[tor-philosophy] Protecting rights.

[Michael_google gmail_Gersten]

(Forgive the large quoting; this is going into a different thread, and
I wanted to keep the context of the discussion).

Background: Thomas Paine:  "He that would make his own liberty secure,
must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this
duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. " ~
Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, December
23, 1791

Tor is fundamentally about giving people some liberty, specifically
protecting freedom of speech when what you say is at odds with, or
against, the views of the majority and/or the government, and the
right to privacy, given the ease of third parties  (ad sites) to track
you, and governments to grab data from these companies.

On 2/28/07, Thomas M. Jett <free_dixie at dixie-net.com> wrote:
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> Michael_google gmail_Gersten wrote:
> > I'm doing a LOT of trimming on this reply.
> >
> >>  Yes, and this is, given the limits of technology, best left to the
> >>  realm of The Good Lord to handle ( the rules are in The Bible if only
> >>  people would abide by them.  There is something that the vast
> >> majority
> >>  of people fail to take into consideration, and that is the fact that
> >>  evil exists in this world.  It does, and while we cannot endorse it,
> >>  or go along with it, we do have to tolerate it in as much as we
> >> cannot
> >>  prevent it without actually hurting ourselves in the process
> >>  (reference the quote of Thomas Paine).
> >
> > Please, take a second look at this statement. I'm not taking this out
> > of context.
> I'm taking a second look at it, and a third and forth ect... etc...
> despite the fact that I've been up far too long.
> >
> > Yes, we cannot prevent someone else's ability to make a choice,
> > without that coming back and restricting our choices. Absolutely.
> Agreed
> >
> > You have chosen to say "The Bible has the rules of The Good Lord".
> > That's your choice.
> Yes, that is correct.
> >
> > You are choosing to say all of the following:
> > 1. The God of Abraham is Lord.
> > 2. The God of Abraham is God.
> > 3. The God of Abraham is Good. (Job, Jonah, and Ester come to mind.)
> > 4. The rules given to the generations from Abraham to Moses still
> > apply today.
> > 5. The guidelines and interpretations of those, as expressed by
> > prophets up til about 200 BC (old testament), or up til about 100 AD
> > (new testament), or by male rulers who kicked women out of the ruling
> > class through about 400 AD (Roman catholic church), or ..., are in
> > fact valid and appropriate in 2010 AD.
> Quiet correct, except that  you do not take into consideration that
> since the birth of Christ the world is under a new covenant, and the
> old covenant ( the one in effect B.C. while still a good general
> guideline is not literally God's Law.
> > 6. Any advice / prophets / instructions given to anyone else are
> > invalid. (See: Muslim, Taoist, etc).
> While I recognize that these philosophies may have something to
> contribute to understanding human morality and nature, and did the
> pagan Greek's, I do not recognize them as religions.  The only
> authority a Christian can recognize is the authority of God.

First, and minor technical, Muslim is religion. The God of Muslims is
the same God of Abraham. The question is, do you follow the second son
of the second son (Abraham -> Issac -> Jacob), or do you follow the
other family branch.

Mohammad, as I understand, has the same place in their religion as
Moses or Jesus has in Judaism -- a prophet -- a person, wise, able to
spot and point out problems with the status quo, with some inspiration
from God. (Your definition may vary).

Second, and major: As soon as you say that "X is the only authority I
can recognize", what happens? And why is this relevant to Tor?

Look at countries, and governments, historically.

The authority that I recognize is the constitution of the United
States, plus any government that is upholding that, along with the
common-law rights of the Magna Carta, and the statute rights, by
approved treaty, of the united nation's accord on basic human rights.
I might have the titles of those slightly off, doesn't matter.

The view that you express has historically lead to governments that
try to restrict people's freedom of speech, as well as governments
that try to track the opposition and eliminate them.

Both of these are what Tor is (a weak, but first step) protecting against.

Do you have the right to say "I only believe in the authority of God,
as redefined by Jesus"? Sure. Do you have the right to say what is, or
is not, God; what is, or is not, God's laws; what is, or is not, a
religion? Sure.

But you don't have the right to tell others that they are wrong. You
have the right to say that you disagree with them.

And when governments start saying "You are wrong", that is when we
need Tor to already be in large use.

Remember: If the only people using Tor are those with something to
hide, then the people using Tor can be easily rounded up, and charged
with "Crimes against the state".

I have nothing significant to hide; I use the name "Keybounce" all
over the internet.

But it is precisely because the people who need to hide need noise to
hide in that I use Tor.

(And I do hide. If you look at the first and last name on this email
account, you'll see that I'm doing a basic "protection against
database join" from companies merging and joining databases into a
large collection. Overall, that's minor.)

(It is relatively easy for a government sized attack to attack tor.
They have the resources to put in enough nodes to be 10-15% of the
network; they can force ISP's (phone companies and cable companies) to
filter packets and send things that match XXX to them for analysis;
they can track who the major nodes are, and require 100% packet
duplication from them from the ISP's. The solution is to make sure
that the total volume on Tor is really, really large.)