Launching Attacks via TOR Re: Hacker strikes through student's router

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 11/8/05, Dustin Eward <plasma at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
> If you leave your garage dor open, and go on vacation, you might just
> get some of your stuf stolen... Wether the theif drove up in a car with
> a tracable license plate, or did it with an Invisibility Cloak; doesn't
> matter.


Do you really think it doesn't matter? In the real world, I think it matters
a lot. Garage doors and houses aren't that hard to break into even when
things are locked. As someone else pointed out in an earlier discussion,
people lock doors while there's a big glass window sitting right next to it.
The reason they can do that is accountability. If you break into someone's
house, there's a good chance you're going to get caught.

That said, I think you've got to treat the internet entirely differently. If
someone invents the invisibility cloak, you can be sure that home security
systems are going to change drastically. For those who refuse to change,
should they blame the person who created or sold the invisibility cloak?
Certainly not unless they had some specific reason to believe the cloak was
going to be used for a crime. Besides, it's much easier to protect yourself
from criminals on the internet. Things on the internet are locked by
default. If you don't plug in that ethernet cable, you don't have to worry
at all. Any access to your computer systems is provided by you. I guess
that's the idea behind the garage door analogy. If all houses were
completely impenetrable except for the doors you create then the idea of
invisibility cloaks wouldn't be nearly as scary.

Anyway, on the internet it's already extremely difficult to track down the
identities of many who aren't using Tor. Tor just brings that anonymity to
the average law abiding citizen instead of reserving it for the criminals
who have access to arrays of zombie computers or whatever.
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