I just think anonymity should be a right. I don't even remember when I was introduced to tor first, probably sometime in the early 2000s.
I'm not stupid, with anonymity comes abuse. But I don't think that's a reason to get rid of the option to be anonymous.
I'd say your impression is wrong about tor operators, I've met a few of them at various events. (Not including the tor operators who try to subvert anonymity of course, whoever they are.)
But the tor network is absolutely mostly used for illegal activity. I can't be dishonest about this, that would mean denying human nature. Give humans a way to be anonymous and they will absolutely abuse that.
But I've also met one reporter in person who thanked me for the tor network, that's enough for me.
I'm curious how you reason about something that you say is used mostly for crime. Especially when there are other options for anonymity? Is there anything which can move the scale the other way, or is the fact that it's a human right in your opinion always going to win?
First of all anything that is widely adopted will be used for crime. That's just human nature. Tor is widely adopted right now but there have been alternatives like Freenet for example.
So the choice is either anonymity and crime, or no anonymity at all. And crime won't go away, it just won't be able to use an anonymous channel for communications.
And it's not like criminals are getting away with it by being anonymous either. If you go on tor to commit crimes then you will be hunted down by the international police. And if you commit heinous crimes against children then you will find no refuge. That's not a good life to live. Odds are you will end up in prison sooner or later.
One option that I have theorized in the past is to simply run the tor network at a very low bandwidth per connection.
As in, 28.8K or 56K or so ...
This would force tor into being a text only communications channel which would obviate many of the most egregious illegal use-cases.
You'd lose nothing with regard to freedom of speech and thought and communication. For instance, you can publish, and consume, a site like HN without any issues on 56K.
I like that idea. It's so simple but it would totally get the job done. Of course this would have to be a throttling per connection so 100 HTTPS API calls don't congest a relay node.
But I don't see it working in reality because there is the argument that you might need to share leaks anonymously and that would take days.
Crime is subjective, hence every country on earth having different laws. I'm guessing but I imagine the vast majority of the crime is just drug sales which is becoming less and less criminal as society awakens to the realities of the underlying problems that cause drug use and the facts about its relative danger.
Well, thank you. Wish you best of luck and appreciate you taking a stance. Not enough of people do and agree nothing is perfect. My comment was never intended to knock you and enjoyed reading your insight here.
I'm not stupid, with anonymity comes abuse. But I don't think that's a reason to get rid of the option to be anonymous.
I'd say your impression is wrong about tor operators, I've met a few of them at various events. (Not including the tor operators who try to subvert anonymity of course, whoever they are.)
But the tor network is absolutely mostly used for illegal activity. I can't be dishonest about this, that would mean denying human nature. Give humans a way to be anonymous and they will absolutely abuse that.
But I've also met one reporter in person who thanked me for the tor network, that's enough for me.