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Comment by robert_foss | Hacker News Reader

I ran one in my student housing wardrobe a decade or so ago.

I too have some stories, but no one ever met up with me in the flesh.

Come on then, no need to be coy.

For example, once or twice people called me (somehow) and asked why I was hacking their websites. I tried to explain, but I doubt I convinced anyone.

How would a non government entity get a physical address or phone number from an IP ?

Social engineering can be very powerful. Small ISPs could fall victim to this easier.

May I ask: That wasn't enough for you to stop operating a Tor node? People were abusing others thanks to your specific personal efforts and you just said: "eh, it's still worth it". How do you determine that it's still worth it?

Do you make the same overclever statements when someone abuses freedom of the press?

There is nothing overclever about it, the tech is obviously being abused by criminals. The question around whether it's worth it to enable some "freedom of the press" is apparently enough to evoke some anger within you.

All tech is abused by criminals. Should an ISP close up shop when one of their subscribers is proven to be a hacker? Likewise, we could argue that many of the legitimate technology companies should be considered criminals. With a few strokes of the pen, they could one day be criminals.

My first interaction with Tor I purchased some weed on Silk Road. All very much illegally then and less so now. Things change and are not always quite right to begin with. I’d wager that many readers here now have legal retail access to euphoria inducing cannabis products that they did not at the time of that transaction on SR.

Also. I understand that Tor isn’t always secure and I may have messed up. But whatever. Even as some obfuscation I’m ok with it. Anyone interested could track the payment and find me.

Rather than playing coy, you should tackle the challenging part of your argument head-on: tell us why you think Tor is different from other technologies that are routinely abused. That would actually be a substantive contribution to the discussion.

Why do I have to tell you this when it should be instantly obvious: Tor is literally designed to obfuscate the identity of people. A coffee machine isn't.

I assume that since you think that desiring anonymity is criminal that you wouldn't mind replying with your full legal name.

So you think people in oppressive regimes should voice their opinion and/or whistleblow with no identity protection and risk... death?

You either have haven't thought about this topic very long, or you're just a troll.

I'm curious if you are also opposed to encryption in general. How about https? Should all traffic be http?

>Why do I have to tell you this when it should be instantly obvious

Because it's only instantly obvious until you consider it for a moment. By your logic, literally any privacy-preserving technology, be it disposable email services or *69 on your telephone, are morally unjustifiable.

Drop your pen, cause that is a tool abused by criminals to make atom bombs (ultimately).

Some statistics from one of my servers regarding Tor abuse. From 1130 abuse IPs in my http access log 4 are Tor exit nodes and from the 1905 ssh bruteforce attacker IPs 3 are Tor exit nodes. Stop operating Tor nodes would therefore reduce the abuse by basically nothing but take Tor from the people that need it.

>eh, it's still worth it

Yes it's totally worth it.

My abuse logs for the last two years have overwhelmingly been from compromised Chinese devices, and Spanish servers. Not sure why Spain is so often used, but Tor abuse cases are few and far between.

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