Should be intresting to compare the evolution of the number of Tor clients with the evolution of the number of Tor servers.
HardKor On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:05 AM, vecna [ml] <vecnamcclau...@gmail.com>wrote: > On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) < > li...@infosecurity.ch> wrote: > > > On 9/19/12 9:41 PM, Paolo Palmieri wrote: > > > It is also interesting to note that, after this, a sizable portion of > > > Italian Internet users now uses a DNS other than the one supplied by > > > their ISP, and usually a foreign one. This reduces the impact any > > > further censorship imposed at the DNS level might have. > > So dumb form of censorship... unfortunately effective for dumb people! > > > > I'm not sure the Tor usage in Italy would be reduced as a censorship > bypassing technology. > > as first, the DNS blockage is apply only for gaming. The general purpose > censor tech in Italy is the IP-blocking, requested to obtain a "remote > interdiction" of a server (every time a persecutor want to close a foreign > server "to avoid reiteration of an offense". IP block law is born for > specifics content, then has been used in the most various cases.) anyway > users overcome on this issue without Tor (they simply found a more or less > similar, not yet blocked, service) > > as second, I believe a certain percentage of users has start to be > affected by the privacy advocacy. Maybe they not understand correctly their > threat.. but I've got unexpected people that asked to me supports in Tor. > and not because I was promoting Tor, just because "I'm the guy expert with > computer". > "Just for know, why you want Tor ?" I asked, "just to prove it, you know, > for personal security during the navigation" the answer. > > And this remind me a common mistake of ours as privacy advocate. more than > 10 years of conferences by winston smith project, various university with > an eye for the human right apply to the network, had bring to a _public > request for protection solutions_. ... plus, the advocacy moved the target > audience from the technical people, to the "influencing people". > > As common behavior, when I/we explain the importance of some technical > properties like "integrity" "end to end encryption" "metadata filtering" > (applied to the public company, to the journalist, to the lawyers...) and > someone ask "ok, but which software I need to use to obtain protection ?" > you have two options: > > . explain the VPN services, explain encryption for browser plugins, explain > the GPG, explain that some issue are not solved by software but only with > aware behavior... > . or simply: "use Tor" > > (closed source software is not acceptable in the answers :) ) > > The second one is not the most technical truly answer, but it's an answer > easy to be be remembered, and is the only software that with few clicks > give an immediate feedback to the user. > Just to be clear, I/we use the first answer, when there are time, when > you're confident that your audience is not crumbing by sleep, and that is > able to understand a technical answer more complex that: "this is Tor, use > it". But is obvious that users remember tend to remember the simpler > solution available. > > Ok, take this behavior, imagine these words spread continuously in the > journalist environment and in the lawyer environment. After years of this > inertia, you start to found free press in the underground station talking > about Tor. and this is happen, it's not an hypothesis :) (just for > Italians: Milano-X, free press, had dedicated a central page to Tor and > panopclick, Nova of Sole24Ore talk about Tor every time a journalist need > to drop a Tip about safety). And I'm not talking about hacktivism related > press, but general purpose. dealing with more influencing people, aiming > for their influenced users, mean that only simplified solutions would be > spread. > > and if we can be happy about this Tor spreading, we know also that is not > the correct path. It's a security tip applied to various and uncertain > threat model. Tor its an easy answer, because is _the most usable tool_ for > "privacy and security enforcing" that should be suggested to an user. > > I wonder if this behavior would bring more issues in Tor, than positive > feedbacks, in a long term. > > I strongly believe, that if a suite of tools providing: > > censorship circumvent, > browser security > end to end encryption for daily communication > > might be accessible with easy like TorBB, the amount of Italian adopters of > Tor would decrease. > > cheers, > v > _______________________________________________ > tor-talk mailing list > tor-talk@lists.torproject.org > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk > _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
