[tor-relays] Politically correct?

[ncl at cock.li]

torserver at datakanja.de:
> From the information, i can gather on my own personal computer, i can
> see, that almost every operating system sends out greetings to servers
> in akamai's reach, a company that happens to have contracts with
> microsoft and whatnot.
> Reading about their business, i find every reason to believe, that the
> time to fight for anonymity on the net is long gone, that security -
> even from their perspective - needs more resources than any individual
> will ever be able to have at its disposal.
> Also, i am aware of the possibility to get tracked by the
> telecommunication provider anytime and without me noticing it.
The entire point of tor is that (in theory) anyone who can see who you
are, can't see what you're doing, and anyone who can see what you're
doing, won't know who you are. But: tor works at a routing level, and
you can be deanonymized through applications leaking data; this is why
things like Tor Browser exist, to mitigate a large portion of this
leakage. tor as a network seems to do a good job, probably the best form
of internet anonyminity, much focus is on deanonymization on the
application layer, simply because it has a wider attack surface and is
more likely to return a better idea of the user's identity, than say, a
potential IP address.

> My conclusion has been, that i am maybe 30 years too late in my activity
> to support tor - as a simple relay -. And the companies that seem to
> have most control over the internet (like google, akamai, and others)
> are in the process to control more and more of it, and only for that
> reason are fighting against malware like viruses and bots, and of course
> also fighting tor (by using honeypots as well as intrusion into the
> community to get as much information as possible about the people trying
> to hide in anonymity).
Facebook, Akamai, Google, and others have all helped tor in some manner.
Again, their tracking takes place at an application layer, and Tor
Browser takes steps to lower their ability to do so.

> This seems to be so true to me, that i begin to feel _guilty of
> nourishing false hopes_, that any individual could feel safe by using
> tor, irrespective of where and how legitimate/needed their requests are
> originating from.
You seem to be suffering from "Privacy fatigue."

> Seriously, i am beginning to think, that tor may be somewhat outdated
> nowadays, basically operating on old assumptions, about how the net was
> organised merely a decade ago. And not taking into account the reality
> of today, where our little community may not be all too useful any
> longer. Hard to hide some disappointment, as i used to be a developer
> many years ago, and find that no one - apart from myself - refuses to
> cooperate in the process of accumulating data, which provides the basis
> for semi-automated analysis later, and help some authorities to excert
> power and control over the population living on this planet.
Push for the turn: Many are complaining modern webpages are bloated,
causing everything from browser slowdowns, to unneeded data usage on
mobile networks and spreading malware. If something like 'Flattr' can
become popular as a way of supporting websites' income, it would pave
the way to kick ads off.