Author: phobos Date: 2012-11-13 19:22:45 +0000 (Tue, 13 Nov 2012) New Revision: 25884

Modified: website/trunk/docs/en/faq-abuse.wml Log: add a new FAQ question we seem to get a lot.

Modified: website/trunk/docs/en/faq-abuse.wml =================================================================== --- website/trunk/docs/en/faq-abuse.wml 2012-11-13 16:48:51 UTC (rev 25883) +++ website/trunk/docs/en/faq-abuse.wml 2012-11-13 19:22:45 UTC (rev 25884) @@ -9,28 +9,10 @@ <a href="<page docs/documentation>">Documentation &raquo; </a> <a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>">Abuse FAQ</a> </div> - <div id="maincol"> + <div id="maincol"> <!-- PUT CONTENT AFTER THIS TAG --> <h1>Abuse FAQ</h1> <hr> - #<!-- BEGIN SIDEBAR --> - #<div class="sidebar-left"> - #<h3>Questions</h3> - #<ul> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#WhatAboutCriminals">Doesn't Tor enable criminals to do bad things?</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#DDoS">What about distributed denial of service attacks?</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#WhatAboutSpammers">What about spammers?</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#HowMuchAbuse">Does Tor get much abuse?</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#TypicalAbuses">So what should I expect if I run an exit relay?</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#IrcBans">Tor is banned from the IRC network I want to use.</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#SMTPBans">Your nodes are banned from the mail server I want to use.</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#Bans">I want to ban the Tor network from my service.</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#TracingUsers">I have a compelling reason to trace a Tor user. Can you help?</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#RemoveContent">I want some content removed from a .onion address.</a></li> - #<li><a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#LegalQuestions">I have legal questions about Tor abuse.</a></li> - #</ul> - #</div> - #<!-- END SIDEBAR --> <h3>Questions</h3> <ul> <li><a href="#WhatAboutCriminals">Doesn't Tor enable criminals to do bad things?</a></li> @@ -42,14 +24,17 @@ <li><a href="#SMTPBans">Your nodes are banned from the mail server I want to use.</a></li> <li><a href="#Bans">I want to ban the Tor network from my service.</a></li> <li><a href="#TracingUsers">I have a compelling reason to trace a Tor user. Can you help?</a></li> - <li><a href="#RemoveContent">I want some content removed from a .onion address.</a></li> + <li><a href="#RemoveContent">I want some content removed from a +.onion address.</a></li> + <li><a href="#AbuseOpinion">Where does Tor Project stand on abusers +using technology?</a></li> <li><a href="#LegalQuestions">I have legal questions about Tor abuse.</a></li> </ul> <hr> - + <a id="WhatAboutCriminals"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhatAboutCriminals">Doesn't Tor enable criminals to do bad things?</a></h3> - + <p>Criminals can already do bad things. Since they're willing to break laws, they already have lots of options available that provide <em>better</em> privacy than Tor provides. They can steal cell phones, @@ -57,10 +42,10 @@ in Korea or Brazil and use them to launch abusive activities; they can use spyware, viruses, and other techniques to take control of literally millions of Windows machines around the world. </p> - + <p>Tor aims to provide protection for ordinary people who want to follow the law. Only criminals have privacy right now, and we need to fix that. </p> - + <p>Some advocates of anonymity explain that it's just a tradeoff &mdash; accepting the bad uses for the good ones &mdash; but there's more to it than that. @@ -70,25 +55,25 @@ (identity theft) makes it even easier. Normal people, on the other hand, don't have the time or money to spend figuring out how to get privacy online. This is the worst of all possible worlds. </p> - + <p>So yes, criminals could in theory use Tor, but they already have better options, and it seems unlikely that taking Tor away from the world will stop them from doing their bad things. At the same time, Tor and other privacy measures can <em>fight</em> identity theft, physical crimes like stalking, and so on. </p> - + #<a id="Pervasive"></a> #<h3><a class="anchor" href="#Pervasive">If the whole world starts using #Tor, won't civilization collapse?</a></h3> - + <a id="DDoS"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#DDoS">What about distributed denial of service attacks?</a></h3> - + <p>Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks typically rely on having a group of thousands of computers all sending floods of traffic to a victim. Since the goal is to overpower the bandwidth of the victim, they typically send UDP packets since those don't require handshakes or coordination. </p> - + <p>But because Tor only transports correctly formed TCP streams, not all IP packets, you cannot send UDP packets over Tor. (You can't do specialized forms of this attack like SYN flooding either.) So ordinary @@ -97,10 +82,10 @@ for every byte that the Tor network will send to your destination. So in general, attackers who control enough bandwidth to launch an effective DDoS attack can do it just fine without Tor. </p> - + <a id="WhatAboutSpammers"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhatAboutSpammers">What about spammers?</a></h3> - + <p>First of all, the default Tor exit policy rejects all outgoing port 25 (SMTP) traffic. So sending spam mail through Tor isn't going to work by default. It's possible that some relay operators will enable @@ -108,31 +93,31 @@ allow outgoing mails; but that individual could just set up an open mail relay too, independent of Tor. In short, Tor isn't useful for spamming, because nearly all Tor relays refuse to deliver the mail. </p> - + <p>Of course, it's not all about delivering the mail. Spammers can use Tor to connect to open HTTP proxies (and from there to SMTP servers); to connect to badly written mail-sending CGI scripts; and to control their botnets &mdash; that is, to covertly communicate with armies of compromised computers that deliver the spam. </p> - + <p> This is a shame, but notice that spammers are already doing great without Tor. Also, remember that many of their more subtle communication mechanisms (like spoofed UDP packets) can't be used over Tor, because it only transports correctly-formed TCP connections. </p> - + <a id="ExitPolicies"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#ExitPolicies">How do Tor exit policies work?</a></h3> - + <p> <a href="<page docs/faq>#ExitPolicies">See the main FAQ</a> </p> - + <a id="HowMuchAbuse"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#HowMuchAbuse">Does Tor get much abuse?</a></h3> - + <p>Not much, in the grand scheme of things. The network has been running since October 2003, and it's only generated a handful of complaints. Of course, like all privacy-oriented networks on the net, it attracts its @@ -140,15 +125,15 @@ to donate resources to the network" from the role of "willing to deal with exit abuse complaints," so we hope our network is more sustainable than past attempts at anonymity networks. </p> - + <p>Since Tor has <a href="<page about/torusers>">many good uses as well</a>, we feel that we're doing pretty well at striking a balance currently. </p> - + <a id="TypicalAbuses"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#TypicalAbuses">So what should I expect if I run an exit relay?</a></h3> - + <p>If you run a Tor relay that allows exit connections (such as the default exit policy), it's probably safe to say that you will eventually hear from somebody. Abuse @@ -182,13 +167,13 @@ get by following <a href="<blog>tips-running-exit-node-minimal-harassment">these tips for running an exit node with minimal harassment</a> and <a href="<wiki>doc/ReducedExitPolicy">running a reduced exit policy</a>.</p> - + <p>You might also find that your Tor relay's IP is blocked from accessing some Internet sites/services. This might happen regardless of your exit policy, because some groups don't seem to know or care that Tor has exit policies. (If you have a spare IP not used for other activities, you might consider running your Tor relay on it.) For example, </p> - + <ul> <li>Because of a few cases of anonymous jerks messing with its web pages, Wikipedia is currently blocking many Tor relay IPs from writing @@ -198,7 +183,7 @@ revealing their identities when publishing it (or don't want to reveal to local observers that they're accessing Wikipedia). Slashdot is also in the same boat.</li> - + <li>SORBS is putting some Tor relay IPs on their email blacklist as well. They do this because they passively detect whether your relay connects to certain IRC networks, and they conclude from this that @@ -207,16 +192,16 @@ but we have given up. We recommend you avoid them, and <a href="http://paulgraham.com/spamhausblacklist.html">teach your friends (if they use them) to avoid abusive blacklists too</a>.</li> - + </ul> - + <a id="IrcBans"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#IrcBans">Tor is banned from the IRC network I want to use.</a></h3> - + <p>Sometimes jerks make use of Tor to troll IRC channels. This abuse results in IP-specific temporary bans ("klines" in IRC lingo), as the network operators try to keep the troll off of their network. </p> - + <p>This response underscores a fundamental flaw in IRC's security model: they assume that IP addresses equate to humans, and by banning the IP address they can ban the human. In reality this is not the case &mdash; @@ -226,7 +211,7 @@ and an entire cottage industry of blacklists and counter-trolls has sprung up based on this flawed security model (not unlike the antivirus industry). The Tor network is just a drop in the bucket here. </p> - + <p>On the other hand, from the viewpoint of IRC server operators, security is not an all-or-nothing thing. By responding quickly to trolls or any other social attack, it may be possible to make the attack scenario @@ -236,19 +221,19 @@ special cases. While it's a losing battle to try to stop the use of open proxies, it's not generally a losing battle to keep klining a single ill-behaved IRC user until that user gets bored and goes away. </p> - + <p>But the real answer is to implement application-level auth systems, to let in well-behaving users and keep out badly-behaving users. This needs to be based on some property of the human (such as a password he knows), not some property of the way his packets are transported. </p> - + <p>Of course, not all IRC networks are trying to ban Tor nodes. After all, quite a few people use Tor to IRC in privacy in order to carry on legitimate communications without tying them to their real-world identity. Each IRC network needs to decide for itself if blocking a few more of the millions of IPs that bad people can use is worth losing the contributions from the well-behaved Tor users. </p> - + <p>If you're being blocked, have a discussion with the network operators and explain the issues to them. They may not be aware of the existence of Tor at all, or they may not be aware that the hostnames they're klining @@ -256,35 +241,35 @@ Tor ought to be blocked, you may want to consider moving to a network that is more open to free speech. Maybe inviting them to #tor on irc.oftc.net will help show them that we are not all evil people. </p> - + <p>Finally, if you become aware of an IRC network that seems to be blocking Tor, or a single Tor exit node, please put that information on <a href="<wiki>doc/BlockingIrc">The Tor IRC block tracker</a> so that others can share. At least one IRC network consults that page to unblock exit nodes that have been blocked inadvertently. </p> - + <a id="SMTPBans"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#SMTPBans">Your nodes are banned from the mail server I want to use.</a></h3> - + <p>Even though <a href="#WhatAboutSpammers">Tor isn't useful for spamming</a>, some over-zealous blacklisters seem to think that all open networks like Tor are evil &mdash; they attempt to strong-arm network administrators on policy, service, and routing issues, and then extract ransoms from victims. </p> - + <p>If your server administrators decide to make use of these blacklists to refuse incoming mail, you should have a conversation with them and explain about Tor and Tor's exit policies. </p> - + <a id="Bans"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#Bans">I want to ban the Tor network from my service.</a></h3> - + <p>We're sorry to hear that. There are some situations where it makes sense to block anonymous users for an Internet service. But in many cases, there are easier solutions that can solve your problem while still allowing users to access your website securely.</p> - + <p>First, ask yourself if there's a way to do application-level decisions to separate the legitimate users from the jerks. For example, you might have certain areas of the site, or certain privileges like posting, @@ -293,7 +278,7 @@ service, so you could set up this distinction only for Tor users. This way you can have multi-tiered access and not have to ban every aspect of your service. </p> - + <p>For example, the <a href="http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#tor">Freenode IRC network</a> had a problem with a coordinated group of abusers joining channels and @@ -301,7 +286,7 @@ coming from Tor nodes as "anonymous users," removing the ability of the abusers to blend in, the abusers moved back to using their open proxies and bot networks. </p> - + <p>Second, consider that hundreds of thousands of people use Tor every day simply for good data hygiene &mdash; for example, to protect against data-gathering @@ -314,11 +299,11 @@ people don't have a good measure of how many polite Tor users are connecting to their service &mdash; you never notice them until there's an impolite one.)</p> - + <p>At this point, you should also ask yourself what you do about other services that aggregate many users behind a few IP addresses. Tor is not so different from AOL in this respect.</p> - + <p>Lastly, please remember that Tor relays have <a href="<page docs/faq>#ExitPolicies">individual exit policies</a>. Many Tor relays do @@ -328,29 +313,29 @@ exit policies and only block the ones that allow these connections; and you should keep in mind that exit policies can change (as well as the overall list of nodes in the network).</p> - + <p>If you really want to do this, we provide a <a href="https://check.torproject.org/cgi-bin/TorBulkExitList.py">Tor exit relay list</a> or a <a href="<page projects/tordnsel>">DNS-based list you can query</a>. </p> - + <p> (Some system administrators block ranges of IP addresses because of official policy or some abuse pattern, but some have also asked about whitelisting Tor exit relays because they want to permit access to their systems only using Tor. These scripts are usable for whitelisting as well.) </p> - + <a id="TracingUsers"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#TracingUsers">I have a compelling reason to trace a Tor user. Can you help?</a></h3> - + <p> There is nothing the Tor developers can do to trace Tor users. The same protections that keep bad people from breaking Tor's anonymity also prevent us from figuring out what's going on. </p> - + <p> Some fans have suggested that we redesign Tor to include a <a href="<page docs/faq>#Backdoor">backdoor</a>. @@ -407,12 +392,48 @@ <a href="http://www.missingkids.com/">http://www.missingkids.com/</a>. We do not view links you report.</p>

+ <a id="AbuseOpinion"></a> + <h3><a class="anchor" href="#AbuseOpinion">Where does Tor Project +stand on abusers using technology?</a> + + <p>We take abuse seriously. Activists and law enforcement +use Tor to investigate abuse and help support survivors. We +work with them to help them understand how Tor can help their work. +In some cases, technological mistakes are being made and we help to +correct them. Because some people in survivors' communities embrace +stigma instead of compassion, seeking support from fellow victims +requires privacy-preserving technology.</p> + + <p>Our refusal to build backdoors and censorship into Tor is not + because of a lack of concern. We refuse to weaken Tor because it +would harm efforts to combat child abuse and human trafficking in the +physical world, while removing safe spaces for victims online. +Meanwhile, criminals would still have access to botnets, stolen +phones, hacked hosting accounts, the postal system, couriers, corrupt +officials, and whatever technology emerges to trade content. They are +early adopters of technology. In the face of this, it is dangerous or +policymakers to assume that blocking and filtering is sufficient. We +are more interested in helping efforts to halt and prevent child +abuse than helping politicians score points with constituents by +hiding it. The role of corruption is especially troubling, see this +United Nations report on <a +href="http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/2011/ +Issue_Paper_-_The_Role_of_Corruption_in_Trafficking_in_Persons.pdf">The +Role of Corruption in Trafficking in Persons</a>.</p> + + <p>Finally, it is important to consider the world that children will + encounter as adults when enacting policy in their name. Will they + thank us if they are unable to voice their opinions safely as +adults? What if they are trying to expose a failure of the state to +protect other children?</p> + <a id="LegalQuestions"></a> - <h3><a class="anchor" href="#LegalQuestions">I have legal questions about Tor abuse.</a></h3> - + <h3><a class="anchor" href="#LegalQuestions">I have legal questions +about Tor abuse.</a></h3> + <p>We're only the developers. We can answer technical questions, but we're not the ones to talk to about legal questions or concerns. </p> - + <p>Please take a look at the <a href="<page eff/tor-legal-faq>">Tor Legal FAQ</a>, and contact EFF directly if you have any further legal questions. </p> @@ -425,4 +446,4 @@ <!-- END SIDECOL --> </div> <!-- END CONTENT --> -#include <foot.wmi> +#include <foot.wmi>