
Facebook Is Not Blocking Tor Deliberately - footpixel
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/facebook-and-tor
======
aaronbrethorst
Recent evolution of a story on Hacker News:

An incorrect story is posted, and quickly rises up the homepage.

Hacker News commenters wave their torches and pitchforks.

Somewhere between a couple hours and a couple days later, a correction is
posted.

The correction never attracts the same amount of attention, and multiple
people inevitably post comments saying something to the effect of 'just
because _this_ time proved to be factually inaccurate doesn't mean our rage
isn't justified, since this could conceivably happen in the future.'

~~~
pkfrank
i.e. The Sean Parker wedding fiasco.

~~~
mseebach
Wow, I hadn't heard about that. 9 points.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5834359](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5834359)

~~~
pessimizer
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5833546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5833546)

85 points.

------
danso
Whether or not FB is deliberately blocking Tor _now_ , how out-of-line would
it be for them to eventually block it in the future?

It doesn't seem in their best interest as a company to allow Tor
connections...but other than that, what _ethical obligations_ do they have to
allow anonymous connections? FB already has a policy more-or-less mandating
real identities...so for them, this is kind of a non-issue, right? By using
FB, you're already identifying yourself and agreeing to implicitly under the
TOS.

So does that mean activists are screwed? Well...I'm interested in the use-
cases for activists using FB...I mean, if you're in a situation where you fear
the authorities tracking you down...then you hopefully have better sense than
to conduct business under your social identity. If you're managing a FB
account from a fake identity and fear the authorities tracking your IP...then
maybe do your work from a public wifi? Facebook isn't your biggest enemy
here...the enemy is, ostensibly, the government...and the secondary enemy is
you (or your collaborators) attracting attention to yourself inadvertently,
whether you're using Tor or not.

I guess the tl:dr of my question is: if you must conduct sensitive work, why
do it on Facebook, a network that is committed to _sharing things in public?_

~~~
bpatrianakos
I don't think it would be out of line at all. I got downvoted to hell for
expressing similar opinions before but I think this is a perfectly reasonable
opinion.

Facebook is in the business of social networking, not activism.

The number of users using Tor compared to the general population is bound to
be so low that they either shouldn't care enough to bother blocking it _or_ if
they did for some reason, really wouldn't put a dent in their daily actives.

Activists very well could be screwed, but that's really not Facebook's
concern. Their no pseudonym policy makes perfect sense. Whether or not you
like it or would use services that enforce it is an entirely separate issue. I
feel like I don't have to explain this but I will anyway. Using a real name
helps them help you find people you know (or at least whose name you know).
That's the whole point. To start implementing policies conducive to anonymity
defeats the entire purpose of Facebook.

I understand why Facebook is such a great tool for activists and dissidents
and why a social network built especially for those people would not be ideal.
That said, at the end of the day Facebook has no obligation to support such
people. The fact that it's such a great tool for activists is just a side
effect of the app's main purpose and use by the general population. I'd even
go so far as to say that if they blocked Tor purposely in the future no one
would really have any right to be outraged. I mean, you can certainly and
understandably be outraged, but you really can't say Facebook has wronged you
as being a tool for activists isn't really their mission. Complaining that
Facebook wants to collect info to show you ads is like complaining that the
coffee shop requires that you give them money to be served. Tracking is the
way you pay to use Facebook and I doubt they'd ever implement paid accounts to
get rid of the tracking and ads.

I'm sure there are some who work at Facebook who feel a moral obligation to
support those activities but at the end of the day its a business and it isn't
a business founded upon principles that fall in line with those of activists.
If Mozilla created a social network, maybe then we could say the company has a
moral obligation to encourage anonymity where people wanted but that kind of
philosophy is just not in Facebook's DNA.

    
    
         if you must conduct sensitive work, why do it on Facebook, a network that is committed to sharing things in public?
    

Because of exactly that. It's public and the general population uses it for an
entirely different reason. If you're doing sensitive work and need to get the
message out then Facebook is a great tool for the job so long as you can
remain anonymous. I know that's totally contradictory sounding but it's
reasonably possible. Currently you _can_ use Tor and other measures (assuming
this issue is resolved) like using a fake name (which is technically a
pseudonym but what I really mean is a name meant to look like a real person
but isn't). Everyone uses it, you can let the world know important info, and
though you can be rooted out, it makes it more difficult as you're a needle in
a haystack. Compare this to a tool built specifically for activist
communication - it's basically a big honeypot for unfriendly governments. They
know that _every_ user is a political dissident and now they really don't have
to narrow down their search. They can just start hacking and tracking every
user on the site.

~~~
andrewcooke
your logic is fine, except for the assumption that ethical obligations come
only from maximizing profit.

why do you have such a low ethical standard for companies? i realise it's
fairly common in the usa, but what's the motivation? is it just that you get
your opinions from the same companies, and so eat what you are fed? is this
what you _want_ from your world?

do you simply feel you have no choice, and are stating a "hard reality"?
something as complex as a society's expectations of ethics is so complex that
it can (and will) respond to public opinion. by posting something like the
above you're not just stating what you think is fact, but _advocating_ it.
there's no separation between those two roles when your trapped inside a
system with feedback...

~~~
baddox
I believe that the truth values of ethical sentences are subjective (actually,
I believe that ethical sentences don't have truth values, but that's a longer
story), so while I certainly have ethical preferences for how individuals and
organizations should behave, I only approve of "enforcing" my preferences
through my own social/commercial choices, rather than utilizing external
violence (like government regulation) to enforce my ethical preferences.

~~~
dragonwriter
Government literally does nothing but enforce ethical preferences (all action
decisions, government or otherwise, must be based on value preferences), so
this is equivalent to saying you don't support the _existence_ of government.

~~~
baddox
That's correct. I don't support the existence of government.

------
onedev
I guess we can put away the pitchforks?

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Nay! Don't be hasty! Find someone else to point them at. We live in a target
rich world.

------
kyboren
It worries me that Facebook is not _deliberately_ blocking Tor.

Suppose an oppressive regime wants to block its people from anonymously
accessing a service: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. They have traditionally
been locked in an arms race of sorts with Tor developers: the regime will
identify Tor relays and filter connections to them; Tor developers step up
with bridges. The regime uses DPI to attempt to identify Tor connections, and
Tor developers put out Obfsproxy. And so on, and so on.

Now it's clear to everybody that their best option is not to prevent outbound
connections to Tor, it's to prevent inbound connections _from_ Tor on the
services they don't want their people to use anonymously. All they have to do
is ensure they inflict maximum abuse on the targeted service from Tor, and in
this way give that service the incentive to cut off the users most in need.

I'm not suggesting abuse on the Tor network comes largely from intentional
government 'territory denial'. However, it's frightening that there is such an
easy way for them to deny the services which are in practice essential to the
universal free exercise of speech on the Web.

------
Orva
This is also reason why most of the time you cannot use online bank systems
through Tor: banks block big chunk of Tor exit nodes as malicious traffic
sources (for legimate reason, I believe).

~~~
dublinben
I can't think of a legitimate reason to use online banking through TOR. A bank
account is an inherently non-anonymous account, which defeats the purpose of
accessing it anonymously.

~~~
vidarh
The bank account is not anonymous, true. But you may be in situations where
you are not concerned about your anonymity, but in protection against someone
discovering your _location_.

------
binarysolo
Tor has an unfortunately seedy underside, where data scrapers and online
scammers (two of several use cases that I know of) use the service to
obfuscate their actions and avoid crackdown. "That's why we can't have nice
things."

For those who are still somewhat paranoid, consider getting paid proxies for a
much more reliable service while still maintaining IP anonymity.

~~~
arthulia
Tor can't monitor your data itself (and put it to an identity), so it is
considerably more anonymous.

------
scrapcode
On a side note... Has anyone ever noticed Vim-like shortcuts on the facebook
news feed? (hjkl item jumping)

------
deathhand
It wouldn't surprise me if this was deliberate by an entity to prevent
unmonitored communications.

------
cantbecool
Honestly, who cares if Facebook isn't blocking Tor traffic? They are only
interested in mining your personal information to sell to advertisers; they
don't care how you get to their service. In addition, Facebook will still ban
you if you use pseudonym.

~~~
maskedinvader
Facebook is not forcing you to give them your personal information ? I
understand and pretty much agree with most of what you say but can we agree
that Facebook is simply another company trying to make money and be a thriving
business and not an evil organisation trying to take over your life and
destroy your liberties ? capiche ?

~~~
evincarofautumn
This. If there is evil at Facebook, I haven’t seen it. It might be big, but at
the most basic level it’s just a directory of people where you share stuff and
see some ads to support the site. That’s not unlike the vast majority of sites
that we all use every day.

Besides, the goal of advertising on Facebook is to provide suggestions to
people that are actually valuable. It’s good for people to get discounts on
products they like, or information about new things to do in their area. It’s
good for businesses to make sure their ads are shown to people who might
actually care about the product/service/event in question. Making money is
just a happy side effect of creating actual value.

~~~
Karunamon
>Making money is just a happy side effect of creating actual value.

Pretty much Google's MO as well.

Aside: People really need to stop bandying about the word "evil" as a value
judgement, it manages to be inaccurate, non descriptive, subjective, and
emotionally loaded all at the same time.

Every time Google changes the slightest facet of their service, the idiot
crowd starts up with "WELL SO MUCH FOR DONT BE EVIL HURR DURR!!1" Facebook
much the same, except it's just become hip to hate on them after all this
time. Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose.

~~~
throwaway2048
>Every time Google changes the slightest facet of their service, the idiot
crowd starts up with "WELL SO MUCH FOR DONT BE EVIL HURR DURR!!1"

By using rhetoric such as this you are lowering the discourse on this site
every bit as much as the straw man you created.

~~~
evincarofautumn
Anecdotal people aren’t necessarily strawfolk.

