[tor-talk] Italy - third highest number users

[HardKor]

Should be intresting to compare the evolution of the number of Tor clients
with the evolution of the number of Tor servers.

HardKor

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:05 AM, vecna [ml] <vecnamcclaudio at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) <
> lists at infosecurity.ch> wrote:
>
> > On 9/19/12 9:41 PM, Paolo Palmieri wrote:
> > > It is also interesting to note that, after this, a sizable portion of
> > > Italian Internet users now uses a DNS other than the one supplied by
> > > their ISP, and usually a foreign one. This reduces the impact any
> > > further censorship imposed at the DNS level might have.
> > So dumb form of censorship... unfortunately effective for dumb people!
> >
>
> I'm not sure the Tor usage in Italy would be reduced as a censorship
> bypassing technology.
>
> as first, the DNS blockage is apply only for gaming. The general purpose
> censor tech in Italy is the IP-blocking, requested to obtain a "remote
> interdiction" of a server (every time a persecutor want to close a foreign
> server "to avoid reiteration of an offense". IP block  law is born for
> specifics content, then has been used in the most various cases.) anyway
> users overcome on this issue without Tor (they simply found a more or less
> similar, not yet blocked, service)
>
> as second,  I believe a certain percentage of users has start to be
> affected by the privacy advocacy. Maybe they not understand correctly their
> threat.. but I've got unexpected people that asked to me supports in Tor.
> and not because I was promoting Tor, just because "I'm the guy expert with
> computer".
> "Just for know, why you want Tor ?" I asked, "just to prove it, you know,
> for personal security during the navigation" the answer.
>
> And this remind me a common mistake of ours as privacy advocate. more than
> 10 years of conferences by winston smith project, various university with
> an eye for the human right apply to the network, had bring to a _public
> request for protection solutions_. ... plus, the advocacy moved the target
> audience from the technical people, to the "influencing people".
>
> As common behavior, when I/we explain the importance of some technical
> properties like "integrity" "end to end encryption" "metadata filtering"
> (applied to the public company, to the journalist, to the lawyers...) and
> someone ask "ok, but which software I need to use to obtain protection ?"
> you have two options:
>
> . explain the VPN services, explain encryption for browser plugins, explain
> the GPG, explain that some issue are not solved by software but only with
> aware behavior...
> . or simply: "use Tor"
>
> (closed source software is not acceptable in the answers :) )
>
> The second one is not the most technical truly answer, but it's an answer
> easy to be be remembered, and is the only software that with few clicks
> give an immediate feedback to the user.
> Just to be clear, I/we use the first answer, when there are time, when
> you're confident that your audience is not crumbing by sleep, and that is
> able to understand a technical answer more complex that: "this is Tor, use
> it". But is obvious that users remember tend to remember the simpler
> solution available.
>
> Ok, take this behavior, imagine these words spread continuously in the
> journalist environment and in the lawyer environment. After years of this
> inertia, you start to found free press in the underground station talking
> about Tor. and this is happen, it's not an hypothesis :) (just for
> Italians: Milano-X, free press, had dedicated a central page to Tor and
> panopclick, Nova of Sole24Ore talk about Tor every time a journalist need
> to drop a Tip about safety). And I'm not talking about hacktivism related
> press, but general purpose. dealing with more influencing people, aiming
> for their influenced users, mean that only simplified solutions would be
> spread.
>
> and if we can be happy about this Tor spreading, we know also that is not
> the correct path. It's a security tip applied to various and uncertain
> threat model. Tor its an easy answer, because is _the most usable tool_ for
> "privacy and security enforcing" that should be suggested to an user.
>
> I wonder if this behavior would bring more issues in Tor, than positive
> feedbacks, in a long term.
>
> I strongly believe, that if a suite of tools providing:
>
> censorship circumvent,
> browser security
> end to end encryption for daily communication
>
> might be accessible with easy like TorBB, the amount of Italian adopters of
> Tor would decrease.
>
> cheers,
> v
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