Some people use cars to crash into large crowds of people on purpose. Should automakers implement devices to make sure the cars can't be misused?
The reality is everything can be misused.
The reality is everything can be misused.
1) With a car without a VIN number / registration
2) With a car without a license plate
3) With no driver and no way to know who was controlling the car.
The point is, it’s not good to be able to commit serious crimes with zero risk of punishment.
The issue at debate is whether the gain from the legitimate (legal) use cases of technology like this outweigh the loss of making it easier for sex offenders / drug traffickers to more easily subvert authority.
In that example, there is legitimate argument that SSL encrypted connections to more good than harm (it makes logging into your online bank possible on public Wifi, along with 1000’s of other examples like it).
But I’ve still yet to see a clear argument for absolute internet anonymity for anything that would benefit the average person (yet, I can think of dozens of ways it harms people).
It’s very likely that I’m just not aware of the legitimate (practical) use cases of TOR.
anonymity doesn't make it impossible to be held accountable for your actions. people tend to (unintentionally) dox themselves without any outside help. what it does is make it a lot harder for law enforcement to catch people without specifically targeting them and investing resources.
I know you're an upstanding, respectable citizen who would never do anything illegal, but just think of privacy/anonymity as a hedge against that tiny chance that the government might actually make an unreasonable law.
On top of that, let's say that you do become a suspect of a crime you didn't commit. Every little shred of information that can be found is going to be used to paint a false narrative against you. Why would you want anybody to have ANY information on you at that point.
Surely you've heard of "the right to remain silent" and "pleading the 5th". Anonymity online is the internet version of that.
It's true that anonymity is a double-edged sword, but it's better than having no blade when one is wielded against you.
It makes internet banking possible, period. Cleartext banking, in any public Internet context, would be simply unworkable.
Absolute anonymity should be the default. There is no need to justify it. It's the government that needs to justify it's need to know stuff about specific persons.
If you commit, or attempt mass murder this way, you'll probably be caught due to the amount of resources a law enforcement agency will spend investigating such a crime. If you put up an anonymous website distributing child pornography, but you're not the one producing it, law enforcement will spend several orders of magnitude less resources investigating that crime.
- Should the layperson be allowed to own weapons-grade plutonium?
- How about being able to buy and cultivate your own anthrax cultures?
- Why shouldn't I be able to spray DDT when it's super effective?
Sure, a screwdriver is design to screw, just as fentanyl is designed to kill pain, but in the hands of a bad actors they can cause different levels of harm.
I'm not saying Onionshare is good or bad, just that you need to step back at look at any tool and consider the net potential impact if bad actors are able to exploit it.
You shouldn't limit smart people because some OEM is stupid and didn't think up an innovative use case when deciding and designing on the intended use of a product.
"I'm not saying Onionshare is good or bad, just that you need to step back at look at any tool and consider the net potential impact if bad actors are able to exploit it."
True, and that's why we must think very carefully before enacting laws that make this or that tool illegal just because some criminal found a destructive use for it; there are so many things potentially dangerous in the wrong hands that blindly banning them all would either be impossible or would bring us back to stone age.
I am not sure where Tor fits into that distinction, and I think that's the issue.
Otherwise it literally just is information.
(It seems that the difference may be in what exactly we consider to be a privacy violation. I would say that in the child-pornography case, the victim's privacy has been destroyed the moment the pictures have been observed and recorded by the abuser, and further reproduction is not a privacy violation because there is no privacy in the pictures left to violate. Since Tor and co. have no impact on the ability of a child pornographer to make the initial recording, they are an unalloyed good for privacy.)
Is this honestly how you'd feel about footage of someone you know being raped?? It should not be illegal to distribute it...? Can you explain precisely what you think the law should be?
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