[tor-project] Onion sites vs onion services vs hidden services

Nathan Freitas nathan at freitas.net
Wed May 4 15:54:03 UTC 2016


On Wed, May 4, 2016, at 10:41 AM, Paul Syverson wrote:
> On Wed, May 04, 2016 at 07:36:23AM +0000, Yawning Angel wrote:
> > On Wed, 4 May 2016 01:30:13 +0000
> > Alison Macrina <alison at libraryfreedomproject.org> wrote:
> > > So, I want to propose that we choose onion sites or onion services
> > > once and for all (I'm in favor of the former because most users have
> > > no idea what is meant by "services"; it sounds too vague). Then,
> > > whenever we see somewhere on torproject.org or any of our
> > > documentation or whatever that still reads hidden services or onion
> > > services, that we kill it with fire.
> > 
> > Disagree, because this further reinforces the idea that the internet is
> > centered around port 80/443, and is nonsensical given some of our
> > prominent use cases ("Ricochet is based around Tor onion services" vs
> > "Ricochet is based around Tor onion sites".  One of these statements is
> > correct, and one is not).
> 
> To further Yawning's point and provide an example of using both terms:
> Ricochet is an onion service in which each Ricochet client
> creates a local onionsite that others connect to.

Actually, for me, the user of the word "service" is something that is a
machine-readable endpoint, an API or protocol, while "site" is a meant
to have some human-facing aspect that is able to be browsed or read
through a web browser or something of that nature.

I would say that Ricochet is only an onionservice, while something like
SecureDrop or Globaleaks would be an onionsite that offers onionservices
as part of the application.

+n



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