Tim Starling wrote:
At least my proposal serves to highlight our differences in viewpoint. Tor supporters like to justify their existence from the moral high ground of protection against government persecution or industrial espionage. But what the bulk of Tor users are really interested in is obscuring their identity server administrators, and that carries with it a different set of ethical implications.
I can see the place of anonymity on Wikinews, for example - reporting about something you don't want your name linked to as yet. But I really cannot see that a case has been made for Tor-level anonymity if the mission statement is "We're here to write an encyclopedia." Even for regular open proxy anonymity.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
At least my proposal serves to highlight our differences in viewpoint. Tor supporters like to justify their existence from the moral high ground of protection against government persecution or industrial espionage. But what the bulk of Tor users are really interested in is obscuring their identity server administrators, and that carries with it a different set of ethical implications.
I can see the place of anonymity on Wikinews, for example - reporting about something you don't want your name linked to as yet. But I really cannot see that a case has been made for Tor-level anonymity if the mission statement is "We're here to write an encyclopedia." Even for regular open proxy anonymity.
You have a point, but I like to think of people in mainland China being able to edit [[Falun Gong]] without feeling a cloud of worry. Even NPOV editing might be misconstrued by some authority somewhere, and people have kids, jobs, families, and might prefer to just stay away rather than take a risk.
--Jimbo
On 9/27/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
I can see the place of anonymity on Wikinews, for example - reporting about something you don't want your name linked to as yet. But I really cannot see that a case has been made for Tor-level anonymity if the mission statement is "We're here to write an encyclopedia." Even for regular open proxy anonymity.
You have a point, but I like to think of people in mainland China being able to edit [[Falun Gong]] without feeling a cloud of worry. Even NPOV editing might be misconstrued by some authority somewhere, and people have kids, jobs, families, and might prefer to just stay away rather than take a risk.
Yeah. I'll see if I can gather actual data, not just an impression.
- d.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
You have a point, but I like to think of people in mainland China being able to edit [[Falun Gong]] without feeling a cloud of worry. Even NPOV editing might be misconstrued by some authority somewhere, and people have kids, jobs, families, and might prefer to just stay away rather than take a risk.
You cannot edit [[Falun Gong]] from China using Tor and feel safe. The Chinese government is in a position to conduct an exhaustive end-to-end timing attack on Tor, allowing them to trace Tor traffic from a compromised destination server or network back to its origin. See the Tor FAQ, section 7.9:
http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#head-0b1add301f9743cd3...
Perhaps this is why the Chinese government has not yet blocked Tor -- the false sense of security it gives may well make repercussions more likely, rather than less.
Tor is even easier to attack in small countries with few Internet users.
That's why I say: Tor doesn't have the moral high ground. A low-latency anonymous network allows juvenile bad behaviour but is useless to protect against government snooping. To hide from the government, you need a high-latency network.
Of course, hiding from the government carries negative ethical connotations as well as positive ones. Witness the use of Freenet for the dissemination of child pornography. It's a controversial matter, I for one am not convinced of the overall value of unassailable Internet anonymity.
-- Tim Starling
What about we block tor, and have an appeal system, with a committee that you appeal to, to be allowed to make an account and use tor. Of course, you would be at a much higher risk of being blocked, even accidently. But, I see no serious abuse of tor, that you can't do with an isp proxy (AOL et al), or that goofy-one-IP-address-for-all-of-Serbia-thing.
And, Tim is correct about tor's security. No anonymity service is completely secure, never will be. And unfortunately goofy people continue to suppress free thought. :(