Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward.
From: "Eliah Kagan" <degeneracypressure () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 17:43:27 -0800
On 6/6/06, John Sprocket wrote:
hehe. look at it metaphorically (like guest inside establishment) you're head of security at a casino you monitor a specific area full of people/users. you have your normal people you can see and possibly identify if you so care. there's a group of people that walk in and are wearing clothing that is obviously meant to obscure their intentions. would you let them stay in your casino, or would you ask them politely to take off their masks? do you choose to accept fully anonymous people (only being able to identify them as being anonymous) into your establishment?
Suppose your casino has cameras, that show you the faces of these so-called "normal people". You think you can look at their faces and determine where they live and where they got their money? Because *that* would be a proper metaphor to looking at your server logs. The privacy risk to Internet surfers is often *greater* than that to patrons of "physical" establishments. This metaphor appears to be exceedingly contrived, beyond the point of even making sense in the metaphorical world. What clothing are they wearing to anonymize themselves? Are they managing to wear clothing that makes it difficult to distinguish them from others while at the same time not violating social standards of proper dress in a casino, not interfering in any way with the other customers, or causing any other customers to feel uncomfortable? If you can come up with some clothing that fits that description, then I would guess that most casinos would permit them to continue as they were. The locks on the doors to restricted areas in the casino will still restrict their movement and the security cameras will still enable the security staff to know if they are committing a crime in the casino, and to stop them from committing that crime. (In the casino, such a person could still be **apprehended** too, just as easily as anybody else, which is one of the reasons why it puzzles me that you have chosen this metaphor.) Going back to your previous metaphor, I think it is important to recognize that a public website is very unlike a private home, and more like a booth at a fair. Do you want to provide your identity to everyone standing behind booths at fairs, in order for you to merely **walk up** to the booth and take a look? When it comes right down to it, the owner of a private website is perfectly free to choose to try to block tor. That behavior threatens the legitimate interests of legitimate users, but is certainly within the rights of the owner. And tor users are perfectly free to try to get around such attempts. That behavior is commendable, and certainly within the rights of tor users. (And don't go whining about clickwrap agreements for surfing websites--none of those are binding anyway, except in cases of e-commerce, in which the user of the site is actually engaged in a contractual relationship with the owner or owning entity of the site). -Eliah _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
Current thread:
- blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Joel Jose (Jun 02)
- RE: Blocking Tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Ali-Reza Anghaie (Jun 02)
- Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. John Sprocket (Jun 03)
- Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Tonnerre Lombard (Jun 03)
- Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Joel Jose (Jun 05)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Sol Invictus (Jun 06)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. John Sprocket (Jun 06)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Valdis . Kletnieks (Jun 06)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. John Sprocket (Jun 06)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Peter Besenbruch (Jun 06)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Eliah Kagan (Jun 06)
- Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Joel Jose (Jun 08)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. John Sprocket (Jun 08)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Eliah Kagan (Jun 08)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Joel Jose (Jun 08)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. John Sprocket (Jun 09)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Michael Holstein (Jun 09)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Rodrigo Barbosa (Jun 09)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Michael Holstein (Jun 09)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Micheal Espinola Jr (Jun 09)
- Re: Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Michael Holstein (Jun 09)
- Re: blocking tor is not the right way forward. It may just be the right way backward. Tonnerre Lombard (Jun 03)