Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
Yuri: Who/how will decide what resources will such comments be attached to? Where are they stored? You mention relay and tor app. But there is no such thing as tor app. Do you mean having something like distributed hash? Who will own such data? What is the way to ensure they don't disappear? How do you deal with abuse, spam? You are simply missing the point. The OP is the wise engineer/manager/painter who is explaining the immunologist he [the immunologist] is a moron because in 30 years none of the MDs and biologists have come up with a solution to HIV that is both cheap and 100% effective. So he [the egineer/whatever] has a Lenin type of idea: learn, learn, learn. Obviously the biologists and MDs weren't intelligent enough. Still, he [the engineer/whatever] is way too busy to spend any more time with such trivia. Take a look at the archives. I speculate that there is one like this one every month. -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 06:52:47 +0100 Andreas Krey a.k...@gmx.de wrote: On Wed, 04 Mar 2015 17:26:32 +, Juan wrote: ... Prime example : A country like china is firewalled so the pentagon can't spy on the chinese internet directly. Hence, tor. And how, exactly, does tor help in this regard? LOL! Are you playing dumb? Monitoring tor traffic that comes from china is a way to gather 'intelligence' about chinese 'dissidents' At any rate it should be fucking obvious that alleged censorship outside the US is not something the US nazi government should be concerned with. Oh wait. You are implicitly admiting you are nothing but a neocon. And of course, in a place like the US you're going to find extensive censorship in 'public' and 'private' websites. Hell that is American Freedom! In a united state people should be free to censor any kind of disent. You obviously don't understand the concept of a censor. Right back at you. Andreas -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
On 03/04/2015 10:05, Lee Malek wrote: I have an idea for a tor sub-project that would serve our purpose (fighting censorship) perfectly. I think your description is very vague, and lacks details, therefore inviting only generic replies. Who/how will decide what resources will such comments be attached to? Where are they stored? You mention relay and tor app. But there is no such thing as tor app. Do you mean having something like distributed hash? Who will own such data? What is the way to ensure they don't disappear? How do you deal with abuse, spam? You need to write the more detailed and specific proposition, otherwise your idea will die in comments in this thread, and will not go anywhere. Proposition should make it clear that such idea can indeed be implemented, only then it can attract attention and motivate some developers. Yuri -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
[tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
Hi, I am new here. I have an idea for a tor sub-project that would serve our purpose (fighting censorship) perfectly. This would be a different version of tor - a sort of sub-tor... and a browser plugin. Everyone that installs this version of tor would be forced to run a relay - but only for comments - no images, etc. The browser plugin would connect to the tor app and scan the webpage the person is on. The plugin would display on a drop down comments people have made using the tor comments system. They can of couse make comments of their own. I think this is a must for our purpose. So many news website block comments they dont like these days. If I had the programming skills I would get started on this. But I don't. So I'm hoping this post gets the ball rolling. With this kind of system plus using the tor website to market it, we could really change the dialog in this and every country. -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
This has nothing to do with people censoring tor users and everything to do with normal blogs censoring normal users because they don't like their comments. I am thinking mainly of the USA here. This will be a problem as time progresses. This allows sharing of information directly on news sites, safely and anonymously, completely circumventing their censoring of other political views. How is this not the place for something like this? Original Message From: michael ball michaelballris...@gmail.com Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 11:39:05 -0700 This isn't technically feasible-- for example, censored users in countries with slow Internet speeds (Iran, Cuba, Syria) would be unable to connect to the network by being forced to relay connections if they install the browser plugin. The Tor network relies on volunteers who have the ability to quickly and safely relay traffic to do so, and users who do not have those abilities are not at a disadvantage. Tor developers, community members and volunteers could better spend the time creating this system for something that yields more results, like actually encouraging the websites who censor Tor users to not do so-- they should rather use a CAPTCHA system or another form of human verification (that does not break anonymity). So many news website block comments they dont like these days. This isn't something new or exclusive to Tor users. Anyone who creates a website with a comment system can censor and prune the comments they don't agree with. I do agree, a separate comment system would be great at fighting the censorship by websites, but it isn't something the Tor developers should focus on. Good idea, but not exactly the right place. Thanks for the idea, and welcome to the Tor mailing list! -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 14:11:33 -0500 Lee Malek leema...@safe-mail.net wrote: This has nothing to do with people censoring tor users and everything to do with normal blogs censoring normal users because they don't like their comments. I am thinking mainly of the USA here. This will be a problem as time progresses. Don't bother. The party line here is to 'fight' for 'freedom' in places where the american imperialist military has problems gathering 'intelligence'. Prime example : A country like china is firewalled so the pentagon can't spy on the chinese internet directly. Hence, tor. And of course, in a place like the US you're going to find extensive censorship in 'public' and 'private' websites. Hell that is American Freedom! In a united state people should be free to censor any kind of disent. This allows sharing of information directly on news sites, safely and anonymously, completely circumventing their censoring of other political views. How is this not the place for something like this? Original Message From: michael ball michaelballris...@gmail.com Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 11:39:05 -0700 This isn't technically feasible-- for example, censored users in countries with slow Internet speeds (Iran, Cuba, Syria) would be unable to connect to the network by being forced to relay connections if they install the browser plugin. The Tor network relies on volunteers who have the ability to quickly and safely relay traffic to do so, and users who do not have those abilities are not at a disadvantage. Tor developers, community members and volunteers could better spend the time creating this system for something that yields more results, like actually encouraging the websites who censor Tor users to not do so-- they should rather use a CAPTCHA system or another form of human verification (that does not break anonymity). So many news website block comments they dont like these days. This isn't something new or exclusive to Tor users. Anyone who creates a website with a comment system can censor and prune the comments they don't agree with. I do agree, a separate comment system would be great at fighting the censorship by websites, but it isn't something the Tor developers should focus on. Good idea, but not exactly the right place. Thanks for the idea, and welcome to the Tor mailing list! -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
Seth: The traffic could be distinct because the system would be a duplicate. Almost like a tor light edition. People would be far more willing to host relays when you only allow comments and not images... If I had the money I would gladly pay for this myself. That's how important it is. In fact I considered creating a normal browser plugin to accomplish this... but the need for a server to hold all of the comments would be a centralized attack target. So this would decentralize things and come to think of it this would have to include decentralization freenet style. So it would take some work, but it would be worth it. Original Message From: Seth David Schoen sch...@eff.org Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 12:02:07 -0800 Lee Malek writes: Hi, I am new here. I have an idea for a tor sub-project that would serve our purpose (fighting censorship) perfectly. This would be a different version of tor - a sort of sub-tor... and a browser plugin. Everyone that installs this version of tor would be forced to run a relay - but only for comments - no images, etc. The browser plugin would connect to the tor app and scan the webpage the person is on. The plugin would display on a drop down comments people have made using the tor comments system. They can of couse make comments of their own. I think this is a must for our purpose. So many news website block comments they dont like these days. This is a major change from the existing approach of Tor and the Tor developers. First, the Tor project has only focused on preventing censorship by networks and network operators, not by web sites. The censorship-resistance approach of Tor has been that your ISP shouldn't be able to control whom you can communicate with, as opposed to that web sites shouldn't be able to control who can post there or what they can post. Although the Tor Project has been very interested in ways to encourage sites not to block anonymous users, there's never been an effort to force the sites to accept anonymous users, or to conceal the fact that someone is using Tor on the exit side. In fact, the Tor Project has specifically rejected the idea of doing that: https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#HideExits (If people want to block us [on the exit side], we believe that they should be allowed to do so.) Second, Tor has never tried to force people to route other people's traffic or to hide the fact that this is happening. Instead, there are a lot of cautions given to people who are considering operating exit relays. In your proposal, all of the users would be acting as exits and routing (some) traffic to the public Internet. That would tend to put unsuspecting users at risk because they'd start to be the subject of abuse complaints, including on their home Internet connections. (In some designs, people could also deliberately target specific people they don't like by posting threats through those people's connections.) That would also probably make running Tor a lot less appealing to some users because they wouldn't be given the choice about whether to provide exits for other people's traffic. Third, the distinction between comments and other kinds of traffic is one that requires a huge amount of programming to enforce, and that can probably only be enforced if users aren't using HTTPS to connect to the sites. The Tor Project and larger Tor community have been trying very hard to get HTTPS deployed everywhere specifically so that Tor exit nodes _won't_ be able to spy on or examine what Tor users are doing. If progress continues to be made on that front, the Tor exits will be less and less in a position to make the distinction that you suggest between comments and other stuff. (It might be possible to extend the Tor protocol to have comment posting be a special kind of exit, where the user explicitly entrusts the text of the comment to the exit node, which then makes its own HTTPS connection to the site and posts the comment. But that would be a lot of engineering work and would entail a new arms race with the web site operators, who would be able to update the HTML code of their sites frequently to stop Tor exit nodes from being able to recognize where and how to post the comments. So that's a lot of effort for a kind of blocking resistance that Tor developers don't necessarily support philosophically and that would be challenging to sustain over time.) Fourth, there are some other technical problems with having everyone be a relay. https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#EverybodyARelay -- Seth Schoen sch...@eff.org Senior Staff Technologist https://www.eff.org/ Electronic Frontier Foundation
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
99% of censorship happens on blog comments. This kind of project would help to force an open dialog. If we aren't going on the offensive against censorship we will lose eventually. The power is in the hands of those who control the message. And those who control the media control the message. This would allow us to break through the shit and get a counter-message out right on their own websites. There is a way to accomplish this. Also, we need to start thinking about message control, not just governments blocking certain sites. The elites fear the internet and anonymity because of the possibility of losing control of the message/ the dialog ,whatever you want to call it. Putting the message in the hands of the people is the best thing that could ever happen for US and the worst thing for them. Original Message From: Juan juan@gmail.com Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 17:26:32 -0300 On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 14:11:33 -0500 Lee Malek leema...@safe-mail.net wrote: This has nothing to do with people censoring tor users and everything to do with normal blogs censoring normal users because they don't like their comments. I am thinking mainly of the USA here. This will be a problem as time progresses. Don't bother. The party line here is to 'fight' for 'freedom' in places where the american imperialist military has problems gathering 'intelligence'. Prime example : A country like china is firewalled so the pentagon can't spy on the chinese internet directly. Hence, tor. And of course, in a place like the US you're going to find extensive censorship in 'public' and 'private' websites. Hell that is American Freedom! In a united state people should be free to censor any kind of disent. This allows sharing of information directly on news sites, safely and anonymously, completely circumventing their censoring of other political views. How is this not the place for something like this? Original Message From: michael ball michaelballris...@gmail.com Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 11:39:05 -0700 This isn't technically feasible-- for example, censored users in countries with slow Internet speeds (Iran, Cuba, Syria) would be unable to connect to the network by being forced to relay connections if they install the browser plugin. The Tor network relies on volunteers who have the ability to quickly and safely relay traffic to do so, and users who do not have those abilities are not at a disadvantage. Tor developers, community members and volunteers could better spend the time creating this system for something that yields more results, like actually encouraging the websites who censor Tor users to not do so-- they should rather use a CAPTCHA system or another form of human verification (that does not break anonymity). So many news website block comments they dont like these days. This isn't something new or exclusive to Tor users. Anyone who creates a website with a comment system can censor and prune the comments they don't agree with. I do agree, a separate comment system would be great at fighting the censorship by websites, but it isn't something the Tor developers should focus on. Good idea, but not exactly the right place. Thanks for the idea, and welcome to the Tor mailing list! -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
Lee Malek writes: Hi, I am new here. I have an idea for a tor sub-project that would serve our purpose (fighting censorship) perfectly. This would be a different version of tor - a sort of sub-tor... and a browser plugin. Everyone that installs this version of tor would be forced to run a relay - but only for comments - no images, etc. The browser plugin would connect to the tor app and scan the webpage the person is on. The plugin would display on a drop down comments people have made using the tor comments system. They can of couse make comments of their own. I think this is a must for our purpose. So many news website block comments they dont like these days. This is a major change from the existing approach of Tor and the Tor developers. First, the Tor project has only focused on preventing censorship by networks and network operators, not by web sites. The censorship-resistance approach of Tor has been that your ISP shouldn't be able to control whom you can communicate with, as opposed to that web sites shouldn't be able to control who can post there or what they can post. Although the Tor Project has been very interested in ways to encourage sites not to block anonymous users, there's never been an effort to force the sites to accept anonymous users, or to conceal the fact that someone is using Tor on the exit side. In fact, the Tor Project has specifically rejected the idea of doing that: https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#HideExits (If people want to block us [on the exit side], we believe that they should be allowed to do so.) Second, Tor has never tried to force people to route other people's traffic or to hide the fact that this is happening. Instead, there are a lot of cautions given to people who are considering operating exit relays. In your proposal, all of the users would be acting as exits and routing (some) traffic to the public Internet. That would tend to put unsuspecting users at risk because they'd start to be the subject of abuse complaints, including on their home Internet connections. (In some designs, people could also deliberately target specific people they don't like by posting threats through those people's connections.) That would also probably make running Tor a lot less appealing to some users because they wouldn't be given the choice about whether to provide exits for other people's traffic. Third, the distinction between comments and other kinds of traffic is one that requires a huge amount of programming to enforce, and that can probably only be enforced if users aren't using HTTPS to connect to the sites. The Tor Project and larger Tor community have been trying very hard to get HTTPS deployed everywhere specifically so that Tor exit nodes _won't_ be able to spy on or examine what Tor users are doing. If progress continues to be made on that front, the Tor exits will be less and less in a position to make the distinction that you suggest between comments and other stuff. (It might be possible to extend the Tor protocol to have comment posting be a special kind of exit, where the user explicitly entrusts the text of the comment to the exit node, which then makes its own HTTPS connection to the site and posts the comment. But that would be a lot of engineering work and would entail a new arms race with the web site operators, who would be able to update the HTML code of their sites frequently to stop Tor exit nodes from being able to recognize where and how to post the comments. So that's a lot of effort for a kind of blocking resistance that Tor developers don't necessarily support philosophically and that would be challenging to sustain over time.) Fourth, there are some other technical problems with having everyone be a relay. https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#EverybodyARelay -- Seth Schoen sch...@eff.org Senior Staff Technologist https://www.eff.org/ Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org/join 815 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA 94109 +1 415 436 9333 x107 -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
This isn't technically feasible-- for example, censored users in countries with slow Internet speeds (Iran, Cuba, Syria) would be unable to connect to the network by being forced to relay connections if they install the browser plugin. The Tor network relies on volunteers who have the ability to quickly and safely relay traffic to do so, and users who do not have those abilities are not at a disadvantage. Tor developers, community members and volunteers could better spend the time creating this system for something that yields more results, like actually encouraging the websites who censor Tor users to not do so-- they should rather use a CAPTCHA system or another form of human verification (that does not break anonymity). So many news website block comments they dont like these days. This isn't something new or exclusive to Tor users. Anyone who creates a website with a comment system can censor and prune the comments they don't agree with. I do agree, a separate comment system would be great at fighting the censorship by websites, but it isn't something the Tor developers should focus on. Good idea, but not exactly the right place. Thanks for the idea, and welcome to the Tor mailing list! -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 15:33:28 -0500
Lee Malek leema...@safe-mail.net wrote:
99% of censorship happens on blog comments. This kind of project
would help to force an open dialog.
Yes it is a good idea. As a matter of fact I vaguely remember
a browser addon that would let people do exactly that : you
could add comments to websites and the comments were not stored
on the site but on...a different server run by the people who
created the addon? I never really investigated it.
To make it 'censorship resistent' the comments would have to be
stored in a freenet-like database. Actually, all you need is a
browser plugin that can store content in freenet. You don't
need tor.
If we aren't going on the offensive against censorship we will lose
eventually. The power is in the hands of those who control the
message. And those who control the media control the message. This
would allow us to break through the shit and get a counter-message
out right on their own websites.
There is a way to accomplish this.
Also, we need to start thinking about message control, not just
governments blocking certain sites. The elites fear the internet and
anonymity because of the possibility of losing control of the
message/ the dialog ,whatever you want to call it.
Putting the message in the hands of the people is the best thing that
could ever happen for US and the worst thing for them.
Original Message
From: Juan juan@gmail.com
Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org
To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 17:26:32 -0300
On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 14:11:33 -0500
Lee Malek leema...@safe-mail.net wrote:
This has nothing to do with people censoring tor users and
everything to do with normal blogs censoring normal users because
they don't like their comments. I am thinking mainly of the USA
here. This will be a problem as time progresses.
Don't bother. The party line here is to 'fight' for
'freedom' in places where the american imperialist military has
problems gathering 'intelligence'.
Prime example : A country like china is firewalled so the
pentagon can't spy on the chinese internet directly. Hence,
tor.
And of course, in a place like the US you're going to find
extensive censorship in 'public' and 'private' websites.
Hell that is American Freedom! In a united state people should be
free to censor any kind of disent.
This allows sharing of information directly on news sites, safely
and anonymously, completely circumventing their censoring of other
political views. How is this not the place for something like
this?
Original Message
From: michael ball michaelballris...@gmail.com
Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org
To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 11:39:05 -0700
This isn't technically feasible-- for example, censored users in
countries with slow Internet speeds (Iran, Cuba, Syria) would be
unable to connect to the network by being forced to relay
connections if they install the browser plugin. The Tor network
relies on volunteers who have the ability to quickly and safely
relay traffic to do so, and users who do not have those
abilities are not at a disadvantage.
Tor developers, community members and volunteers could better
spend the time creating this system for something that yields
more results, like actually encouraging the websites who censor
Tor users to not do so-- they should rather use a CAPTCHA
system or another form of human verification (that does not
break anonymity).
So many news website block comments they dont like these days.
This isn't something new or exclusive to Tor users. Anyone who
creates a website with a comment system can censor and prune the
comments they don't agree with. I do agree, a separate comment
system would be great at fighting the censorship by websites,
but it isn't something the Tor developers should focus on.
Good idea, but not exactly the right place. Thanks for the
idea, and welcome to the Tor mailing list!
--
tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org
To unsubscribe or change other settings go to
https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
--
tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org
To unsubscribe or change other settings go to
https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
--
tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org
To unsubscribe or change other settings go to
https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
On 03/04/2015 21:42:38 CET, Lee Malek leema...@safe-mail.net wrote : In fact I considered creating a normal browser plugin to accomplish this... but the need for a server to hold all of the comments would be a centralized attack target. So this would decentralize things and come to think of it this would have to include decentralization freenet style. So it would take some work, but it would be worth it. Ah ok, now I get it! I found your idea quite interesting but couldn't figure out why you insisted on reimplementing the Tor software. Indeed, what I would have suggested was to develop only a browser plug-in that would fetch content from a Hidden Service indexed by the URL of the page. (n.b. It would then be wise to send a hash of the URL to prevent information leakage through volume analysis and improve further on privacy server-side). Now, as for decentralizing... It is much more both complex and hard to accomplish. Complex because of the bolder programming task. And hard because you will imperatively need many users to make it even just work. Bitcoin is successful on this point because it offers in exchange many interesting features to users. Same for BitTorrent. I don't think a parallel commenting system will appeal enough to users for them to spend effort in running the infrastructure. One big reason is that there is no content yet. And I also think that the Tor community is too diverse to rapidly create enough content to make it interesting. (comments will initially be scattered around diverse websites.) But don't get me wrong, I think that this is a great idea. But even such, it's not appealing enough in my opinion to make it work in the way you envision. I would strongly recommend instead to start with a much simpler clients-server architecture : - Effortless for the users. This is crucial because the more people participate, the more appealing it will get. - Developing will be much faster. Easier to find people with the corresponding skills. - Then, nothing prevent to switch to a decentralized approach once there is a sufficient user base. Also, a centralized systems is not necessarily bad. Think about Wikipedia, their servers are centralized and yet the content's creation is completely decentralized. Finally and much importantly, the security features you want to get from a decentralized system, maybe you'd like to know that they are somewhat workable with a classical clients server approach. Anti-censorship, as an example, cannot be enforced as strongly but nevertheless, by implementing several layers of security it can do pretty damn well : - a Hidden Server is considerably harder to shutdown. If carefully thought through, it can even be seriously tricky to compromise. - Redundancy of both data and servers can then vastly increase the chances for the system to survive the eventual lost of the initial server. - A couple of crypto tricks can make the comments tamper resistant. Definitely, I think that this classical approach is much more workable and suited to your project. If you deem this suggestion to be acceptable, I will be enthiousastic to bring my share of thinking about any subsequent issues. One of which would be how to properly design the plug-in so as not to screw up the standardized browser signature, an issue on which the Tor browser devs spent so much time to work on. - aw P.S. I was browsing (clear Web) some Wikileaks cables the other day and was astonished to find out that they used Disqus as a comments system provider... Had I not had No Script to block it, they would have received the identifier of every single cable I looked at. Furthermore, the tracking disqus cookie + cable ID were to be sent in clear HTTP... So now Disqus + everyone else know what I read... Unbelievable to find this on Wikileaks website... Comments are a big part of the Web and I entirely agree, we need to secure it. Create a parallel system to host free opinions from the Tor community is definitely a wonderful and promising project ;) -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
On Wed, 04 Mar 2015 15:33:28 +, Lee Malek wrote: 99% of censorship happens on blog comments. That's not censorship. It's my freedom to decide which comments I host on my blog. (You can run your own blog to share your thoughts.) Censorship is when a third party doesn't let you access my blog (whether to read or to leave a comment), or when said third party forces me to remove comments. Andreas -- Totally trivial. Famous last words. From: Linus Torvalds torvalds@*.org Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:29:21 -0800 -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments
On 03/04/2015 06:33 PM, Juan wrote: On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 15:33:28 -0500 Lee Malek leema...@safe-mail.net wrote: 99% of censorship happens on blog comments. This kind of project would help to force an open dialog. Yes it is a good idea. As a matter of fact I vaguely remember a browser addon that would let people do exactly that : you could add comments to websites and the comments were not stored on the site but on...a different server run by the people who created the addon? I never really investigated it. To make it 'censorship resistent' the comments would have to be stored in a freenet-like database. Actually, all you need is a browser plugin that can store content in freenet. You don't need tor. It's been done, using alt.privacy, to fight censorship on Wilders Security Forums. Here's a little taste: | On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 22:20:36 +0200 (CEST), Anne Onime wrote: | | Simply The Best wrote: | I got tossed off Wilders Security Forum. I will pay to have someone | hack the hell out of that place. I need to know who Low Water Mark | is and who PooseyII is (I'm sure it is Ira Silverstein). | | Go to the forum and contact LockBox with your offer. he will email | me securely. | | Sorry to hear about your luck. | | I've run afoul of their jack-booted Admins over there before, for | little or no reason. | | Tell you what though,I think you're spot on. There are more sock | puppets over there than a medieval puppet show. | | And PooseyII sure the hell looks like one of them. | Ari Silverstein? Hehe. No doubt. | | Not Ari, his son, Ira Silverstein, I have him pegges for sure, | that's when LowWaterMark told me to either suck his jack or he | would boot me off. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/alt.privacy/mxuKB11LGPs/PBYxzv-wypcJ And it'll probably be online as long as Google is. If we aren't going on the offensive against censorship we will lose eventually. The power is in the hands of those who control the message. And those who control the media control the message. This would allow us to break through the shit and get a counter-message out right on their own websites. There is a way to accomplish this. Also, we need to start thinking about message control, not just governments blocking certain sites. The elites fear the internet and anonymity because of the possibility of losing control of the message/ the dialog ,whatever you want to call it. Putting the message in the hands of the people is the best thing that could ever happen for US and the worst thing for them. Original Message From: Juan juan@gmail.com Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 17:26:32 -0300 On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 14:11:33 -0500 Lee Malek leema...@safe-mail.net wrote: This has nothing to do with people censoring tor users and everything to do with normal blogs censoring normal users because they don't like their comments. I am thinking mainly of the USA here. This will be a problem as time progresses. Don't bother. The party line here is to 'fight' for 'freedom' in places where the american imperialist military has problems gathering 'intelligence'. Prime example : A country like china is firewalled so the pentagon can't spy on the chinese internet directly. Hence, tor. And of course, in a place like the US you're going to find extensive censorship in 'public' and 'private' websites. Hell that is American Freedom! In a united state people should be free to censor any kind of disent. This allows sharing of information directly on news sites, safely and anonymously, completely circumventing their censoring of other political views. How is this not the place for something like this? Original Message From: michael ball michaelballris...@gmail.com Apparently from: tor-talk-boun...@lists.torproject.org To: tor-talk@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] New Tor project idea for internet comments Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 11:39:05 -0700 This isn't technically feasible-- for example, censored users in countries with slow Internet speeds (Iran, Cuba, Syria) would be unable to connect to the network by being forced to relay connections if they install the browser plugin. The Tor network relies on volunteers who have the ability to quickly and safely relay traffic to do so, and users who do not have those abilities are not at a disadvantage. Tor developers, community members and volunteers could better spend the time creating this system for something that yields more results, like actually encouraging the websites who censor Tor users to not do so-- they should rather use a CAPTCHA system or another form of human verification (that does not break anonymity
