[tor-talk] Illegal Activity As A Metric of Tor Security and Anonymity

[Joe Btfsplk]

On 6/25/2014 4:56 PM, Mark McCarron wrote:
> Basically, I keep a track of site numbers year-on-year, site availability from 3rd party monitoring and read comments on forums and chat.  From what I can gather, most of these sites were suspected of being honeypots due to their tendency to remove anything rape/violence related.  That is, they appeared sanitised in some way.  Then all of sudden, they started disappearing.  Some were connected with major busts of hosting providers, others without any indication what happened.
>
> Whilst it may be good in some sense, it states that Tor is failing in its primary task of promoting freedom through anonymity.  In fact, it would seem that Tor is having the opposite effect, silencing everyone through fear.  Certainly, some of this comes down to poor security practices, but that cannot explain the scale of what has happened.
>
> So, the question remains, what is wrong with the Anonymity and Security of Tor?  The software is compromised in some fashion and we need to understand this.
>
Good question.  perhaps w/ all the Snowden revelations about gov't 
capabilities (throughout the world), when engaging in any activity that 
could result in long jail terms - or worse, they're opting to err on the 
side of caution.

Given the overall state of unknown about who can intercept or decrypt 
what, I'd hate to stake my freedom or life on any software or encryption 
method.