The Tor browser

[Losty]

I've never felt the need for the Tor browser. Why? Because I'm not worried about being watched when I'm not doing anything illegal.

Similarly, I've never understood people who tell me that I should put some tape over my webcam, either. How can anybody who hacks into my webcam actually harm me? How does seeing my face harm me? What if they see me masturbating? Is masturbation illegal? No.

If you're a criminal or a cop then the Tor browser makes sense. If you get irrationally squeamish about being spied on even when the spy can do know harm to you ... then the Tor browser makes sense (but, makes sense to you only because you're irrational). Otherwise, it's pointless.

There’s absolutely nothing irrational about non-criminals not being ok with being spied on.

[Losty]

You think you have nothing to hide. So had the people who had their identity stolen been thinking... until that happened. "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about." is one of the most dangerous ways of thinking. And, by the way, I am not much interested in the pornography on the Internet.

People who have their identity stolen are just unlucky. Even without the Tor browser.

I'm far more likely to get cancer before age 40 ... and I'm far more worried about something like that.

And ... I'm not paranoid.

An estimated 60 million Americans have had their identity stolen.
I’ll assume that most of them have been since 1990 as that’s around when the internet became a thing.
About 50,460,000 Americans have been diagnosed with cancer since 1990. Of those, about 2,204,000 have been under 40 years old.

So...I doubt it.
Also, I don’t know how much identity theft is bad luck and how much is poor management of personal information, but keeping your private information private definitely decreases your risk.

[FlatAssembler]

I think I'd try to convince the authorities that I was dling pron with tor rather than cop to posting the sorts of things I do on these boards..if I lived in the middle east, for example.

Yes! Maybe I should have also tried to be anonymous when I was posting what I think about the Massacre of Vukovar.

You want evidence for the fact that the dark web is where the cybercriminals hang out?

Absolutely. That could easily be just a stereotype imposed onto people by governments in order to make people feel guilty if they worry about their privacy. You know, like churches impose the stereotype that atheists are people who just want to sin.

Losty, I couldn't agree with you more.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think I'd try to convince the authorities that I was dling pron with tor rather than cop to posting the sorts of things I do on these boards..if I lived in the middle east, for example.

Yes! Maybe I should have also tried to be anonymous when I was posting what I think about the Massacre of Vukovar.

You really should have been, though, I'm not sure it's for the same reasons, lol. 

[FlatAssembler]

If you want to express an opinion that is very politically incorrect, perhaps the best place to do that is the TextKit Latin and Greek forum. There you are very unlikely to encounter people who will prosecute you because of that. On FaceBook, they banned me for hate speech and I can't sign up under my own name any more.

On StormFront, basically everybody agrees with you and you don't have much hope of changing anybodies opinion, plus governmental agencies might put some effort into identifying people on StormFront and getting them into trouble. And the same goes, perhaps even more so, on the dark-web forums.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think what you mean to say is "is very illegal", not "is very politically incorrect".  People say politically incorrect things out in the open with regularity (though the context of what that means varies from country to country) and suffer no consequences. To be blunt, there's a hell of alot of money and social currency in saying those things. There is no aim of saying these things that can be satisfied by hiding them.

The politically incorrect, conceptually, is a category of things so shameful to society to say that you shouldn't. Not things that are illegal to say. Conflating the two diminishes the one and elevates the other to a place of importance that it doesn't warrant.

That said, if you wanted to avoid whatever societal shame saying something might incur, that's a cross purpose motivation..but motivation nevertheless....it's just that there's nowhere in society to go or say it that you won't find those people who would shame you. Not even stormfront, lol.

[Angrboda]

You think you have nothing to hide. So had the people who had their identity stolen been thinking... until that happened. "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about." is one of the most dangerous ways of thinking. And, by the way, I am not much interested in the pornography on the Internet.

People who have their identity stolen are just unlucky. Even without the Tor browser.

I'm far more likely to get cancer before age 40 ... and I'm far more worried about something like that.

And ... I'm not paranoid.

The probability of losing is generally of little comfort in hindsight once you've lost.

---

Simply using Tor puts you on a list.

A wise man told me many years ago "Do not raise your head above the parapet, do not attract attention. You don't want it."

Using Tor is exactly raising your head above the parapet. It is writing a number on your own back and a target on your chest.

Except that the number cannot be traced to you, so your point is pretty much moot. Unless you're leaking, say by torrenting while using Tor, the fact that a connection coming out of the Tor network is noticable does not have any real significant consequences for the person on the other end as they are anonymous at that point.

[FlatAssembler]

Except that the number cannot be traced to you, so your point is pretty much moot.

I think that he/she is referring to a common misconception that your ISP can easily tell that you are using Tor. That's true only if you are using an old (pre-2014) version of Tor without the "meek" and/or "obfs" plug-ins, or if you misconfigure modern Tor (though, as far as I know, you really need to be an idiot to do that).

---

I think what you mean to say is "is very illegal", not "is very politically incorrect".  People say politically incorrect things out in the open with regularity (though the context of what that means varies from country to country) and suffer no consequences.  To be blunt, there's a hell of alot of money and social currency in saying those things.  There is no aim of saying these things that can be satisfied by hiding them.  

The politically incorrect, conceptually, is a category of things so shameful to society to say that you shouldn't.  Not things that are illegal to say.  Conflating the two diminishes the one and elevates the other to a place of importance that it doesn't warrant.

That said, if you wanted to avoid whatever societal shame saying something might incur, that's a cross purpose motivation..but motivation nevertheless....it's just that there's nowhere in society to go or say it that you won't find those people who would shame you.  Not even stormfront, lol.

Well, they didn't shame me on TextKit. Barry Hofstetter told me "I am getting tired of this conversation, but I'll congratulate you for speaking Latin.".

[The Grand Nudger]

That's called shade. Ultimately a diversion, though. The thrust is more to the effect that whatever a persons motivations for using tor may be, using it to say politically incorrect things and using it to say illegal things aren't the same motivation or phenomena. In one case a person is motivated to escape public scrutiny (however pointless that ends up being), whereas the other is seeking to avoid legal consequence.

Another diversion...but, lol...why on earth would you use tor to say politically incorrect things...on a latin language message board........? Just to troll the living shit out of a bunch of nerds in the least likely possible fora? It makes me wonder if there are people going full MAGA in latin, here in the states. You have brightened my day, sir.

[FlatAssembler]

That's called shade.  Ultimately a diversion, though.  The thrust is more to the effect that whatever a persons motivations for using tor may be, using it to say politically incorrect things and using it to say illegal things aren't the same motivation or phenomena.  In one case a person is motivated to escape public scrutiny (however pointless that ends up being), whereas the other is seeking to avoid legal consequence.

Another diversion...but, lol...why on earth would you use tor to say politically incorrect things...on a latin language message board........?  Just to troll the living shit out of a bunch of nerds in the least likely possible fora?  It makes me wonder if there are people going full MAGA in latin, here in the states.  You have brightened my day, sir.

Who said I was using Tor to write that? I am saying that those forums are perhaps better for such things than the dark-web forums are.

What do you mean by "going full MAGA"?