Government agencies are trying to scare people away from Tor

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,255   +192
Staff member

nsa scaring people tor privacy spying

NSA leaker Edward Snowden has totally changed how we view privacy as it relates to the Internet. In addition to being more cautious about what we share online, some have taken additional steps such as switching to encrypted e-mail services, using proxy services and surfing with Tor, the anonymous web browser / network.

Doing more to safeguard your privacy online makes a lot of sense, but is that exactly what government agencies want you to do?

As outlined in a recent article from The Guardian, Tor does indeed protect a user to the extent that others can't see what you're doing online. But, it doesn't mask the fact that you are using Tor to surf the web. That fact alone could put a target on your back, especially if you live in an area where doing something anonymously would be seen as suspicious.

Tor executive director Andrew Lewman says that is exactly what is happening - the GCHQ and the NSA want people to believe that those using Tor are already suspect and must be up to no good. But according to the executive, the majority of those using Tor are merely being responsible Internet users.

Of course, none of this is really breaking news as we've known for some time now that agencies like the FBI have been targeting Tor users through the use of malware. They've even gone so far as to clone the entire server of Tor Mail.

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I keep thinking that they did the same to Truecrpyt, scare tactic to drive us away from something that works
 
Just because someone doesn't want you to know what they are doing does not mean they are up to no good. That's like saying you should pull over people driving Corvette's because they might be speeding. It's a basic primal genetic trait to want privacy.

Snooping on people is wrong and people involved in unjust surveillance will have an unavoidable drink of karma, sooner or later, one way or the other, indirect or direct.
 
especially if you live in an area where doing something anonymously would be seen as suspicious.
yeah, like Fallujah maybe. Where exactly in the western world is a location by itself deemed 'suspicious'? Paul Ryan's campaign office?

Just because someone doesn't want you to know what they are doing does not mean they are up to no good.
No, but it does make it 'suspicious' as they like to say. When you see a politician being asked tough questions on the news over some perceived crime and they say 'No comment' do you think 'oh, no big deal, he just doesn't want us to know because he's concerned about his privacy.' or do you think, 'If he weren't hiding something he wouldn't care if we knew the answer.'
Considering the NSA has the entirety of internet traffic to filter through to find something of interest, I'd say the chances of a person seeing anything having to do with me is zero.

I don't get it how the govt can prove themselves incompetent at just about everything they touch, but when it comes to surveillance everyone thinks they've got some supernatural powers.
 
Anyone who reads Tech sites, or hears about Snowden, now has fears confirmed, on governments and their agencies being shadier than ever. They always have, but now we have some evidence.
Firstly there was Sopa and all that going on, several bills about them taking our freedoms, now they do it anyway, because, they always were, they just wanted a bill to make it look a bit above board. But if its out in the open their view is whats done is done, we wont stop.
People used to take to the streets because of injustice in the world, but they took away the good drugs after the 70's, and in the 80's shoved coke up everyones noses and convinced them to do the exact opposite, stop hugging trees and turn them into money.
Now the kids of today are fat and lazy and the only fighting they do is with their xbox controller when their K/D ratio suffers by their ineptitude. And then theres those, who just wail on each other with no respect for the law, of 15 year old japanese girls who chop their friends heads off.
They made weed illegal, and people got brainwashed into a yuppie lifestyle. We no longer think for ourselves.
Legalize it! Take the red pill people.
 
especially if you live in an area where doing something anonymously would be seen as suspicious.
yeah, like Fallujah maybe. Where exactly in the western world is a location by itself deemed 'suspicious'? Paul Ryan's campaign office?

Just because someone doesn't want you to know what they are doing does not mean they are up to no good.
No, but it does make it 'suspicious' as they like to say. When you see a politician being asked tough questions on the news over some perceived crime and they say 'No comment' do you think 'oh, no big deal, he just doesn't want us to know because he's concerned about his privacy.' or do you think, 'If he weren't hiding something he wouldn't care if we knew the answer.'
Considering the NSA has the entirety of internet traffic to filter through to find something of interest, I'd say the chances of a person seeing anything having to do with me is zero.

I don't get it how the govt can prove themselves incompetent at just about everything they touch, but when it comes to surveillance everyone thinks they've got some supernatural powers.

Try not paying your taxes - even the federal ones that you're not legally required to pay - and see how "inefficient" the government is at ruining your life. The government is VERY effective at furthering the agendas of the ruling class. The NSA and DHS have over ten times the computing power devoted to surveillance of domestic phone calls than the government has for all other purposes combined, including *foreign* intelligence processing. And none of that massive investment in spying on you and me has caught a single terrorist yet by the the government's own admission. Think about it.
 
especially if you live in an area where doing something anonymously would be seen as suspicious.
yeah, like Fallujah maybe. Where exactly in the western world is a location by itself deemed 'suspicious'? Paul Ryan's campaign office?

Just because someone doesn't want you to know what they are doing does not mean they are up to no good.
No, but it does make it 'suspicious' as they like to say. When you see a politician being asked tough questions on the news over some perceived crime and they say 'No comment' do you think 'oh, no big deal, he just doesn't want us to know because he's concerned about his privacy.' or do you think, 'If he weren't hiding something he wouldn't care if we knew the answer.'
Considering the NSA has the entirety of internet traffic to filter through to find something of interest, I'd say the chances of a person seeing anything having to do with me is zero.

I don't get it how the govt can prove themselves incompetent at just about everything they touch, but when it comes to surveillance everyone thinks they've got some supernatural powers.

..oh yeah definitely, any and all offices under the jurisdiction of the Obama Administration. If any, let alone everything was exposed there, the mafia, child porn manufacturers, the Nazi's, ...even Caligula's private dealings would look like the confines of Walt Disney studios and if exposed, 70% of the american people would demand life prison terms for all of them.

Great point.
 
Try not paying your taxes - even the federal ones that you're not legally required to pay - and see how "inefficient" the government is at ruining your life. The government is VERY effective at furthering the agendas of the ruling class. The NSA and DHS have over ten times the computing power devoted to surveillance of domestic phone calls than the government has for all other purposes combined, including *foreign* intelligence processing. And none of that massive investment in spying on you and me has caught a single terrorist yet by the the government's own admission. Think about it.

You consider following the law to be 'the agendas of the ruling class'? And they aren't particularly effective at collecting taxes either. The govt misses out on hundreds of billions a year from tax evasion (no exaggeration - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_in_the_United_States)

Your own quote...'And none of that massive investment in spying on you and me has caught a single terrorist' And you're arguing that the govt ISN'T ineffective?

In your post you argue that the govt "is VERY effective at furthering the agendas of the ruling class", and you use taxes as your example, but then you say they can't catch anyone with their surveillance.
It sounds like you believe the govt's agenda is to spy on people and they're using the terrorism excuse as a cover for it. Is that what you're saying?
 
..oh yeah definitely, any and all offices under the jurisdiction of the Obama Administration. If any, let alone everything was exposed there, the mafia, child porn manufacturers, the Nazi's, ...even Caligula's private dealings would look like the confines of Walt Disney studios and if exposed, 70% of the american people would demand life prison terms for all of them.

Great point.
I was referring more specifically to situations like Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer, but I figured no one would know who they were so I made up a hypothetical converstaion. They have nothing to do with Obama.
 
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