That is the other problem I have seen with TOR. Any slower and the second 
coming of christ will arrive sooner. :)

-eric
from the central office of the Technomage Guild, Editors choice dept.

On Mar 23, 2017, at 4:02 PM, Vara La Fey wrote:

> I'm all for education. I'm a trans-girl, and believe me, I would like to 
> educate people a little about us. But I wouldn't take it upon myself to 
> intrude on their time for a 3 Minute Love unless they're trying to hurt 
> someone.
> I don't want people semi-forcing content on me. And the desired "campaign" is 
> exactly that. It's sad that everyone here who comments keeps asserting the 
> "safety" benefits, without a care in the world about the sheer intrusiveness 
> and the obvious socio-political abuses of systems like that becoming 
> commonplace. Which hopefully they won't.
> 
> I don't need a VPN and have never set one up, but I don't doubt the security 
> of a VPN/Tor combination. And if you are really afraid of snoops and spooks, 
> encrypt all your text traffic with large PGP keys. But I rarely use Tor 
> because it's horribly slow, and PGP because it's an extra few steps. But they 
> are always there for those special occasions.  :-)
> 
> - Vara
> 
> On 3/23/2017 3:16 PM, Eric Oyen wrote:
>> well, if you don't want to deal with bad certs, redirected https,etc, you 
>> can either not use that router/service or get a VPN and secure all your 
>> traffic. And yes, I will not use paywall systems of any kind, they have no 
>> business knowing what my credentials are.
>> 
>> Lastly, if I want real security, a combo of VPN and TOR cannot be beat. I 
>> use private internet access for the VPN and also have a TOR node setup here. 
>> the TOR node will not be connected until after the VPN comes up. why let my 
>> ISP know I am running a TOR node here at home? The only issue I have with 
>> this is that my search engine queries don't work right (mostly, I get 
>> blocked and asked to solve a captcha, which is not doable for the blind most 
>> times)
>> Anyway, do what you must, but education should be the first item on the list 
>> when it comes to net security.
>> 
>> -eric
>> from the central office of the Technomage Guild, Security applications dept.
>> 
>> On Mar 23, 2017, at 2:50 PM, Vara La Fey wrote:
>> 
>>> First you were talking about open hotspots. Then you were talking about 
>>> https. Now you are talking about ssl.
>>> 
>>> But all the while you're still just talking about monitoring and 
>>> restricting the activity of 3rd parties on 4th party systems. And it seems 
>>> really important to you for some reason.
>>> 
>>> Please, waste time and effort and money patenting your spyware chaperone 
>>> system that monitors web activity with the intent of creating consequences 
>>> for activity which you - or your intended customer - opines is "invalid". I 
>>> doubt very many people will buy into it because there is no upside for 
>>> them. Even when they alter it to fit their own agenda, they just anger 
>>> their customers who can click OK for EULAs and enter logins, but cannot 
>>> bypass your 3 Minute Hate.
>>> 
>>> If it can detect an "invalid" certificate, then by changing a couple code 
>>> lines (if even), it can detect anything else about an attempted site visit. 
>>> Of course this ability is ancient now, but less evil implementations of it 
>>> merely censor by blocking, which is bad enough. Yours is "educational" - 
>>> and it's interesting that you put the quotes around that word yourself - 
>>> for the purpose of taking up other people's time with propaganda.
>>> If it became common, it would become a mandatory advertising medium anytime 
>>> anyone clicked on a competitor's site, or a site with bad reviews for your 
>>> customer. If it became law, it would become a mandatory propaganda delivery 
>>> system anytime anyone clicked on a site containing any kind of dissenting 
>>> viewpoint.
>>> 
>>> Are you hoping to create one of those conditions? If so, which?
>>> Because this sure looks like more than just wanting to manipulate lesser 
>>> people into a system designed to reinforce your wishful feelings of 
>>> superiority. There has to be a more compelling reason that you're this 
>>> overly concerned about what 3rd parties do on 4th party systems.
>>> Which, btw, brings up the fact that your system is not equivalent to EULAs 
>>> or logins or pay systems, because the connection provider has the right to 
>>> set conditions for using their connection. Your spyware idea is to harass 
>>> people who are using other people's connections.
>>> 
>>> I'm not an expert on web connection technology per se, but it seems that 
>>> Tor would nicely wire around all SSL issues after the initial connection to 
>>> the now-restricted hotspot. You certainly make a great case for using it, 
>>> even if just on general principle. So what would you do about that?
>>> 
>>> I don't think your grandmother wants you monitoring her activity. I don't 
>>> think anyone wants you monitoring their activity. But you seem to want to 
>>> do it anyway. And no one but me is saying boo to you.  :-(
>>> 
>>> As to the trivia: I personally have never had trouble from visiting a site 
>>> with an "invalid certificate" of any kind, because that stuff simply isn't 
>>> 100% maintained. Obviously I am careful where I go and what I click and 
>>> download anyway. I do not so easily ignore "known malware site" warnings, 
>>> and if in doubt about a site I reflexively check the web address. 
>>> MyBank.Phishing.com and Phishing.com/MyBank do not get clicks from me. But 
>>> that's all beside the point.
>>> 
>>> On 3/20/2017 9:57 PM, Brien Dieterle wrote:
>>>> On Mar 20, 2017 3:36 PM, "Vara La Fey" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> OMG!!
>>>> 
>>>> First of all, you'd be mis-educating them if telling them that certificate 
>>>> "validity" has any real meaning. (But now you're talking about http.)
>>>> I mean validity as in trusted roots that have been shipped with your OS or 
>>>> browser.  Surely you don't mean these are meaningless. AFAIK they are very 
>>>> reliable as long as you never accept bogus certs.  If you accept bogus 
>>>> certs "all the time", I really hope you know what you're doing.  Pretty 
>>>> much any important site should have working SSL.
>>>> 
>>>> There is a reason why all the browsers freak out when you get a bad cert, 
>>>> but users still click "add exception".  My captive education portal would 
>>>> give real consequence to this with the 3 minute power point slideshow and 
>>>> mandatory quiz.  I wonder if this is already patented. . .
>>>> 
>>>> Second, why do you think you have any right to put speed bumps in the way 
>>>> of people who are doing nothing to you? 
>>>> Plenty of businesses do this already for captive portals and forcing users 
>>>> to log in, pay, or accept an EULA.  They are already tampering with your 
>>>> SSL connection in order to redirect you to the portal. I'm just suggesting 
>>>> to use this technology for "educational" purposes.
>>>> 
>>>> Third, if your grandmother needs internet "safety" education, just educate 
>>>> her, or refuse to keep fixing the problems she encounters in her ignorance 
>>>> - if she really is all that ignorant. I hope you wouldn't install a 
>>>> browser re-direct without her consent, because then you'd be just any 
>>>> other malware propagator with just any other self-righteous 
>>>> rationalization.
>>>> Well, I'm lazy.  I'd much rather have an ongoing passive education program 
>>>> for anyone that uses that router.  Maybe only 1 in 1000 requests trigger 
>>>> the "test", or once a month per mac address maybe.  If grandma fails the 
>>>> test I can get an email so I can call her up and gently chastise her.  
>>>> "Grandmaaaa, did you accept a bogus SSL certificate again? Hmmm?"
>>>> 
>>>> As far as consent goes, I'm only talking about routers you own or have 
>>>> permission to modify.  That should go without saying.
>>>> 
>>>> Fourth, if you need educational "speed bumps" on your router, you are free 
>>>> to have them. One of the great things about freedom - from government or 
>>>> from meddling busybodies - is that you get to be free too.
>>>> 
>>>> My post is in the context of businesses or individuals that provide 
>>>> Internet to the public.  Presumably businesses and individuals have the 
>>>> freedom to do this kind of SSL interception, since they've already been 
>>>> doing it for years without any repercussions.  Personally I'm disturbed 
>>>> that businesses will try to get me to accept their SSL cert for their 
>>>> Wi-Fi portal, but I know the technology leaves little choice.  One trick 
>>>> is to ignore the cert and try again with a non SSL address.
>>>> 
>>>> It is pretty ironic that the first thing these captive portals ask users 
>>>> to do is blindly accept a bogus SSL cert.  It is really just a sad state 
>>>> of affairs that we are literally training people to accept bad SSL 
>>>> certificates.
>>>> For years my Firefox has had an option to "always use HTTPS", and I'm sure 
>>>> all other modern browsers do as well. Plus, Mozilla.org has a free plugin 
>>>> - I think it's from EFF.org - called "HTTPS Everywhere". It's all very 
>>>> easy to use, and will be almost entirely transparent to Grandma.
>>>> This won't do anything to protect you/grandma from bogus ssl certs.  
>>>> Imagine connecting to a bad AP at Starbucks that is proxying all your SSL 
>>>> connections.  Your only defense is trusted roots and knowing not to accept 
>>>> bogus SSL certs.  If only we had a captive router-based SSL education 
>>>> program... ;)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 3/20/2017 3:14 PM, Brien Dieterle wrote:
>>>>> A system like I described would just be an "educational tool" to 
>>>>> encourage people to use HTTPS (properly).  It wouldn't stop you from 
>>>>> accepting bogus certificates-- just a speed                               
>>>>>       bump.  Now that I've thought about it I'd really like to install 
>>>>> something like this on my grandparent's router. . .   heck, my own 
>>>>> router. . .
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 2:50 PM, Vara La Fey <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> Oh HELL no!! What kind of hall-monitor nanny mentality do you want people 
>>>>> to adopt??
>>>>> 
>>>>> I accept "bogus" certificates all the time because the whole idea of 
>>>>> certificates is crap in the first place - they are NOT maintained - and 
>>>>> years ago I got tired of that procedure warning me about "invalid" 
>>>>> certificates for sites that were perfectly valid.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I've never had a problem. Of course I'm also careful where I go, 
>>>>> certificate or not.
>>>>> 
>>>>> - Vara
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 3/20/2017 2:12 PM, Brien Dieterle wrote:
>>>>>> Maybe every commercial router should do SSL interception by default.  If 
>>>>>> a user accepts a bogus certificate they are taken to a page that 
>>>>>> thoroughly scolds them and informs them about the huge mistake they 
>>>>>> made, forces them to read a few slides and take a quiz on network safety 
>>>>>> before allowing them on the Internet.  Maybe do the same for non-ssl 
>>>>>> HTTP traffic, etc.. . 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 1:55 PM, Matt Graham <[email protected]> 
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 12:29 PM, Victor Odhner <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>> I’m really annoyed that so many companies offer open WIFI when it would 
>>>>>> be
>>>>>> so easy to secure those hot spots.  Restaurants, hotels, and the waiting
>>>>>> rooms of auto dealerships are almost 100% open.
>>>>>> [snip]
>>>>>> On 2017-03-20 13:20, Stephen Partington wrote:
>>>>>> This is usually done as a means to be easy for their customers.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Pretty much this.  Convenience is more valuable than security in most 
>>>>>> people's minds.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> they’d be happy to do the right thing if we could explain it to the 
>>>>>> right people.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'm not sure this would happen.  Setting up passwords and then 
>>>>>> distributing those passwords has a non-zero cost and offers zero visible 
>>>>>> benefits for most of the people who are using the wireless networks.[0]  
>>>>>> And as another poster said, what about football/baseball stadiums?  
>>>>>> Distributing passwords to tens of thousands of people is sort            
>>>>>>                                                of difficult.  "Just 
>>>>>> watching the game" is not an option; people want to FaceTweet pictures 
>>>>>> of themselves at the game.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> OTOH, the last time I looked at the access points visible from my living 
>>>>>> room, almost all of them had some sort of access control enabled. Maybe 
>>>>>> there's a social convention forming that "my access point" ~= "my back 
>>>>>> yard" and "open access point" ~= "a public park"?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> [0] Having a more educated user population would make the benefits more 
>>>>>> visible, but it's very difficult to make people care about these things.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress
>>>>>> There is no Darkness in Eternity
>>>>>> But only Light too dim for us to see.
>>>>>> 
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