On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 11:39 AM, Tomasz Moskal <ramshackle.industr...@gmail.com> wrote: [snip] > Would you recommend using not Tor connection when one is forced to use > unencrypted protocols? I think I'm safer using Tor even with unencrypted > traffic that using "regular" connection but again I can be gravely wrong > here. What do you think?
This depends on the network near you and what risks you're worried about being safe from. If you're concerned about anonymity then sure, tor should pretty much always be safer. (Though will you have anonymity when you're "logging in"? It depends…) As for security against eavesdropping— I think you can say that tor is more secure in that regard than a network where you _know_ it's happening, and less secure against that than most networks where you are unsure. In some cases, however, even if eavesdropping is happening it's better if the eavesdropper is someone socially/geographically far away. I might be more happy about someone in japan, who mostly just wants my passwords, reading my private messages than the sysadmin at the local ISP who knows some of my friends personally. Eavesdropping is also usually far less damaging if the traffic has been successfully anonymized. Really, it comes down to this: If you do not use end to end encryption your traffic can be monitored or manipulated by a great many people— by hackers with access to the network between you and the other end, by the staff of network providers, potentially by commercial agencies that ISPs have sold feeds of customer data to, by governments along the path, etc. This is true regardless of Tor. If you use Tor than the people who can do these things are changed (e.g. some other ISP instead of yours) and possibly increased (the exit operator might be doing something nasty). What Tor provides is the aspects of privacy that encryption can't get you, but it doesn't replace end to end encryption. *********************************************************************** To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to majord...@torproject.org with unsubscribe or-talk in the body. http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/