[tor-talk] "Hidden Services" vs "Onion services"

[Mirimir]

On 11/14/2014 03:34 PM, Paolo Cardullo wrote:
> This was an interesting discussion.
> 
> I was just thinking of starting a thread on why people use the
> appellative 'dark' as for 'dark net'. I found it quite disturbing and
> offensive, also in a racialised way.
> 
> For example I have recently had this argument on Twitter with the
> author of this journal article:
> 
> Gehl, Robert W. 2014. “Power/freedom on the Dark Web: A Digital
> Ethnography of the Dark Web Social Network.” New Media & Society,
> October, 1461444814554900. doi:10.1177/1461444814554900.
> 
> His reply was that 'dark' only means 'out of light', where 'light' is
> obviously monitoring Google & co.
> 
> I strongly disagree and I suggest to drop 'dark' from TOR services.
> Funny enough, only the day after the chief of London MET declared:
> 'internet has become a “dark and ungoverned” space populated by
> paedophiles, murderers and terrorists'. This also can be seen with a
> shade of racism.

The fundamental point of Tor is anonymity re identity and location. Like
it or not, "anonymity" in English is deeply linked with "dark" and
"hidden". It has nothing to do with race. I doubt that our MET friend
would have kind words for anonymity, unless he acknowledged its value
for covert (aka hidden) ops against criminals. And in any case, some of
us are very fond of ungoverned space (and the night). "Night Vision" is
my favorite cut by Distance.

> The full report of this is here:
> 
> http://tiny.cc/i4ybpx
> 
> 
> (sorry for the ranting)
> P
> 
> 
> On 13/11/14 17:26, Mike Tigas wrote:
>> I already often refer to www hidden services as “onion sites” when
>>  introducing people to Tor, since that coincides with the one 
>> user-facing attribute they have: the .onion TLD. Much less jargony 
>> for non-technical users, and (as already noted) less ambiguous 
>> about what exactly is "hidden".
> 
>> Still not sure how I feel about non-www hidden services. For XMPP,
>>  IRC, SSH, and other uses, I still generally say "hidden service".
> 
>> But +1 for "onion site" or something like it.
> 
>> Mike Tigas News Applications Developer, ProPublica 
>> http://www.propublica.org/ @mtigas | https://mike.tig.as/ | 
>> 0x6E0E9923
> 
> 
> 
>