[WikiEN-l] Re: Tor horror stories

Wed Sep 28 05:29:54 UTC 2005

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> You have a point, but I like to think of people in mainland China being
> able to edit [[Falun Gong]] without feeling a cloud of worry.  Even NPOV
> editing might be misconstrued by some authority somewhere, and people
> have kids, jobs, families, and might prefer to just stay away rather
> than take a risk.

You cannot edit [[Falun Gong]] from China using Tor and feel safe. The
Chinese government is in a position to conduct an exhaustive end-to-end
timing attack on Tor, allowing them to trace Tor traffic from a
compromised destination server or network back to its origin. See the
Tor FAQ, section 7.9:

http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#head-0b1add301f9743cd3b08d188ab286566e2e13c20

Perhaps this is why the Chinese government has not yet blocked Tor --
the false sense of security it gives may well make repercussions more
likely, rather than less.

Tor is even easier to attack in small countries with few Internet users.

That's why I say: Tor doesn't have the moral high ground. A low-latency
anonymous network allows juvenile bad behaviour but is useless to
protect against government snooping. To hide from the government, you
need a high-latency network.

Of course, hiding from the government carries negative ethical
connotations as well as positive ones. Witness the use of Freenet for
the dissemination of child pornography. It's a controversial matter, I
for one am not convinced of the overall value of unassailable Internet
anonymity.

-- Tim Starling