Hidden hosting and general usage of Tor are, in functional terms, the same thing. I remember the issue with Freedom hosting, but that is long ago now and this downward trend is still continuing. So, no, I am not buying that this is a product of people being spooked. Many of these sites arrived or remained even after the Freedom Hosting bust.
I think everyone needs to stop looking for excuses and start examining why this is happening and fix it. Otherwise, this project is a waste of time. Regards, Mark McCarron > Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 19:15:26 -0600 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Illegal Activity As A Metric of Tor Security and > Anonymity > > On 06/25/2014 03:56 PM, Mark McCarron wrote: > > Basically, I keep a track of site numbers year-on-year, site > > availability from 3rd party monitoring and read comments on forums > > and chat. From what I can gather, most of these sites were suspected > > of being honeypots due to their tendency to remove anything > > rape/violence related. That is, they appeared sanitised in some way. > > Then all of sudden, they started disappearing. Some were connected > > with major busts of hosting providers, others without any indication > > what happened. > > I believe that most of the hidden-service sites that you allude to were > on Freedom Hosting. Also, recall that the Freedom Hosting operation > involved the deanonymization of many site operators and visitors. As a > result, many other sites were likely compromised in cascade. > > > Whilst it may be good in some sense, it states that Tor is failing in > > its primary task of promoting freedom through anonymity. In fact, it > > would seem that Tor is having the opposite effect, silencing everyone > > through fear. Certainly, some of this comes down to poor security > > practices, but that cannot explain the scale of what has happened. > > > > So, the question remains, what is wrong with the Anonymity and > > Security of Tor? The software is compromised in some fashion and we > > need to understand this. > > You conflate "Tor" with hidden services. Hosting hidden services > securely is indeed a nontrivial endeavor. But that doesn't speak to the > anonymity that Tor provides for its users. > > > Regards, > > > > Mark McCarron > > <SNIP> > > -- > tor-talk mailing list - [email protected] > To unsubscribe or change other settings go to > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk -- tor-talk mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
