[OSM-talk] Anonymous edits on OpenStreetMap through Tor

Al Haraka alharaka at gmail.com
Thu Oct 7 17:26:54 BST 2010


> But hiding your real IP from the server is only one part of tor. The
> other is encrypting and obscuring the destination of all traffic so
> that your ISP/government/etc can't listen in. This is what makes it
> useful for people in places like Iran and China. They don't care about
> hiding their IP from twitter. They care about getting around the
> censorship and surveillance put in place by the government.

It is sad how often people get this wrong.  Tor only encrypts traffic
between endpoints *within* the network created.  As soon as it leaves
the endpoint, which it inevitably does, it is just like normal
traffic.  Tor used to be much louder about their "we do not encrypt,
only obfuscate IP address" vibe a while back, but now the footnotes
seem much more muted.[1]  It is well-known that people operate exit
nodes for less than altruistic reasons, for "research" and otherwise.
[2]  I do not have a link on me right now, but there has been a lot of
paranoia regarding intel agencies of different nations running exit
nodes for snooping on traffic.  I will be honest and call it that
because I have never seen any evidence.

I think this is important distinction to make, and Tor developers have
always been honest that Tor is a false sense of security *when trusted
unto itself as your only tool*.  Please read the links and be
informed.  Since this list has lots of subscribers, some might not
read the fine print of such assertions.  If I am wrong, please feel
free to correct me.

Best,
_AJS

[1] http://www.torproject.org/download.html.en#Warning

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)#Weaknesses



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