 'subverted' - it just flawed...by design.
>> 
>> Fair enough, if that's what you believe, then please make your own
>> thing. Create something better than Tor.
>
>Right exactly. 


        Wrong exactly. The argument that I can't comment on what you do unless I run a multimillion sofware project (and 'better' than Tor) is invalid.



>See all the research on the issues trade-offs, threats,
>designs, etc. that Tor Project Inc. employees, government employees,
>university and corporate researchers, and lots of others have done
>trying to design for a diverse userbase. www.freehaven.net/anonbib/
>is a fine place to start. If you can come up with better designs,
>we would love to have them. 


        And again the same pointless personal attack. Well, at least you didn't tell me to take my meds and fuck off.

        The thing is, I do not need to come up with better designs (that can't work anyway against serious adversaries), in order to take a look at what you do.

        For what it's worth : trying to have a diverse and big user base, and providing security for all users seems to be impossible. You either provide relatively good security for a small number of sensitive users, or relatively lax security for 'general' users. 


>Please share those rather than the
>allegations you keep making but offer no support for, such as
>"Tor isn't 'subverted' - it just flawed...by design."
>
>aloha,
>Paul
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