
This is what a TOR supporter looks like - MBCook
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/720-This-is-what-a-TOR-supporter-looks-like.html
======
ArneBab
The possibility to use it to attack clearnet systems is actually what sets
apart Tor from Freenet. That’s why any secret service needs Tor to work, but
Freenet is mostly uninteresting to them. You can only communicate with it.

The broken window theory was shown to be a fallacy, by the way:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Broken_windows_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Broken_windows_theory&oldid=709142287#Criticism_of_the_theory)

~~~
hackerfactor
You might want to re-read the criticisms about the Broken Windows theory. They
didn't disprove it. They only showed that it is not necessarily the only cause
of crime in cities.

On the Internet, the theory holds up really well. If you run a site that
doesn't ban child porn, then you quickly get lots of child porn. If you don't
stop porn, then you quickly get porn. Same with drugs, human trafficking, etc.

If you put an unmoderated public proxy on the web, it will quickly be used for
spam, network attacks, and other malicious activities. And if you monitor the
rate it is used for malicious purposes, you'll see it start slowly and then
quickly ramp up to being mostly used for malicious causes.

If you put up an unmoderated public FTP site, it might be a while before the
bad guys find it. But then they will start using it. For storing porn, child
porn, warez, distributing malware, coordinating phishing attacks, etc.

Similarly, the reason you don't see many escort services offered on Google
Hangouts or Facebook or eBay isn't because the escort services haven't tried
being there. They are not there because Google and Facebook and eBay actively
kick them out. Craigslist is not as proactive, so it has more escort
offerings. And TOR? Not only is it not proactively stopping it, it has entire
forums dedicated to supporting it. There's even forums where you can rate your
escort! (Escort services are typically associated with prostitution, human
trafficking, pornography, drugs, and money laundering.)

------
mrsteveman1
One statistic missing from the post: what percentage of malicious traffic on
the internet actually comes through Tor?

Akamai says[1] that Tor exit nodes were "far more likely to contain malicious
requests", but it was still only ~1.26% of the total.

edit: they say the "far more likely to contain malicious requests" statistic
is 1:380 for Tor exit node IPs vs. 1:11,500 for non-Tor IPs, but I wonder is
that simply a result of more traffic being concentrated to those few exit node
IPs?

[1] [https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/state-
of-t...](https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/state-of-the-
internet-q2-2015-security-report-threat-tor-preso.pptx)

~~~
hackerfactor
At FotoForensics (before I blocked TOR uploads): TOR was about 3% of traffic,
but accounted for >50% of porn uploads and about 80% of child porn uploads.

Today, TOR is about 1% of overall traffic to the site. (I block uploads, but
TOR users can still access and view the site.) However, it accounts for about
20% of network attacks.

------
sbarre
Very interesting to get the perspective of someone who is directly affected by
this.

I'm conceptually a supporter of TOR, but these real-world accounts of the
problems that exist with it are hard to ignore.

The pragmatic side of me agrees with pretty much everything in this article.

------
JohnTHaller
I've found similar situations with sites that share logins for forum/comment
postings as well as disposable email services. While there were a handful that
just didn't want to share their email to register, the majority were using it
to harass, spam, etc.

