[tor-talk] Hidden vs Clearnet Services

[Katya Titov]

Katya Titov <kattitov at yandex.com>:

> Raynardine <raynardine at tormail.org>:
> 
> > I do not like connecting to clearnet services from Tor.
> > 
> > I am not alone in this.
> > 
> > There are arguments about the reasons why Tor hidden services can be
> > better than clearnet services for users as well, but that would
> > derail this thread.
> 
> I would be interested in such a thread.
> 
> I use hidden services as well as clearnet services via Tor. This
> account *only* sends/reads email via Tor. I would welcome a
> discussion about the pros and cons.
> 
> To start:
> 
> By accessing clearnet services via Tor I am exercising a right and
> capability to remain reasonably anonymous. At the same time this
> allows others to choose an alternative form of anonymity, participate
> in a non-anonymous manner, or use other privacy-enhancing aspects
> such as decoupling identity from routing and location, all when
> accessing the same resources that I do.
> 
> Ready to learn the downsides to this, as well as the benefits from an
> all hidden service model.

Thanks all for the information, and sorry for the double post. To
summarise, I see that the issues can be grouped into three areas:
privacy, political and technology.

  The privacy side is about selecting what you require. This includes
  understanding how much information you are releasing to the site
  owner/operator, and how much you trust that person.

  The political aspects include strongly supporting privacy, keeping
  all your traffic private from prying eyes, etc.

  The technology side includes decisions such as choosing "Tor
  encryption" over SSL, remaining within a closed network, stream
  isolation, etc.

Raynardine, thank you for your thoughtful response. I understand and
support your concerns, but also think that there are different levels
of privacy the people need. Some people also need different levels of
privacy for different purposes and will create multiple identities and
operate them in different ways to achieve this. I also happen to agree
that many law makers are "elite criminals", but sometimes you need to
work from within the system to change or better exploit it and not just
exist outside it.

I treat privacy as a trade off, similar to the way I look at security
in general. The more secure/private the more restriction on what you
can do and how to achieve it.

Excellent discussion!
-- 
kat