[tor-talk] Giving Hidden Services some love

[spencerone at openmailbox.org]

> Jonathan Wilkes jancsika at yahoo.com wrote:
> 
> This has long been a chicken-or-egg problem.  A general audience (i.e.,
> not digital security specialists) must know what hidden services do
> before they get involved in hosting hidden services (or even using 
> them,
> for that matter).  But to know what hidden services do, a general
> audience must be able to use hidden services that interest them.  If
> there aren't any that interest them, then consequently there's no 
> demand
> for anyone to create them.  So few people know what they do, outside of
> "hacking" and "omg darknet".

I do not agree that to understand what hidden services do that one must 
use them or find using them interesting.  I, as well as many ancient 
astronaut theorists, contend, that the explanation on the Tor Project's 
Hidden Services section of their website needs to be more ... something 
[I was thinking 'Clear', but if you understand the concepts, then it is 
most likely quite clear].

It starts out with a very simple claim about anonymity being the purpose 
of using hidden services, but then, as it goes on to explain how that 
works, it gets a bit confusing, mentioning things like "rendezvous 
points", "relays", "circuits", "introduction points", "hidden service 
descriptors", "public keys", "distributed hash tables", 
"XYZ=16characters.onion", "one-time secrets" "introduce/rendezvous 
messages", "entry guards", "entry nodes", & "end-to-end 
encryption/decryption", which do not make sense to most people [Dad].

To me, understanding some of these concepts, it seems like a closed 
network that overlays the internet protocol with a security blanket.  
But is this accurate?  Is this needed?  How does this differ from p2p, 
or does it then become p2p?  Is it comparable to Dotcom's Meganet, which 
is supposed to be non IP?  Other than not using the exit relays, what 
value does it provide that Tor on the regular web does not?  Also, and 
this goes in a slightly different direction so ignore, why is Tor using 
some relays to exit and not all?

I would like to communicate p2p but if scrambling my middleman 
connections is the better [more secure] option then I would like to 
know.  Also, does this series of relays count as a third party, 
ultimately classifying my content [whatever I am communicating] as 
public knowledge?

Also, I think saying "Hey, fbook uses it." does nothing to help people 
map the concept in their mind.

Awesome,
SpencerOne