The Mighty Tor!
That’s no typo, true believer, I’m not talking about the God of Thunder. I’ve been meaning to write something up about Tor, The Onion Router (I’m not sure why it isn’t TOR, since it’s an acronym, but it’s always Tor) - and this article on a professor busted for using it seems like a good excuse. For some background, Tor is a network of servers (a large network) that allows its users to safely and anonymously access the net. Using encryption and other advanced networking voodoo it makes it incredibly difficult for the end service that you are trying to access (i.e. the webserver who’s page you want to read) as well as any intermediate stages or bad people listening in, to be able to determine where you are coming from - the first step in anonymity.
Thankfully in the article the professor stands up to the folks trying to shut down even his minimal Tor usage. All this ties back into my previous posts on cyperpunks and Schneier’s thoughts on ephemeral conversation. We are all increasingly watched and the next step the watchers would like to take is that attempts to prevent that watching is itself a crime. I hope that doesn’t happen.
Tor is an incredibly important project for people in countries that have strong censorship. It will allow journalists and citizens to reach outside services and media as safely as possible. Beyond that, if the network was large enough and quick enough, anyone could use it to help themselves to a small dose of privacy - coupled with a little common sense it would be much more difficult for websites to track and disseminate private information about it’s users.
I know the project was in jeopardy a year or so ago, it seems to have come out of that critical stage. I hope it has the chance to continue.
