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

[Mark McCarron]

Hidden hosting and general usage of Tor are, in functional terms, the same thing.  I remember the issue with Freedom hosting, but that is long ago now and this downward trend is still continuing.  So, no, I am not buying that this is a product of people being spooked.  Many of these sites arrived or remained even after the Freedom Hosting bust.

I think everyone needs to stop looking for excuses and start examining why this is happening and fix it.  Otherwise, this project is a waste of time.

Regards,

Mark McCarron

> Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 19:15:26 -0600
> From: mirimir at riseup.net
> To: tor-talk at lists.torproject.org
> Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Illegal Activity As A Metric of Tor Security and	Anonymity
> 
> On 06/25/2014 03:56 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.
> 
> I believe that most of the hidden-service sites that you allude to were
> on Freedom Hosting. Also, recall that the Freedom Hosting operation
> involved the deanonymization of many site operators and visitors. As a
> result, many other sites were likely compromised in cascade.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> You conflate "Tor" with hidden services. Hosting hidden services
> securely is indeed a nontrivial endeavor. But that doesn't speak to the
> anonymity that Tor provides for its users.
> 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Mark McCarron
> 
> <SNIP>
> 
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