[tor-talk] Pissed off about Blacklists, and what to do?

[Mirimir]

On 02/07/2014 01:55 PM, James Marshall wrote:
> As others have pointed out, the fact (?) that Tor users are no more likely
> to abuse may not matter as much as the *perception* that they are.  However
> unfairly, the perception of something often carries the day more than the
> facts, and should be addressed when possible.
> 
> At the risk of sounding self-promotional again:  I've touted using CGIProxy
> as a clientless front-end to the Tor network, but what if, as one technical
> solution here, someone used Tor to access a server running CGIProxy in
> order to access sites that blacklist Tor?  In other words, switch the order
> from what I suggested before.  It seems that this would get the anonymity
> protection of Tor, but would not be blacklisted as long as the destination
> server didn't blacklist the CGIProxy server.
> 
> Does anyone see any risks in that?  (Again, CGIProxy definitely relies on a
> trust relationship between the user and the owner of the CGIProxy instance.)
> 
> Note that Hulu doesn't currently work through CGIProxy, but I can
> prioritize fixing that if there's demand.
> 
> James

It's easy to circumvent Tor blocks by using VPNs and/or proxies. But
that does nothing to address increasing Tor blockage, perceptions about
Tor users, etc.

Simply blocking Tor exits arguably doesn't stop capable adversaries. It
just inconveniences innocent Tor users, and discourages some casual
trolling. Supporting evidence for that claim would demonstrate why Tor
exits is largely pointless.