[tor-talk] Tor as ecommerce platform

Maxim Kammerer mk at dee.su
Thu Aug 9 23:00:39 UTC 2012


On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 7:00 PM, Ted Smith <tedks at riseup.net> wrote:
> How would you do that without facing the same problem as someone
> wiretapping their own exit node? Do you have a CP classifier? Are you
> going to load each .onion and manually verify if it contains CP? How are
> you going to aggregate that into statistics?

Yes, if gathering .onion access statistics were possible, I would load
each .onion address in a top-50 list and see what it contains, or
search for the address if access requires authentication. The reason
is that I am curious and don't have an agenda to protect, unlike Tor
project policy people. Why do you pretend that it's difficult to do?

> I don't have to "bring my own references" to point out that the only
> *actually existing* "statistical" evaluation of illegal content on Tor,
> that provides the cornerstone of your argument that "The Tor Project is
> misleading the public about the use cases of Tor," is totally baseless.

The Reddit comment was an illustrative example. The argument is that
Tor is well-known for the illegal (again, depending on jurisdiction)
content that it provides access to (Tor exit operators aren't raided
just because LE officers are bored). People don't come to this list
and ask how to get on some political dissidents .onion discussion
board. They come to ask how to get on Silk Road, and ask on other
support forums for Bitcoin support, presumably so that they can use
Bitcoins on Silk Road to buy drugs. On .onion and I2P imageboards,
they don't ask where they can download LOLcats — they ask where they
can get more CP, and get directed to OPVA and other boards. I don't
care either way, but this is well-known information, which you are
apparently oblivious to — which raises the question: why did you
decide that you have anything of value to contribute to this thread,
especially if you have no references?

> You have no explanation for how that person reached that conclusion.

It's simple: he ran an exit node, and sampled the URLs that people
accessed via the node. It is obvious — that's what he wrote.

> I would like you to strengthen your evidence, and if you manage to produce something
> convincing, I'd agree with it.

I would like you to stop posting useless replies. If you have
something to contribute, be it a proposed method of statistical
analysis, a reference to Tor exit operator who actually sampled
accessed URLs, or anything else, then great, otherwise you are not
bringing any new information or non-trivial conclusions to the table.
Calling someone sharing their experience a troll or a false flag can
be interesting psychologically, but it has no merit otherwise.

-- 
Maxim Kammerer
Liberté Linux: http://dee.su/liberte


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