• Sam@lemmy.ca
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      The reason is privacy, everybody has a reason to use it.

      • WorseDoughnut@kbin.social
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        In theory yes, but practically speaking trying to access a lot of the modern web over TOR would be at best painfully slow and at worst almost impossible thanks to DDoS protection providers like cloudflare.

        • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
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          This right here. A very large part of the web is inaccessible from TOR. Last I tried you couldn’t access social media, Google constantly forces you through captchas because it thinks you’re a bot, and anything on a CDN will either forces captchas or just doesn’t work. Financial institutions absolutely are all inaccessible.

          Privacy is important, but most of the places you want to go with TOR to stay private won’t let you in because malicious actors want to use it for the same reasons.

          • nickiam2@aussie.zone
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            Facebook has an official.onion domain and it’s the only way I access it, as it’s required for my employer.

      • NaoPb@beehaw.org
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        While I agree with you, I’m wondering what the benefit is of watching youtube and posting/reading lemmy/mastodon through a tor network. Because those are the main things I do. While I do understand that in some countries and also in public wifi networks the chances of traffic being intercepted and man in the middle attacks are higher, I do not expect that to happen to my fibre connection in my western country.

        • _MusicJunkie@beehaw.org
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          Unless you browse Geocities sites from 1998, intercepting and MITMing is simply not an issue. Everything built nowadays uses https, which fully protects you against those.

      • NaoPb@beehaw.org
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        I’d rather not waste my time reading an article about a program I’m not currently using to find out if I should use it our not. I’d rather see a post that has bulletpoints with pre’s and cons. My time is limited enough as it is.

        [edit] I realise that my comment will probably come across as unfriendly so I will add some explaining to it.

        I am currently in a western country using a fibre landline and I trust my internet provider to not intercept my data or use things like a man in the middle attack. Am I right for assuming that and if so, would tor prevent that? Will tor slow down my internet? I mostly watch youtube videos and read/post on lemmy/mastodon. I am not against using tor at all, but my energy and time are limited so I don’t feel like reading a whole article just for an app I do not feel the need to use. I am currently very happy with my firefox browser and all the add-ons I use. And with all the modifications I have put into it to make it work just the way I like. Would I loose all that by switching to tor? I am prepared to change to tor but I am not in the camp of “protect privacy at all costs, even if it greatly inconveniences me”. Especially if the risks of not using tor seem quite low in my situation.

        • zeus ⁧ ⁧ 𓆩🗲𓆪@lemm.ee
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          okay. perhaps instead of wasting your time writing an entire paragraph, you should read the article and you’ll find out that that entire paragraph was irrelevant

          it’s actually not an article about the pros and cons of tor. it could not be summed up in bullet points about the pros and cons of tor

          i’ll admit to being a little facetious before, but i implore you to read articles before commenting on them

          • NaoPb@beehaw.org
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            Thing is… if I have to do that for every time someone linkdrops an article, I’ll have no time left in my day.

            And it seems I was right that I have no real reason to use tor.

            • zeus ⁧ ⁧ 𓆩🗲𓆪@lemm.ee
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              Thing is… if I have to do that for every time someone linkdrops an article, I’ll have no time left in my day.

              if you spent less time writing comments about articles you haven’t read, you might have more time. do you do this in other walks of life? wander into restaurants you’ve never eaten at and announce “i don’t think there’s really any reason to order the fish”?

              And it seems I was right that I have no real reason to use tor.

              okay, i’ll sum the article up for you. the more people that use tor, the more it protects vulnerable people. journalists writing exposés about corrupt governments, refugees trying to flee, etc. the more normal people using tor, the more they get lost in the crowd. it’s nothing to do with whether you have any reason to use tor, that’s irrelevant. by using it, you’re helping those in vulnerable positions. happy? now go write something inciteful

              • NaoPb@beehaw.org
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                Are you really surprised I’m replying to you when you keep replying?

                And yes, you are merely confirming my point. There is no use for me personally. I would only have to use it and endure slower internet so that others benefit. Still doesn’t change the fact that for me personally there is no advantage. You can argue all you want but that’s what it comes down to for most people. And if you keep replying I’ll keep replying. No need to be surprised about that.

                • zeus ⁧ ⁧ 𓆩🗲𓆪@lemm.ee
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                  Are you really surprised I’m replying to you when you keep replying?

                  well yes, actually. i have time to sit down over breakfast, read a few articles, maybe reply to a few comments

                  you clearly live such a busy lifestyle you haven’t time to read an article before making an asinine comment

                  And yes, you are merely confirming my point. There is no use for me personally. I would only have to use it and endure slower internet so that others benefit. Still doesn’t change the fact that for me personally there is no advantage. You can argue all you want but that’s what it comes down to for most people.

                  well that’s a pretty fuckin stupid viewpoint in my opinion. “i’m not going to help protect the careers and possibly lives of people in authoritarian countries, because i’d have to install a programme and possibly even launch it a couple of times per month”. running folding@home did me no advantage, i still did it.

                  And if you keep replying I’ll keep replying. No need to be surprised about that.

                  don’t worry, i won’t be. i was being flippant because i thought you an idiot, but it turns out you’re willfully ignorant.

  • sznio@beehaw.org
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    I heard of a guy who went to prison because he bought something from Allegro (Polish Amazon) over TOR. Someone used the same exit node for hacking, so they pinned it on him.

      • lloram239@feddit.de
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        It provides anonymity in much the same sense as going into the bank while wearing a skimask does. Every form of anonymity service always puts you in close range to be grabbed by the authorities, as while your traffic might be anonymized, the fact that you are running the service is not.

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        “Czesc, I am Mister Anonymous. I would like to buy this Book. Please send it to Jan Pawel at this address, dziekuje.”

      • sznio@beehaw.org
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        Poland.

        He could’ve easily got it solved but he didn’t have money and the public defender just told him confessing was the best option.

        It might be a legend, it’s just a thing that supposedly happened to someone in a community I participate in.

  • zephyrvs@lemmy.ml
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    I always have Tor installed and I often use it instead of incognito browser sessions when researching stuff. It’s sometimes slow and Cloudflare made it a lot more annoying to use than ~5-10 years ago, but I’m glad it exists.

    I’m sure it’s still more useful to US interests though, or it wouldn’t be funded anymore.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      Any time I’ve tried to use Tor in the past I gave up because it was frustratingly slow.

      • astral_avocado@programming.dev
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        Those onion layers don’t add up to nothing… also I’ve heard it’s under constant attack. Plus not enough people running relays and exit nodes.

            • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
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              And I absolutely believe it. If anyone can run an exit node, then there’s absolutely no way the NSA isn’t running one and sniffing all the traffic

              • ErgodicTangle@feddit.de
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                If they don’t control most of the nodes in-between they can control all the exit nodes they want. If you connect though 3 Tor nodes, as soon as one of them is not controlled by them they likely can’t identify you.

                That’s not to say that they don’t control most of the nodes, and your traffic likely goes through NSA nodes exclusively

              • jarfil@beehaw.org
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                The CIA, not the NSA. Tor is a great way for agents deployed abroad to phone home with plausible deniability: “I’m sorry Mr. Chinese Officer, I got homesick and really wanted to watch some BBW porn…”

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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    Why would I use it? I get that we need it for journalists and stuff but it’s mostly used by hackers

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    On the desktop, I use Whonix which does utilize the Tor Network. That being said, I rarely use the Tor browser outside of it.

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    It’s really worth reading the article.

    Tor can be used for any internet browsing you usually do. The key difference with Tor is that the network hides your IP address and other system information for full anonymity.

    The company behind a VPN can still access your information, sell it or pass it along to law enforcement. With Tor, there’s no link between you and your traffic, according to Jed Crandall, an associate professor at Arizona State University.

    I don’t know if it’s even possible, but it would be cool if I could use the fediverse over TOR just for the sake of supporting TOR. Not sure if there would have to be specific .onion instances, if normal instances could just be mirrored with a .onion address, or if a .onion instance would even be able to federated in the first place. I just don’t know how it works.

    Other use cases may include keeping the identities of sensitive populations like undocumented immigrants anonymous, trying to unionize a workplace without the company shutting it down, victims of domestic violence looking for resources without their abuser finding out or, as Crandall said, wanting to make embarrassing Google searches without related targeted ads following you around forever.

    I’m certain an all-out legislative war would be waged against TOR if it were to become popularized for most of those reasons, under the more convenient guise of “criminals and children!”

    • diyrebel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I don’t know if it’s even possible, but it would be cool if I could use the fediverse over TOR just for the sake of supporting TOR.

      Here are two #Mastodon onion nodes:

      • iejideks5zu2v3zuthaxu5zz6m5o2j7vmbd24wh6dnuiyl7c6rfkcryd.onion
      • 7jaxqg6lfcdtosooxhv5drpettiwnt6ytdywfgefppk2ol4dzlddblyd.onion
    • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
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      Tor can be used for any internet browsing you usually do. The key difference with Tor is that the network hides your IP address and other system information for full anonymity

      Also, this isn’t true. MANY sites and services block access from Tor, including major ones that people use everyday.

      • Devi@beehaw.org
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        Which ones? I use it quite a lot and never found a site that has blocked me.

        • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
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          Last I tried you couldn’t access social media, Google constantly forces you through captchas because it thinks you’re a bot, and anything on a CDN will either constantly force captchas or just doesn’t work. Financial institutions absolutely are all inaccessible.

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          They’re right. I dont have specific examples but a lot of wikis and some general news sites blocked me when i used it.

          • Devi@beehaw.org
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            I mean… I asked for examples and you gave ‘there are examples but I don’t know any’, which is not really supporting the point here.

          • First Majestic Comet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            I’ve also found that many ones that are blocked aren’t completely blocked, I can access them by using a new circuit (lots of these sites seem to really hate European Exit nodes but anything else has typically worked).

            • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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              Is that what it is? Every once in a while I have to Ctrl+Shift+L it to get into something, but I’ve never watched that closely. What did Europe do to these guys?

              • First Majestic Comet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                I think it might have something to do with the fact that much of Europe has privacy laws that protect their citizens and also makes it so people running nodes there don’t have to kiss up to US companies. Hence why they block those nodes or just give them a huge amount of challenges to solve in hopes to frustrate them. Same with how they put annoying privacy pop-ups on the website in European locations which re-appear every time you login or visit the site.

                • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  Same with how they put annoying privacy pop-ups on the website in European locations which re-appear every time you login or visit the site.

                  I mean, those are mandated, even if they’re implemented deliberately poorly.

        • TheOakTree@beehaw.org
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          I remember hearing that Yelp blocks Tor users, but I’m not sure if that is the case through proxies.

          Also iirc Cloudflare blocks all Tor exits.

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            I’ve used sites with cloudflare over Tor. They always seem to require pressing a check box, but usually work.

            • kath@kbin.social
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              I’ve noticed that just as the most aggressive ad blocker blockers are news media websites, the most aggressive tor-exit-node blockers are retail sites such as lowes.com. My working hypothesis is that they view anonymous transactions (or perhaps even anonymous window shopping) as stealing. When it comes to actionable data for market research, data about actual finalized transactions where actual money changed hands is the holy grail. It’s the data that has skin in the game. As for window shopping online, you know the drill, you do that, you hear about it on Fecebook. Until recently I searched retail sites with the site: filter of a search engine (the one that works on Tor, of course), but until recently, most site searches were even more enshittified than most of the two search engines. Now search engines are out and Tor is out. Perhaps offline shopping is in. BTW, just for shits and giggles, try carrying a clipboard next time you visit a brick and mortar retail establishment and see what happens, or better yet, whip out your cell phone and start photographing not merchandise but shelf tags. Information is power, my friends.

      • Freeman@lemmy.pub
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        Also. Those running an exit node can and do sniff traffic.

        It’s bad practice to login to stuff that’s important (like banking) over tor. Or login to anything over for you have logged into over the clear.

        Also, nation states can track you using a variety of techniques from fingerprinting to straight up working together to associate connection streams. A large number of tor nodes are run by alphabet agencies. Hell the protocol was developed by the us navy.

        • diyrebel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Also. Those running an exit node can and do sniff traffic.

          Sure, but if you stop there with that statement you’re just FUD-scaring people from using the service that does more for their privacy than conventional direct clearnet usage. Every connection that matters uses TLS so the exit node honeypot only sees where the traffic is going, not what’s in the traffic and not where it comes from. IOW, the exit node knows much less than your ISP.

          It’s bad practice to login to stuff that’s important (like banking) over tor.

          It’s the other way around. You should insist on using Tor for banking. It’s a bad practice to let your ISP track where you do all your banking.

          Also, nation states can track you using a variety of techniques from fingerprinting to straight up working together to associate connection streams.

          And your thesis is what, that we should make snooping easier for them by not practicing sensible self-defense?

          A large number of tor nodes are run by alphabet agencies.

          Let them work for it - and let them give the Tor network more bandwidth in the process.

          • Freeman@lemmy.pub
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            Every connection that matters uses TLS so the exit node honeypot only sees where the traffic is going, not what’s in the traffic and not where it comes from. IOW, the exit node knows much less than your ISP.

            That’s not a magic bullet for secuirty. There are so many ways to exploit connections. Look at what happened here on lemmy with vulns leading to takeovers of instances with xss of session cookies . Or what happened to Linus Sebastian and his YouTube channel, which has one of the largest, most security conscious companies backing it.

            The primary difference is your ISP is not generally actively hostile. They may want to sell metadata but they aren’t actively trying to exploit you. And all it takes is a bad auto fill page, or even a fake/spoofed one on an account without mfa or a service with xss vulns etc.

            And your thesis is what, that we should make snooping easier for them by not practicing sensible self-defense?

            To your own point. Everything is TLS now right? That argument swings both ways. If your ISP (or in some cases a nation state is your isp) is actively tracking you, then there are other alternatives that may be better. Mullvad would sooner be used for banking than tor. Tor is also not all that often used en masse. If my township only has a single tor user (me) that makes me less private. An ISP can easily see who is enterting tor unless you are using more obfuscation like bridges and obfsproxy. It’s the same reason why checking the do not track box in your browser is less privacy oriented. It adds entropy to your fingerprint there.

            But to answer my your question my thesis is tor is not necessarily a privacy panacea. The threat model an American or European has is much different than someone from Vietnam or turkey or China, which is also much different than someone from the Nordic countries.

            • diyrebel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              That’s not a magic bullet for secuirty.

              It wasn’t presented as such. Good security comes in layers (“security in depth”). TLS serves users well but it’s not the only tool in the box.

              There are so many ways to exploit connections. Look at what happened here on lemmy with vulns leading to takeovers of instances with xss of session cookies.

              Tor Browser includes noscript which blocks XSS.

              The primary difference is your ISP is not generally actively hostile. They may want to sell metadata but they aren’t actively trying to exploit you.

              Selling your metadata is exploiting you. And this exploit happens lawfully under a still-existing Trump policy, so you have zero legal protections. Contrast that with crooks stealing money from your bank account, where, if it’s a US account, you have regulation E legal protections.

              If your ISP (or in some cases a nation state is your isp) is actively tracking you, then there are other alternatives that may be better.

              Different tools for different threat models. If you are actually targeted by a nation state, Tor alone is insufficient but it’s still in play in conjunction with other tech. But from context, you were giving general advice to the general public telling them not to use Tor for banking, thus targeting is not in the threat model. But mass surveillance IS (i.e. that of your ISP).

              But to answer my your question my thesis is tor is not necessarily a privacy panacea.

              Tor is an indispensable tool to streetwise users. Of course it is a tool among other tools & techniques.

              The threat model an American or European has is much different than someone from Vietnam or turkey or China, which is also much different than someone from the Nordic countries.

              Those threat models all have a common denominator: mass surveillance. It is safe to assume mass surveillance is in everyone’s threat model as a baseline. Of course there are a variety of other threats in each individual threat model for which you couldn’t necessarily anticipate.

      • Eggyhead@kbin.social
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        What effect would using Tor browser to access a non onion site have over using a different, privacy-focused browser? Honest question. I assumed Tor browser was no different than other browsers in that aspect.

        • ctr1@fl0w.cc
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          The difference is that your ISP doesn’t know where your packets are headed, and the destination doesn’t know where your packets came from. The ISP sees you connect to the entrance node and the destination sees you connect from the exit node, and it’s very difficult for anyone to trace the connection back to you (unless they own both the entrance and exit and use traffic coorelation or some other exploit/fingerprint). Regardless, both parties are generally able to tell that you are using TOR if they reference lists of known entrance/exit nodes. Also the anti-fingerprinting measures taken by TB are a bit more strict than other privacy-focused browsers

          • Eggyhead@kbin.social
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            Thank you for the detailed answer. I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about using tor browser, considering how privacy-minded the community tends to be.

            • astral_avocado@programming.dev
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              It is confusing, Tor is an excellent privacy tool if used properly (don’t log in to stuff), but I guess it’s still a technical hurdle to most. Probably also from a lack of marketing.

              I think in countries where the government is decidedly more authoritarian it’s more known. On my relay right now I see a ton of russian and a smaller amount of German connections.

            • ctr1@fl0w.cc
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              No problem! And yeah, it’s good to see people talking about it over here. I think it’s the best tool for online privacy OOTB (depending on your threat model), and it gets better the more people use it.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      I’ve literally always browsed Lemmy over Tor. I even made this account over it, which surprised me when it worked.

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        How do the big CDNs handle Tor traffic? Do you find you get blocked, or is it just a matter of more captchas/challenges?

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          CloudFlare puts up a captcha occasionally, everything else just leaves me alone.

          At this point using someone else’s browser with no adblock feels more difficult to navigate.

    • z3bra@lemmy.sdf.org
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      You don’t need to access a .onion instance to use Tor. You can simply perform your day-to-day web usage through Tor directly.

      On your phone, you can even use Tor natively with most of your apps.

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      Well any instance owner could also get an onion link and host the instance over tor.

      Of course the instance itself can’t really hide. Since it needs to federate with others that are not onions. But your accesses would all show as from localhost.

    • cultsuperstar@lemmy.mlB
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      I’m certain an all-out legislative war would be waged against TOR if it were to become popularized for most of those reasons, under the more convenient guise of “criminals and children!”

      I guess we’ll have to see what happens after that right wing Twitter account posted CSAM, Twitter suspended the account, then Elon said they removed the posts and reinstated the account 🤷🏽‍♂️

    • Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org
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      I mean, I’ve used it. It works. But I don’t get why you would bother most of the time. It’s slow as hell and while I’m generally fairly concerned about my privacy there is a point where I can’t be bothered.

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    I’ve always wondered what it would be like, but I’ve also heard so many creepy stories about it I just don’t want someone hacking my bank because I’m an idiot. So I stay away from it. I wish I was more tech savy.

    • First Majestic Comet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Hate to burst your bubble but many of the stories are just that, stories. Vast majority of the onion sites out there are either forums like 4chan or hobbyist sites like the old days of the internet.

      Illegal websites do exist but they’re rare and hard to find, they also are subject to being taken down. They’re nothing like the stories though. In fact majority of the websites that exist when you search for these topics are just bitcoin scams, i.e. a livestream website that asks you to pay $200 in bitcoin to enter, almost certainly a scam because livestreaming over Tor is terrible due to low spead and it breaks the anonymity due to generating tons of unique traffic.

      TL;DR Tor is a tool that can be used for privacy on the clearnet it can also be used to host your own onion sites. Dark web stories do have a small element of truth to them but are mostly scary stories to tell in the dark.

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        Why, no, thank you, I don’t have any appreciation for this bubble you are bursting. I figured some had to be just tales but it’s hard to know exactly how much of it is bs. So thanks.

    • emberwit@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Are you confusing Tor and something like deep/dark web? Because Tor itself is just a webbrowser, it’s basically a Firefox with some modifications for stricter privacy.

      • raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I recall reading of instances of some Tor exit nodes injecting malware into downloads. It may be a concern or it may not, but I didn’t understand the risk well enough myself or how avoidable it was or wasn’t, which is why I avoided Tor.

      • Mothra@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Possibly, I know Tor is a browser but because it can be used to access deep/dark web I don’t trust myself with it. 100% out of acknowledged ignorance yes

        • WorseDoughnut@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I promise you that like 90% of the creepy stories you’ve heard are people either exaggerating or just straight-up lying to sound cool on the internet. The kind of stuff that actually needs to operate over the TOR network doesn’t exactly want to be easily discoverable by normal people.

          You’re no more likely to accidentally stumble across illegal / dangerous content while using TOR than you are while using any other browser.

          • XpeeN@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Isn’t the problem was that back then everyone used to be a node (was it exit node?), but I heard today it’s not the case anymore so no one can actually link you to other bad things other people do.

            • WorseDoughnut@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              To simply use TOR you do not need to run any kind of guard/middle/exit relay (this has always been the case), but yes there is the risk of being held accountable for other users data while hosting an exit relay.

              This hasn’t gone away thanks to any legal precedent as far as I’m aware, so I imagine it all depends on the tech literacy of your local jurisdiction & how good of a lawyer you can afford.

        • brie@beehaw.org
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          As long as you stay off of any .onion sites, there won’t be any difference w.r.t. dark/deep web access. If a domain doesn’t end in .onion, then it can be accessed with a regular web browser anyway.

      • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        There’s a TOR browser, but calling tor “just a browser” is really odd and not really correct. The TOR project is the routing protocol that bounces your traffic around. You can do so through the TOR browser, but the browser isn’t TOR. It also isn’t the only way to use TOR.

        Also, while HTTPS is close to universal now, it’s still possible to use HTTP and theoretically a malicious exit node could modify any unencrypted traffic.

        • emberwit@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Thank you for clarification! Of course I meant the TOR browser client itself, should have been more precise.

  • A2PKXG@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Someone correct me if I’m wrong.

    Operating nodes is expensive, offers no reward, and comes with a serious legal risk.

    This won’t stop the NSA from operating a few. I assume that a significant portion of Tor nodes is run by intelligence agencies. If they control all nodes used for a connection(i believe three are used), they can probably piece together what connections a user is having.

    • EmperorHenry@lemm.ee
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      It is expensive. And yeah, it might get you into trouble in some places.

      And yes, the glowies use it, but journalists and whistleblowers use it too.

  • A2PKXG@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    I’m under the impression that my use will only make it slower for people who really need it.

  • fearout@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Are there any good iOS Tor browsers? All that I’ve seen are either shit or require some insane subscription.

    • Haakon@lemmy.sdfeu.org
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      Due to Apple’s policies, there are no good ones. The least bad one is called Onion Browser and is recommended by the Tor Project.

      • jcg@halubilo.social
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        Interesting, is this due to all browsers being required to use Safari or something? I always figured since there are VPNs on iPhone that TOR would be no problem.

        • jarfil@beehaw.org
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          You can use any browser you want with Tor, the issue is that browsers are the main source of tracking and de-anonymization, so by being forced to use Safari there is only so much that Tor can do to keep you anonymous.

      • fearout@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Both are broken as far as I know. First one hasn’t updated for years, and recent reviews for the second one claim it crashes on startup.

  • lloram239@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    It would help if Tor would be more useful for regular use. The few times I used it, it was for VPN-style geolocation circumvention. Tor supports it by changing ExitNodes, but the setting is hidden deep down in a config file and required a restart. Not exactly a great user experience for a setting that you might wanna flip pretty frequently.

    • Audalin@beehaw.org
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      It’s great when you want to connect two devices behind NAT without relying on any specific third-party server or service. I ssh to my laptop from my phone with it when away from it.

      It’s also useful to circumvent censorship, though it depends on the country. Also, websites employing wide-range IP blocks, in my experience, more often than not still allow Tor.

        • Audalin@beehaw.org
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          You run a Tor Hidden Service with sshd on one device. Knowing the .onion address, the correct port and having the corresponding private key on the other device (all of that not really subject to change), you can run the Tor daemon on it (for Android, you can use Termux) and connect with ssh, using torify nc %h %p as ProxyCommand.

    • emberwit@feddit.de
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      It’s a web browser. Slower than others and some pages won’t work but other than that, it does just that.

      • Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        …I mean, it’s more like the web browser makes it easy to use the Tor network. The network is the slow part. Your requests are getting ping-ponged all over the world intentionally taking the long way around.

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        On the other hand, there’s no way to track you. Useful for looking up medical info in a way that search engines and such can’t relate back to you. Often I’ll keep browsing in it once I’ve opened it because it’s just basically Firefox.

        This is only true if you have the most “paranoid” security level selected, and at that point anything that relies on Javascript (or any of the other features that get blocked) will break. Enabling Javascript or the other blocked Web features will make it fairly trivial to track you especially the more you browse, so at that point you might as well just be using a regular VPN.

        Tor itself isn’t the problem in this equation, it’s the browser, and they tend to leak information like a sieve

        • Even on standard settings, tracking companies like fingerprint.com fail to correlate your visits. The EFF’s (quite extensive) CoverYourTracks also fails to fingerprint the standard configuration. It helps a lot that <canvas> and WebGL access is denied by default and that the browser hides your screen resolution.

          You can go ultra paranoid if you want to, but you don’t need to for normal trackers.

          • interolivary@beehaw.org
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            Sure, it all depends on how paranoid you are, my point was more that saying someone is untrackable if they use Tor has a lot of caveats.

            For the average pleb it’s probably fine, if all they’re doing is just trying to dodge regular trackers and not the authorities

    • ctr1@fl0w.cc
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      It’s great for anything low bandwidth that isn’t tied to your identity, and helps for peace of mind, despite its issues. You do run into captcha or DDOS protection issues occasionally, but the new tor circuit for this site button sometimes works. Also it uses letterboxing to prevent resolution-based fingerprinting, which isn’t very pretty, but leaving it at its default size (or locking the size using the WM) works well and is good for privacy.