French PM rules out ban on public Wi-Fi and Tor

I think all of us that want things like Tor to exist need to start making sure we're users of Tor to do legitimate things on a regular basis. When people are asking for "privacy" on public wifi for basic web browsing, maybe we should be pointing them at the Tor Browser Bundle instead of a commercial VPN service, Hotspot Shield or the like.

I think there is a lot of talk around Tor's legitimate uses, but I think a lot more of us should put our actions where our mouth is and make sure we use Tor on a regular basis. Tor has a lot of uses that aren't underscored by its team or the usual privacy message:

1. Tor's great at getting around firewalls and web filters. Have a bad ISP that proxies everything? Torify. Stuck in a school in which you can't view materials you need for research? Torify.

2. Tor is cheaper than coffee-shop/public Wifi VPNs and is likely fine* for browsing the internet privately (note I did not say anonymously, since you will likely log into services from the Tor exit that will give up your anonymity.)

3. Tor hidden services are an easy way to set up a very secure connection to a remote service; the anonymity is just an extra feature. Do you live with five roommates in a house connected to someone else's NAT box, and he/she won't give you admin access? Tor hidden services are great NAT traversal tools. Run sshd behind a hidden service and you can shell into your own computer from anywhere for free.

The greater the critical mass of Tor exit IPs being used by legitimate people, also the less people will be inconvenienced by them places. I often use Tor to log in here to Hacker News, and I have to fill out captchas every now and then. If 10,000 people were using Tor to visit Hacker News, it's likely these would get easier or go away.

If we want these tools to be legitimate, we have to make them legitimate, not just say "hey, there are legitimate uses for it!" Run the browser bundle. If you have extra resources, run a bridge or a relay; you can even run a middle relay from your house with likely no ill effect according to the EFF. If you really have power and are willing to deal with abuse requests, running an exit helps everyone.

* Note I said likely fine because I wouldn't log into anything particularly sensitive from Tor. I personally believe a far greater proportion of the Tor exits are malicious to the network than the project wishes to believe, whether that means they are run by nation-state surveillance or people good at setting up transparent proxies.