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Comment by iamnotarobotman | Hacker News Reader

You might've heard about this thing called the internet that does the same thing. Perhaps we should ban it too since rich people and bad guys use it?

You also might have heard about this saying which goes by: 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions' and it goes both ways. At least I happen to recognize that, unlike the grandparent comment.

But where did I exactly say 'ban' it?

So you're saying a tor rewrite in rust is the road to hell then?

Or that tor itself is the road to hell?

Either way, your same argument can be made against the whole internet which should demonstrate how silly it is.

> Either way, your same argument can be made against the whole internet which should demonstrate how silly it is.

Not really.

I recognize that the same criminals can also use the wider internet too, however there are central authorities and regulators in different countries that have laws that regulate the internet in the countries that they are in and these criminals will be caught very quickly if they tried.

The difference is that Tor only makes it more harder to trace, hence the appeal to criminals, extremists and terrorists to use it for their illegal activities which that is its unintended use case after promising 'privacy' and 'anonymity' for 'everyone'.

So yes, that is it's 'decentralised' road to hell indeed.

You could have said the same thing circa 30 years ago regarding the internet versus phone calls and letters.

Not really. TOR is specifically not safe against a global passive observer, which the (supposedly) good guys are.

I've been wondering about this. Afaik Ross Ulbricht was caught due to shitty opsec. Was that a case of the NSA having that capability and not sharing it with the FBI?

Ulbricht was first connected to "Dread Pirate Roberts" by Gary Alford, an Internal Revenue Service investigator working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on the Silk Road case, in mid-2013.The connection was made by linking the username "altoid", used during Silk Road's early days to announce the website, and a forum post in which Ulbricht, posting under the nickname "altoid", asked for programming help and gave his email address, which contained his full name.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Arrest

Yes, we've all heard that. The question is whether it was actually an instance of "parallel construction".

Most people using tor aren't terrorists, oligarchs, extremists or career criminals though.

I'm actually moving the goal posts, and I should be explicit. I'm using career criminals to differentiate from people who are violating laws but not for personal gain, for example those that require them to use censored services, or buying drugs, both of which may be technically criminal in their countries.

Have you finally cracked the Tor network yet to find and trace all those Nazis, extremists, hitmen and terrorists that are still hiding there to make that unfounded claim?

Seems to be exactly as unfounded as yours, yes?

Is it? There's just too many to list here, even after the shutting down of Silk Road, but these crackdowns cannot be ignored; and look what they found. Majority of criminals using it once again.

[0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/08/349016/a-dark-we...

[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2845616/biggest-ever-t...

k. And what about the people using it who aren't criminals, so aren't reported in the press?

You're moving the goalposts. The people operating darknet markets are not Nazis, extremists, and generally not hitmen and terrorists. I have heard that many onion services host child sexual abuse imagery though, but I've never looked for reliable citations or personally verified.

> You're moving the goalposts.

Am I? Or didn't I just say 'There's just too many to list here' and just listed the notable examples.

> The people operating darknet markets are not Nazis, extremists, and generally not hitmen and terrorists.

So who operated those Tor nodes and services of multiple darknet websites in [0] and [1]? Another cybercriminal.

> I've never looked for reliable citations or personally verified.

Talking about 'movings goal posts' and missing the whole 'anonymity' point of Tor. Only time will tell, but so far a great use case for criminals, extremists and terrorists using it.

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/how-anonymous-tor-users-co...

[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/08/349016/a-dark-we...

You can't prevent criminals from using math to conceal their activities (they can just use other solutions), you can just prevent law abiding citizens from having privacy.

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