Talk:Tor (network)

Misleading Quote

"People think they're protected just because they use Tor. Not only do they think it's encrypted, but they also think 'no one can find me'. But if you've configured your computer wrong, which probably more than 50 per cent of the people using Tor have, you can still find the person (on) the other side." Although this is a quote from a person, the information he gives in part is very misleading. Tor does, in fact, use encryption to transfer information. It is not surprising that this man was able to eavesdrop on the very information he was serving, which any server has the capability of doing, most notably proxies, which can be configured to do the exact same thing this man did and are less secure in the first place because they do not encrypt any traffic, just mask the IP. Also, where is he getting his information that over 50% of tor users have configured it wrong? The possibility of tor servers eavesdropping information is a given and should be noted, however the quote itself I have to challenge. It is simply inaccurate, and just because he ran a tor server does not make him a trusted enough source to claim that tor does not encrypt traffic on the article page, that is just flat out wrong. We need to include this information, but we need to do it in a way without skewing it or muddying it down on what HE thinks of the tor network. He is not an authoritative source to be quoted like that, especially when some of the quotes include "dirty" connotation like his assertion that tor is mostly used for porn. This needs to be fixed, any suggestions? 24.209.140.179 (talk) 20:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to agree; this quote doesn't add informative value to the article and his opinion isn't sufficiently authoritative to be given so much space, particularly since it goes into matters which are irrelevant to the subject and on which he seems to be throwing a number out off the top of his head. I'd say yank the quote completely. P.T.isfirst (talk) 06:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

• I've removed it. If the contributor wants to find or create an appropriate place in the article to put the cited opinions that might be another matter ("blanket criticism of Tor users?") but it was outside the bounds of what the cited person could reasonably speak about with authority, as well as not belonging where it was.P.T.isfirst (talk) 02:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Alpha vs. Stable?

Are there any major differences between the alpha and stable versions, aside from the obvious reasons?

I think the alphas usually have new features not found in the stable releases. The release notes are on the Tor Project site. More information is on the or-talk and or-dev mailing lists. 90.128.48.249 (talk) 21:58, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Tor.Eff.Org becomes Torproject.org?

When did tor.eff.org begin forwarding to torproject.org and why? Please point to some official documentation with the reasons. Searching EFF.org for recent information on tor shows little to nothing, and nothing regarding this change specifically.

As per http://www.torproject.org/donate.html.en, "As of December 2006, Tor is a US 501[c][3] research/educational nonprofit. Donations to the Tor Project may be tax deductible to persons who are in the US or who pay taxes in countries with reciprocity with the US on charitable donations." Limited EFF resources and a better nonprofit status precipitated this. Note that Tor's official site was at tor.freehaven.net even before the EFF got involved and it moved to tor.eff.org. I agree that it's confusing, and the eff.org domain gave the site credibility, and that they should be more extensive about the change to assuage fears of a fake site; but tor.eff.org does redirect to torproject.org anyway. b0at (talk) 08:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Requested move

Page now moved StephenHildrey 15:17, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Tor is not an "anonymous network" - it has a name. As a named network that provides anonymity, the page title is currently incorrect.

---

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support as original move proposer. StephenHildrey 17:55, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
• Support - correctness is a virtue. In my opinion, you could have been bold and moved without discussion, since the justification is indisputable. Haakon 19:22, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • It won't let me move the page because my account is too new :-( StephenHildrey 19:27, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Oh, interesting, I didn't know of such restrictions :-) Haakon 19:58, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
• Support. The Tor developers also refer to it as an "anonymity network", not an "anonymous network". Victor Lighthill 23:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Pre-move request discussions

I think "Tor (anonymity network)" would be a better title than the current "Tor (anonymous network)". Thoughts? --StephenHildrey 16:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

...Are you even allowed to use the word anonymity in that fashion? Regardless, I think "Tor (anonymous network)" is far more intuitive than your proposal. --Maru (talk) Contribs 17:37, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "allowed to use" - to me it makes more sense to say "anonymity network" than "anonymous network" because the network is not "anonymous", it provides anonymity. Still, checking Google ([[1]] vs [[2]]) suggests that most people agree with you.

I meant grammatically. Anonymity doesn't seem to work as an adjective describing the kind of network, to me. --Maru (talk) Contribs 00:08, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The construction "NOUN Network" to mean "A network used for NOUN" is pretty common. "Communication network," "intelligence network," and so on appear regularly in the NY Times and other newspapers. Also, the usage "anonymity network" is common in the anonymous communications field (whose participants do anonymity research, not necessarily anonymous research). But in any case, "anonymous network" is certainly wrong, for the reasons given above. If you won't accept "anonymity network", "anonymous communication network" or "network for anonymity" could be accurate. --Victor Lighthill 17:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Good point. Also, "anonymous network" means "network without a name", which Tor clearly isn't - it's "the Tor network".

Actually, the proper description is an "anonymizing overlay network". Afecks 10:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Anonymity network redirects to Proxy server. I don't believe that the proxy server article does the concept of an anonymity network justice. It would be much better for it to have its own article. Also, there definitely should be an article that lists anonymity networks. 90.128.48.249 (talk) 22:03, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Organization

Anyone want to take a crack at organizing this article a little better??? As the Tor entry continues to grow, it will seem increasingly haphazard and disorganized.

I feel that the last part of the article, especially talking about specific lines to uncomment in Tor configuration files, is far too much detail for an overview article like this.

I've had a first attempt, though I think it still needs a lot of work to add useful information. Hopefully people will find it more cohesive now, anyway. --StephenHildrey 12:41, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Not supported?

"As of late 2005, the EFF no longer sponsors the Tor project..." What does this mean? Does anyone have any details on this?

See the second paragraph of "Tor: Donate!". b0at 11:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The page now says "As of October 2005, EFF no longer has any money for supporting the Tor project.", so it was a money thing, not political support. Gronky 15:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't mean it wasn't political: EFF could have made a political decision to divide their pot of money in a way that excluded Tor :) </pedantic> StephenFalken 19:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

EFF still provides webhosting and legal advice to the Tor project; just not cash. Naturally, all budgeting decisions are in some sense political (in that the EFF, presented with lower-than-expected funds, 'could' have decided to cut lawyers rather than Tor. But there has been no political break between the projects (or if there has, it does not seem to be documented anywhere. -- Victor Lighthill 20:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Ban discussion?

Is there a discussion of why connections from some of the Tor exit nodes have been blocked from editing wikipedia content available anywhere?

I was looking for it somewhere. See Wikipedia:No open proxies. However, it appears that the decision was unilaterally taken by a very low number of people who are blocking those open proxies. I'm not sure all Wikipedians approve with this policy, I certainly don't! 212.112.231.83 18:15, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

what the internet needs is free, closed proxies, like requiring a password. [Unsigned Anon User]

I think it is horrible that Tor is outright banned. A better option would be moderation. But what bothers me the most about the banning is that I can still be logged in and get refused access. This doesn't make any sense. If I log in to my account, why ban me because of the IP? I prefer Tor for privacy reasons and it is helpful for free speech. About discussion, you might wish to check - I think it was the tor mailing list archives from a year or so back. I believe I recall discussion on the ban. Nisanu 15:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

On Portal:Free software, Tor is currently the selected article

(2006-09-02) Just to let you know. The purpose of selecting an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain on the portal for a week or so. The previous selected article was GNOME. Gronky 14:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Tor's time has passed, the selected article is now PuTTY. Gronky 21:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Breaking news?

German police are apparently seizing TOR servers. - BalthCat 00:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a tempest in a teapot. As far as anybody can tell (as discussed on the Tor list), the seizures are part of a kiddie porn sweep where dozens of hundreds of computers were grabbed. No Tor server operator has been charged, or seems likely to be charged. Current consensus seems to be that server ops will get their servers back once the cops realize the servers have no useful evidencce on them, and put them back up again (with different public keys, of course). Though many conspiracy theories are circulating about the cops' "real" motives for doing this, it doesn't seem that any of these are substantiated. -- Victor Lighthill 18:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

A lot of news is that they were in fact TOR Exit-Nodes which can show ip addresses in server logs. --- Allix Davis Mon Sep 18 16:29:13 BST 2006

How is that news? Wouldn't they be exit-nodes almost by definition? -- Gwern (contribs) 15:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

This i beleive is the main source of the news in english at least. http://itnomad.wordpress.com/2006/09/10/germany-crackdown-on-tor-node-operators/ I can of course speculate and defend tors anonymity, but it would worry alot of tor users confidence, especially in countries where legimate use of tor is needed, eg.. china --- Allix Davis Wed Sep 20 01:07:03 BST 2006

Thailand's ISPs block tor.eff.org website

When access to http://tor.eff.org/ via Thailand's ISPs, it will show you a message:

Not Found

The requested URL /favicon.ico was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

see 2006 Thailand coup d'état#Internet_censorship

The Tor website has been blocked in Thailand since well before the coup. Fortunately for users in Thailand, there are mirrors. ( http://tor.eff.org/mirrors.html.en ) --Victor Lighthill 03:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

as of now, i was able to access the Tor site Roger jg 08:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

help

i install tor and go to whatismyip.com and wut i see is the same ip that i saw before i install tor. isnt tor sopposed to make it different? 195.225.104.228

Not the place to discuss how you did or did not mess up the installation. --Gwern (contribs) 14:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

where would i get support? when i go to tor.eff.org, all the instances of the word support that i see refer to providing finincal support to them - not in getting support. ne ideas? 195.225.104.228 02:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Your friendly tech guru or forum or mailing list, I would guess. Not an encyclopedia. --Gwern (contribs) 02:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a question on the Tor FAQ at [3] about getting support, but there is also (I think) an answer to your original question. But of course, you read the documentation before you decided to ask random people on the Internet to read it for you, right? -- Victor Lighthill 14:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

why are so many people here so horribly full of themselves? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.7.9.212 (talk • contribs)

And why are there so many people elsewhere so horribly selfish and clueless? --Gwern (contribs) 17:59 18 December 2006 (GMT)

not everybody is a computer genius, I've been having problems as well. And I did read the support and FAQ pages.. it just gets so confusing when they start talking about ORports and all that crap, it makes no sense to some people like me who aren't experts on computer networking. Anyway, you can say I'm "horribly selfish and clueless" as much as you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the Tor support pages are nearly useless to the people who actually need them. Most of what I read consisted of "Just go here and disable these ports, enable these ones, and edit this file." and that was about as detailed as it got. --Krakko 22:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, in my opinion the documentation for Tor is more than adequate for most purposes. At least, its documentation is much better than most other software I've happened to use. And the documentation is constantly improving. Documentation is frequently neglected too much by software developers, but the Tor community has done a lot to make sure that isn't the case with Tor. I mean, just look at the list of documentation already written, including an expansive wiki. But you must consider that the Tor software is not a bunch of magic, that to use the software effectively, there are some things the user must understand, and that means reading docs. Without an adequate understanding of what's going on, you may be leaving yourself vulnerable. --Robomojo 06:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Major gap in intro

What was the motive of the United States government in the initial development of Tor? What is their current view of the project? 198.247.174.254 01:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The Navy's stated goals were to give their analysts a way to browse anonymously webpages without *.mil addresses showing up. The point behind releasing it publicly was to increase security simply because of increased traffic by many more and more geographically dispersed persons. I haven't added this since I honestly don't remember where I read that. --Gwern (contribs) 04:45 9 February 2007 (GMT)

History of TOR?

Intro mentions a few recent developments, but I would like to see other information such as how long TOR has existed, major changes in the project, etc. 128.195.75.51 16:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You could try Google then.

Free Software

This and many other free software pages are being vandalized by an anonymous user by the IP 142.151.175.39 (contribs), repeatedly adding "and open source" to "this is free software". We all know OS is a subset of FS, so adding this is superfluous, and seems a bit biased to me. — Isilanes 15:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it the other way? All free software is open source but not all open source is free software... --Gwern (contribs) 23:22 22 February 2007 (GMT)

Free software and "osi certified" (bare with me) are two sets with 99.x% overlap. There is one licence that is free software but not osi certified (the NPL), and there's two or three licences that are osi certified but not free software (one RealNetworks licence, one old version of the APSL). Of those three licences that are not in both categories, two are not used for any software, and one is used for one part of one software package that is not widely used. So it's safe to say the two categories are the same.

BUT, "osi certified" is not a universally accepted definition of "open source" for software, and OSI have not been outspoken in correcting mis-uses of the term. So "open source" has been allowed to become fuzzy. So in the interests of precision, when something is described as "open source" - it should be noted that the software is free software (if it indeed is free software). But even better would be to leave out the fuzzy term and just say that the software is free software (if it is). Gronky 09:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Gwern is right, or at least he understood what I meant (correct or not), which is not exactly what I say. What I meant is that the specifications of OS are a subset of those of FS, and therefore if something is FS, it goes implied that it is also OS. Reading Gronky's reply, maybe I am technically wrong, but I had the idea that it is widely recognized that all FS is OS, but not all OS is FS, as Gwern says. — Isilanes 09:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It looks like some people here are walking precariously close to Wikipedia:3RR. Since Tor's webpages describe it as free software, but its license confirms both to DFSG and to OSI guidelines, both terms apply uncontroversially. "Free and Open Source" would IMO be a fine thing to say. Please take your edit war to [Alternative terms for free software] and make a substantive improvement there instead? -- Victor Lighthill 04:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Tor also complies with "it has more than 10 lines of source code", "it was written mostly or totally in ASCII", "it's a three-letter word" and "begins with T". ¿Are you implying that these facts should also be mentioned? Tor is free software. Compare that to saying that "Tor is a square". Saying "Tor is a four-sided polygon" is also technically correct, but Tor is not just any 4s polygon: it is a square. Saying "Tor is a square and a four-sided polygon" is hopelessly redundant, and may only be interpreted as POV-pushing by supporters of the "four-sided" religion. This can not be accepted. — Isilanes 16:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Your analogy does not seem apropos. Nobody cares about the category of "begins with T" or "written totally or mostly in ascii." Enough people care about the category of "Free software" and enough people care about the category of "Open-source software" that projects that meet both definitions often call themselves both in order to communicate clearly with people who aren't quite sure of the differences between them. You seem to be convinced that these projects are foolish to do so, and I realize that this is a religious matter for a lot of the people here, but in the end, I think NPOV should prevail. -- Victor Lighthill 16:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• My (first) analogy is a reductio ad absurdum, and illustrates the point that data should not be included on the sole base that it is correct. My second analogy (squares and 4s polygons), is a second reductio, intended to illustrate that terms that correspond to a set and a subset should not be both included. Just the most accurate and exact one should. Moreover, you state that [...]projects that meet both definitions often call themselves both in order to communicate clearly with people[...]. You seem to forget that the very open source term was invented with a clear agenda of substituting the term free software, which sounded too "leftist" for some, and drove some corporations away from free software, because it wasn't a term with a good "business sound". Fact is that "free software" is the original, unbiased, self-explanatory term for free software, and others (outstandingly "open source") are marketing campaigns that Wikipedia shouldn't support. — Isilanes 00:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Clarification of its protection from Traffic Analysis

As a network security newbie, I was reading about Traffic Analysis and ended up here. Anyway, in the intro, it says Tor is vulnerable to Correlation Analysis (which links to Traffic Analysis). But later, it says Tor was developed to help defeat Traffic Analysis. It's not really a contradiction, but the article basically says it's vulnerable to something it tries to defeat. Could this be clarified? Polihale 20:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Polihale (talk • contribs) 20:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

License: 3-clause BSD.

I see that 76.183.142.216 has [changed the page] to say that Tor is no longer licensed under the 3-clause BSD license. But as far as I can see, this is not actually the case. The Tor license is here: [[4]]. That looks like 3-clause BSD to me, and the Tor developers don't seem to have announced a license change. What is your source for saying that the license is not 3-clause BSD? -- Victor Lighthill 00:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Hidden Wiki down - Replacements?

I've added that the hidden wiki is down. It is relevant because anybody who reads this page and is interested in trying Tor's hidden services will find they can't get anywhere due to the aforementioned wiki being the only list of available hidden services one can get an address to. Without it therefore, and given the apparently tight-lipped approach to the situation taken by just about every public face of Tor (the IRC channel won't say anything, and the website is still linking the hidden wiki as if everything was fine), Tor might as well not have hidden service capabilities.

Please comment / explain before reverting or otherwise censoring my edits. As I say, people are strangely reluctant to talk about it, or even to offer the URL of an alternative hidden index site, so I am anticipating the possibility that (for reasons unknown) someone will want what I said removed.

Here are two alternatives to the hidden wiki that can serve as an entry-point. It's really strange, that nobody who is in charge with TOR-development seems to care about linking any alternatives - perhaps that's due to the links to controversial contents provided on these pages:

http://metaq3ayddzzcfzc.onion/wiki/index.php?page=HiddenServices

http://rjgcfnw4sd2jaqfu.onion/pantawiki/HiddenServices

Perhaps somebody could link one of those in the article.

--85.24.184.24 16:04, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Xiandos - Hidden service list mirror on the public Internet

http://xiandos.info/HiddenServices

You may have to edit the warning about it being a hidden service, because it is not one. It should be there regardless because Wikipedia is for the general public. They will be able to see examples of hidden services without having to use Tor.

HiddenServices - APE wiki

http://anegvjpd77xuxo45.onion/wiki/HiddenServices90.135.249.238 (talk) 23:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Editing of Wikipedia through Tor

I've added a very short section on this, since editing through Tor is banned under Wikipedia:No open proxies. Feel free to add/change/amend/whatever. Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 15:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Uh... that really shouldn't be there. WP articles should almost never self-reference unless it's absolutely necessary for the content. Take a look at WP:SELF. Since Tor isn't specifically tied to wikipedia, and doesn't have any particular wiki-claim-to-fame, article shouldn't mention WP. Bladestorm 16:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree in principle, but there's a thread at Wikipedia talk:No open proxies#A brief essay by a hard-blocked user where a new user said he wanted to use Tor, looked up Tor on Wikipedia, didn't see anything regarding it, and in good faith tried to edit through Tor. Of course he's been blocked, and is irked. Perhaps change it to a header. But it can come out. Just an attempt to prevent biting of newcomers. Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 16:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... I don't remember how to do it, but I seem to recall that a few articles that touch on subjects close to wikipedia policies sometimes have little boxes at the tops of the articles like, "This article is about such-and-such. For wikipedia's policy on similar-and-such, click here". (I know, real helpful, eh?) Anyways, the point is, a little header box, that isn't part of the article might be a better choice.

I'll try to see if I can find one of the pages that uses those. Bladestorm 16:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Otherwise we can fake it with indents and italics. Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 16:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

How does that look? (Feel free to modify it however you like if this isn't right either) :) Bladestorm 16:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks good! You're right, the header is better. Let's see what others think. Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 16:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Update 'DNS Leaks'?

Changes in version 0.2.0.1-alpha - 2007-06-01

 o Major features, client usability:
   - A client-side DNS proxy feature to replace the need for
     dns-proxy-tor: Just set "DNSPort 9999", and Tor will now listen
     for DNS requests on port 9999, use the Tor network to resolve them
     anonymously, and send the reply back like a regular DNS server.
     The code still only implements a subset of DNS."

http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jun-2007/msg00026.html

It seems tor is now capable of some kind of routing of DNS requests through the anonymity network. Perhaps someone more familiar with the technology can see if the current paragraph needs to be updated or whether it still stands.

Fair use rationale for Image:Tor-logo.png

Image:Tor-logo.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 04:36, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Removed un-sourced paragraph with claims attributed only to "many" and "some people".

The original paragraph was:

However, the regular downfall of services hosting illegal and/or controversial content (believed to be over 20 to date) has led many to suspect that Tor's aims are not what it claims them to be. Frequent criticism has been directed at Tor's disorganised and hard to follow source code, especially the portions which deal with controlling the in- and out-flow of traffic from nodes used as a hidden services, which were added after the bulk of the software was completed. Some suspect that several of the developers may have taken advantage of this to deliberately compromise to program's security, effectively rendering it little more than a carefully disguised trojan, undetectable to most due to the deliberately obsfuscated code which describes it.

I hope I have not done this in error, but attributing claims of deliberate malicious behavior to "many" and "some" without naming a single name is not how we ought to do things. This paragraph has been tagged as "citation needed" for a while. It seems to have been posted via Tor, so I can't easily contact the original author. If you can find Verifiable sources for any of that, they should go in. -- Victor Lighthill (talk) 17:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

That paragraph was so bad that it may have actually been vandalism.90.135.249.238 (talk) 00:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Behind firewalls?

Does Tor work behind from behind firewalls? 220.245.175.2 (talk) 10:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep, depending on how restrictive the firewall is. This isn't a support forum, though, so you won't get many good answers for your tech questions here. You can find out how to make Tor work with various firewalls, and find out better places for technical questions, at the Tor FAQ at https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ . -- Victor Lighthill (talk) 20:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

graphics

Hi I just thought it would be a good idea to add some info graphics to the article. The EFF has nice that show very good how TOR works: http://www.torproject.org/images/htw4.png (more here [5]) just an idea--MilesTeg (talk) 11:19, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Remove core.onion Listing From The Article

IMO The core.onion page is a joke, can we remove it from the Tor article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.80.200.138 (talk) 08:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any suggestions?90.135.249.238 (talk) 00:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

It's a bit strange bit it's not a "joke". It's as good an index as any, but I think it's important to note that despite it's official-looking appearance it is not part of the Tor Project. I have added the following note: There is no official index of hidden services, but a number of third-party hidden services exist to serve this purpose. Does that sound good? ManaUser (talk) 02:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I suggest HiddenServices - Xiando at http://xiandos.info/HiddenServices . It is an index of hidden services that is not itself a hidden service. This should definitely be in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.134.86.192 (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

core.onion should stay. It's one of the longest running hidden services, and it's regarded as a fairly stable one. Part of me thinks this was removed because of the whole "Matt vs Jamon" thing going on. If that is the case, then NPOV would mean including both Matt and Jamon's sites, the Hidden Wiki and core.onion. I'm adding it back for these reasons. --Snaxe/fow (talk) 05:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

As the one who removed core.onion and onionforum, I would like to assure you that it had nothing at all to do with anything regarding "Matt vs Jamon." The reason I added The Hidden Wiki is because it was linked from the actual Tor Project itself and was in this article before it temporarily went down. It is now back up (and has been for some time), and offers one of the best points of entry to hidden services, as it is one of the best lists of hidden services. I also added the Tor Project hidden service page. I also added a mirror of hidden service indexes that is not itself a hidden service. Further, what evidence is there that core.onion or onionforum are "central sites" of hidden services? Hidden services are decentralized, and the term "central sites" is a misnomer. We run the risk of making certain hidden services de facto "central sites" if we spam them here. I propose to have only a good mirror of hidden services (Xiando), a good list of hidden services (The Hidden Wiki), and The Tor Project page as a hidden service. To address your concern of NPOV: my motives do not dictate what is NPOV, and even if they did, it certainly does not mean including both Matt and Jamon's sites. If anything, this article must remain neutral to that conflict. 90.128.37.21 (talk) 23:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Security and hidden services

If there isn't an appropriate list of hidden service links, this page shouldn't contain any

The article currently contains the following list of hidden service links:

• Main Page - The Hidden Wiki, a wiki focusing on Tor hidden services
• onionforum, a popular forum
• Toogle, a search engine and service index
• Services index, list of tor services and uptimes
• Freedom Hosting, Free hidden web hosting with PHP and MySQL

We could remove the "inappropriate links" tag by moving these links to a tor-to-web proxy, such as tor.theinfo.org. Unfortunately, I'm not comfortable with providing people with links to that current list of hidden services. For instance, "The Hidden Wiki" triggers a NoScript XSS warning in my browser, while Toogle contains tag/category links that appear to point to pedophilic content (I haven't confirmed this, for obvious reasons). Can we come up with a list of XSS free, CP free, hidden service links? Until someone can, the wikipedia entry shouldn't be linking to hidden services at all. -- pde (talk) 20:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The idea is that new users learning about hidden services need a few .onion addresses to get started. This article is a great place for that. The problem is, the total number of hidden services is small, so it is easy to find content that is objectionable to someone. I think a list like you describe would make a nice external link. 90.128.96.153 (talk) 01:33, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Core.onion

As some of you probably already know, core.onion was recently hacked and replaced with a page threatening legal action against several Tor users. Although I hope this will not take longer than a few days for its owner to resolve, the fact remains that this is a chilling reminder of the way all hidden services, however anonymous the system may make them in theory, are vulnerable to the same types of sttacks that can be mounted against any other webserver (something which people often seem to overlook in favor of Tor-specific issues when configuring their server). It seems that this is undoubtedly the most important threat to hidden services right now, as such vulnerabilities can easily be used to expose them, or, as in this case, used to propagate false messages.

Maybe it would be worth addressing this in the article? -85.17.231.67 (talk)

It's not entirely clear if this was a real attack or a prank by the site's owner. (Despite my earlier statement that core.onion is "not a joke".) Possibly he was trying to make some kind of point. In any case, it seems to be mostly back to normal. ManaUser (talk) 16:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Torchat

Should the Tor page mention or link to the Torchat application website or should this be a separate page? http://code.google.com/p/torchat/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.117.177.114 (talk) 15:17, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

someone removed TorChat altogether with this change: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tor_%28anonymity_network%29&diff=prev&oldid=216922421 Why did this happen? Now Scatterchat is the only chat/messaging application in this section. Why is ScatterChat more worthy to be mentioned than TorChat? 82.83.248.71 (talk) 12:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

It looks like someone was cleaning house, as they removed several links. TorChat may have been removed because it did not have a Wikipedia article, so there was nothing to see (also). You are in luck, as a user (you?) created a TorChat WP article less then two-and-a-half hours after your mention of it here. Feel free to add it. I don't think anybody cares. 90.134.51.3 (talk) 17:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Low Latency Fact Tag

Latency in this context is a type of network, and doesn't necessarily mean high-speed or low latency in the sense of an online First-person shooter. I removed the fact tag because TOR is accepted as a "low latency" anonymity network in the study of those types of networks. I could probably find a source if I really needed to, but the tag seems unnecessary. I'm guessing the tag was added when someone used TOR and found out it wasn't as low latency as their Counter-strike connection.--Littleman_TAMU ^(talk) 00:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your edit, though the context is really the same; in anonymity networks or in first person shooters, low latency means low packet travel time, meaning higher speed. What differs between anonymity systems and games is just scale; high-latency anonymity systems have RTTs of hours, maybe days; "high latency" might be a few 100ms in a FPS. Note this is going to cause a problem with the terminology in the field; already there is discussion of a need for a much lower latency anonymity network, a speed advancement over Tor like Tor was over Mixmaster, to support VOIP, various streaming video protocols, and I'm sure, games like Counter-strike. So while for now "low-latency" is accurately applied to Tor per the literature, you should probably expect to have to edit this soon once the terminology is set with the next generation of high-speed anonymity systems. We may get lucky and they will call the next type of anonymity network "ultra-low latency" or something along those lines. NoDepositNoReturn (talk) 19:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think low latency in this sense means that the timing of TCP segments is not artificially stalled in order to defeat bandwidth monitoring. The software makes a best effort to get data through the network as fast as the system will allow rather than creating latency. The benefit is interactivity, the trade-off is that it lets a strong adversary to sometimes make better guesses about identity. 90.135.206.57 (talk) 15:07, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Why Trivia?

Why there is a "trivia" warning under In popular culture section?

They are usually lumped into the same category.83.191.190.208 (talk) 16:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The "See also" section is a mess.

It would be great to have a Wikipedia article about anonymity networks. Then all those links have a place to go.90.128.71.15 (talk) 17:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I am going to make some major changes to this article.

Is there anybody here at all who has thoughts on the matter? I intend to get rid of several links, fix the hidden services section, and probably a few other things.90.135.149.106 (talk) 21:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I changed the Anonymous hidden services section to simply "Hidden services." I gutted a lot of it (like warnings about illegal content), and added some references. I also think I have found a solution to the whole link spam/Matt vs Jamon nonsense by simply not linking to any hidden services from this article. The one link to a public Internet hidden service list is sufficient and balanced. I would like to hear the input of others. I put quite a lot of time into this (check out my citations, and please correct any part of them). 90.134.118.52 (talk) 01:14, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I've got a problem with the, "HiddenServices - Xiando" as it leads to child porn

Hi,

I've got a problem with listing: HiddenServices - Xiando

The reason being is that core.onion is listed as the first link in the Xiando index.

I see the following scenario:

click wikipedia.. click tor ... sounds good ... download install... ... let's check out a hidden service to see what it's like ... check wikipedia again .. ... click Xiando index... click first link.. core.onion.... torpedo... ....... what is torpedo.... click .... ah, child porn!

That's right, anyone who visits core.onion is immediately presented with a bunch of options to view child porn.

I found this a bit distressing, and I'm not sure Wikipedia should be linking to indexs, that link to sites with genuine child porn content just a click away.

If you are wondering, go check out the core.onion site for yourself and make your own judgement.

That is a good point. It looks like: From this article - 1) Link to Xiando - 2) Link to core.onion - 3) Link to random Tor CP site - 4) Link to Hard Candy - 5) Link to CP. That is four or five links, but still rather close. As this article was, core.onion was placed (for whatever reason) at the top of the list of "central sites" (odd coincidence). Given that core.onion is not primarily a hidden service index, I will see to getting it bumped down the Xiando list a bit. In the meantime, feel free to get rid of the link to Xiando if you think it violates policy or good taste. A list like that, however, is awesome information for users learning about Tor. Do you know of any sanitized lists floating around? 90.134.51.3 (talk) 17:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Update: I have thought about this. It looks like every list of hidden services has links to index sites. Every index site has a link to a section that has links to sites which have links to sections that link to CP. I found a site, onion-proxy, which lets you browse to hidden services via SSL. It has a few links to get started, but it has core.onion, APE and various search engines. Even Wikileaks is illegal in some places. Please let me know what you think. 90.135.48.133 (talk) 22:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I've just had another look at the core.onion service again, and it clearly has 'TorPedo' as a very prominent link on the top page. This means that it's only a few clicks away. After some consideration, given the fact that Xiando links to another page which provides child porn, I think that the gain in removing it outweighs the reduction in usefulness of the Tor wikipedia entry. I will remove it for the moment and refer it to Wikipedia moderators if there are others who vehemently want it to stay.

Just wanted to note that the hard candy section on xiandos was removed so could we put http://xiandos.info/HiddenServices in again? It's quite useful to get started imho.

I personally think it's ridiculous not to link to such sites anyways; there is no questionable content on the site itself (core.onion) and even xiandos hard candy section only linked to a wiki-collection of links. With 5 hops you'll get cp from anywhere on tor if you're looking for it.

You might personally find it ridiculous, however there is no denying that core.onion, which xiandos links to, has working links for child porn. This make xiandos a facilitator for people who want to see pictures of preteen children being sexually abused. In addition, xiandos also has other links of dubious contents such as "Stolen amateur porn dump" and "furry and zoophilic stories". This doesn't strike me as added value to the tor wikipedia page, it strikes me as added value for a very small number of people who use tor to look at morally reprehensible material. I think that the only kind of index that the tor article should contain is one that is vetted for suitability for a general audience. In addition, arguing that other tor sites have links to child porn is absolutely irrelevant in considering the suitability of including the xiandos index on its own merit.

That's why I added it as a personal opinion of mine ;) You're probably right that it doesn't belong here, I just wanted to let you know that the questionable links were removed so it might be appropriate to add the site again.

Although I like the idea of an index that's "vetted for suitability for a general audience" (as it would make Tor more respecatable for a "general audience") the problem to make such an index is I think the very nature of those hidden services. I didn't look to thoroughly into it but from what I've seen, how many sites are there that explicitly host really illegal (i.e. CP) content? "PedoBay", "TorPedo" and something like "eryyyy" that are three sites (+ a handful of others that just don't care and host it by the way) which "poison" the network. So as there are not too many hidden service sites (unless there is an immense dark net I missed) it's almost inevitable to have links (or links to links to ...) to those few sites no matter where you begin; unless the site is totally isolated. Thus if xiandos' index doesnt fit in here I doubt we will find a real one that will.

This is starting to get a little heated, so please sign with four-tildes. There is no need at all to accuse us of looking for morally reprehensible material. The hidden services are tightly knit because indexes of hidden services are of great value, and lists will contain links to other lists. To keep the links current, the lists are wikified. Because hidden services are anonymous, people will add links with impunity. Since the services are hidden, there is little pressure to censor them.

I have not been able to find a sanitized list as of yet. If someone wants to create and post one, that would be great. Just be aware that maintaining the list will consume a little time; new services will not be added quickly, and dead links will remain longer. Guidelines: 1) No links to anything unsuitable for children. This includes onionforum, as it has a mature section. 2) No links to other indexes with links to anything unsuitable for children (this probably means no indexes). 3) Possibly no links to hidden-service search engines.

If I could get such a list hosted at Xiandos, would there be a problem with it. Is the site tainted? 90.135.206.57 (talk) 14:56, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOT#CENSORED for children. None of the links lead to illegal content, and morality has no place in determing the content of our articles, per WP:NPOV --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 20:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I would think that a sanitised list at Xiandos would be perfectly cool. The only criteria that would be relevant IMO would be if you'd be happy for your child, mother, or father, to look at sites from the list that's pretty cool. If people browse Xiandos and other places looking for more populated lists then so be it, and IMO wouldn't reduce the appropriateness of the sanitised list to be listed here. 86.132.176.144 (talk) 22:06, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Someone has totally borked this page in the past couple of weeks. There used to be a link to the core.onion and stuff on here which someone has removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.9.50.100 (talk) 22:10, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The only links that were removed were ones that had direct links to child pornography.

That's not true. And those that do are indexes of Torland, like Google is to the WWW. Should we delink www search engines, too? One can find morally reprehensible material with them very easily, too. If you can find a law applying to Florida that says we can't link to sites that link to sites that link to sites that link to sites that have child pornography, I'll agree to remove them. Otherwise, Wikipedia is WP:NOT#CENSORED over moral concerns. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 18:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

AnotherSolipsist has been banned for paedophilia related edits on wikipedia. Now that this pederast has been removed from editing articles on wikipedia, can we have a sensible debate again about this issue? 80.177.118.85 (talk) 21:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure. And as much as I disagree with that guy's other edits, that's no reason to discredit his points on here, which were perfectly well-reasoned and valid. I also feel compelled to point you to Wikipedia's rules. Wikipedia is not censored. That is one of the key principles upon which it was founded. Of course linking to something illegal is a different matter altogether, but you seem to be forgetting that we're not actually linking to child porn in any way. Looking at the arguments against it so far, I see:

"I found this a bit distressing"

Sorry, but that's your problem. You could have simply ignored it and clicked "back" rather than choosing to view anything on there. Your lack of self-control and susequent discomfort is not our problem.

"I think that the only kind of index that the tor article should contain is one that is vetted for suitability for a general audience."

WP:NOT.

"The only criteria that would be relevant IMO would be if you'd be happy for your child, mother, or father, to look at sites from the list"

WP:NOT. Should we also remove Wikipedia's article on pornography, while we're at it?

"Guidelines: 1) No links to anything unsuitable for children. This includes onionforum, as it has a mature section. 2) No links to other indexes with links to anything unsuitable for children (this probably means no indexes). 3) Possibly no links to hidden-service search engines."

Wikipedia itself doesn't meet those criteria. Why on Earth should any links from here be expected to? Google returns many more "immoral" results than any hidden search engine...I suppose we better remove that article, too...

"The only links that were removed were ones that had direct links to child pornography."

Incorrect. The worst I've ever seen on core.onion is a link to a disclaimer page warning of exactly what the site contains. Any sane person would hit "back" in their browser toolbar at that point.

"This doesn't strike me as added value to the tor wikipedia page, it strikes me as added value for a very small number of people who use tor to look at morally reprehensible material."

So you don't believe Wikipedia should give people an entry point into the .onion network? Have you any idea that number of forum threads I have seen asking for "Tor links" because people were unable to find an index? If that's not evidence of the "added value" of including this, I don't know what is.

"there is no denying that core.onion, which xiandos links to, has working links for child porn. This make xiandos a facilitator for people who want to see pictures of preteen children being sexually abused."

Google has working links to child porn, I guess we really shouldn't be link that...4chan has child porn, hey, let's delete that article too! Limewire, eDonkey and [Bittorrent]] have child porn as well, why not wipe the whole fucking lot off the peer-to-peer section?

"morally reprehensible"

I very much agree. However, it's not our place to censor anything here based on morals. Many, many things are morally reprehensible, but that does not mean they should not have a place on Wikipedia, unless prohibited by US law.

Please people, be rational.

Many, many things are morally reprehensible, but that does not mean they should not have a place on Wikipedia, unless prohibited by US law.

Child porn is illegal under US law.

I honestly can't tell whether you're actually that stupid or just trolling for the sake of it, but just in case it isn't the latter, re-read the comment above yours and notice that we are linking to an index page and text-only message board. Nothing else.

Of course it is but so what? core.onion still doesn't have any! Compare it to bitorrent: If the TOR Client/Vidalia etc is Azureus/uTorrent then core.onion is something like thepiratebay.org/other torrent sites. Maybe not everything THEY DO is absolutely legal in the U.S. but their website is not illegal to VISIT. All the articles about torrent sites have (of course) links to the corresponding sites because there is nothing objectable about the website itself.

Please sign posts. Please indent. It's getting heated and difficult to sort out. I would personally like a link to a good hidden service directory. I agree completely that links to the sites previously mentioned are very low-risk, and probably fall well within Wikipedia guidelines. Child pornography is a huge issue to many people. The problem is not just that there are well-labeled links to links to links to links to CP, but that some anonymous person might just decide to plop down links to actual images. Until recently, anybody could post any picture they wanted on the front page of core.onion, so a link to there from here could be a direct link to an illegal image. Having pictures in Talks, Pages or Sites would make that two clicks. Since somebody can create a hidden service of a web page with illegal images, and post that link in the Sites section, this is always a possibility. Yes, it is always a possibility on Google, too. At any rate, we can solve this issue, let's not get too steamed over it, okay? (I am a little ticked off that a person would be banned from talking about their point of view, though.)90.135.216.19 (talk) 01:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

some anonymous person might just decide to plop down links to actual images. Until recently, anybody could post any picture they wanted on the front page of core.onion, so a link to there from here could be a direct link to an illegal image.

Unfortunately, nowhere is safe from that. Take 4chan, which displays the 4 most recent images on its front page. Even on Wikipedia itself, anyone can upload an offensive image and link it in any article they want.

@Topic: As i see the main article is locked with the links inside so i guess our debate is indeed settled. As you said, posting images on core.onion is no longer possible and all sites (the ones on core.onion to my knowledge at least) are clearly laballed/have a huge disclaimer like TorPedo so no one will be "assaulted" by CP images. After all i'm glad we were able to properly discuss this without flaming/insults and get to an imho satisfying result for wikipedia. I'm btw sorry for not signing my post. I'm no steady contributor so i don't have a real account but i think especially concerning such a "heated and difficult" topic it can also be quite useful as it prevents argumentum ad hominem.

Who/what does Tor, in layman terms, hide traffic data from

Let us say person X is using the Company Y's internet with his own computer. He uses Tor for surfing on the internet.

- Will the network-admin of Company Y be able to see what X is doing on the internet, what X is surfing to, downloading, etc.? Or is it completely impossible for the admin to see any traffic X is routing through Tor?

- Will the ISP of Company Y be able to see what X is doing on the internet, what sites X is visiting, what X is writing, etc.? Or is it completely impossible for the ISP to see any traffic X is routing through Tor?

- Who will actually see what X is doing on the internet, and will this person/corporation be able to link X's trafic to X's identity? Speaking in practical/realistic terms, of course. I know that in the most extreme of cases, everything can be done, but if X uses Tor, who can actually SEE (see traffic) what X is doing on the web, and who can realistically LINK this to X's identity? (And what are the chances of this happening?)

Specific answers with specific examples will be greatly appreciated! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.134.183.32 (talk) 22:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the place for it, but while you are eating lunch or taking a dump, the network-admin can mirror your disk drive so he can see everything you have done. He can also put in a rootkit backdoor and spyware on your computer so he can see everything you do. He can then tell anybody he wants, including the ISP or the police. What tor is supposed to do is encypt all your network activity. The network-admin and the ISP can determine that you are using Tor. The operator of the exit node, and that exit node's ISP will know the contents of your communication, but not who you are. This is assuming a perfect world.90.135.216.19 (talk) 23:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Some asshat keeps deleting the links to core.onion

WTF? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.114.118 (talk) 14:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not me, but I think a link to a public Internet list of hidden services (like Xiandos) would be ideal. If we must have hidden services, the Tor Project has a hidden service, so I tihnk that should be there. Now the Tor Project has links to core.onion as well as the Hidden Wiki, and if it's good enough for them, sure, why not? There is one major problem, though. Core.onion is becoming the de-facto entry point because it has been actively promoted in several places, including Wikipedia. So the logic becomes: We should include it because it is popular. It is popular because it has been included. Therefore, we should include it because it has been included.90.135.216.19 (talk) 23:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Torbutton and Alexa?

I have just removed revision 223333529 as I could not find any valid sources backing it up. If anyone thinks it does need mentioning, please provide a trustworthy reference. So far I did not find any bug reports or credible sources, merely (as far as I can see) FUD on the Mozilla review page. — Ewald || ^contact talk | email || ^info user | contrib || ^{posted on} 21:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

directory links

Regarding these edits:

02:23, 13 July 2008 (→Central sites: delete links that cannot be accessed without special software, per WP:NOTDIR) 02:22, 13 July 2008 (→Central sites: remove link to a wiki-site, that does not meet WP:RS)

I don't think those reasons are vald. I read WP:NOTDIR, and nowere does it say anything about links that cannot be accessed without special software. Since the link to Xiandos is not being used as a source, it does not fall within the scope of WP:RS. If don't like having these links in the article, please, just say so. Checking behind you like this is a massive waste of time. 90.134.69.135 (talk) 11:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of the article is to educate about the Onion Router, not to provide instructions or a directory of external links, whether or not those links are in the external links section or within the article. Several sections of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not apply.

There are also many links in the see also section that make it look like a directory; topics that don't have Wikipedia articles should not be in the see also section. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 17:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the See Also section needs cleanup. By all means go ahead, but that doesn't explain why you object to having even one link to a list of hidden services. Take another look at WP:NOT why don't you. I think the relevant rule is WP:NOTLINK where it says "Wikipedia articles are not: Mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia." Surely an example of a hidden service is relevant and useful when discussing hidden services. ManaUser (talk) 05:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing his. Also his new section, Illegal Uses looks biased to me. While factually accurate, the characterization of the events in Germany as Tor having "attracted international law enforcement investigations" is misleading at best. IMHO, Illegal Uses should be cleaned up and merged into the Etiquette and Abuse section. ManaUser (talk) 16:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Jack-A-Roe: Thank you very much for your time, contributions and expertise. The only thing that was time-consuming for me was revisiting the specific policies cited to discover that they were (in my opinion) unrelated to the links removed. That is not to say whether or not there are perfectly valid reasons for removing them, just that the reasons given in the edit were (to me) way off. Regarding your concerns, I don't think that one wikified web site or one hidden service example (or even both of them together, for that matter) constitute a directory of external links. I believe something like that is worthy of being in the External links section, but (I suppose) it is in the hidden services section because of the explanation that Tor is necessary to see the content, and that the content is largely unpoliced. If it is a question of style, the external links can easily be incorporated into the paragraph. As for the See also section, you are completely correct. The sections is still a mess, but not as much of a mess as it was before. It is a work in progress in its early stages. I believe that many of the items are notable enough, and Wikipedia articles about them will be forthcoming. I think the list will be massively trimmed down as we sort things out and get each thing in its proper place. For now, it's almost like a repository for most of the anonymity applications on WP. 83.189.50.224 (talk) 21:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Page protection

I could not find that vandalism in the history. I am curious as to what that refers. 83.189.50.224 (talk) 21:28, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now the page is semi-protected. Can there please be some discussion about the need for these things? I can't seen the vandalism that the page history refers to. 90.136.115.53 (talk) 19:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The page has been incorrectly moved a number of times. At least the last one is listed at the movelog (that's a regular URI to en.wikipedia and not a wikilink because I don't know how to make one to the move log). b0at (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 22:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I would like to fix several things on this page. I do not want to create a Wikipedia account. 90.136.138.0 (talk) 11:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This article has stagnated. Please unprotect it so that people may edit it again. The last edit reworded a direct quote simply for the sake of removing the quotation marks ([[6]]). I don't see how reader interest has anything to do with crediting an author. 90.128.4.39 (talk) 11:06, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The only edit in over a month has been to add a tag that this article does not meet Wikipedia standards. Can somebody please unprotect this page so that we may improve it.90.136.253.36 (talk) 17:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Add a request for unprotection to WP:RFPP. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

This has been done. Nobody will unlock this page. Why is that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.136.143.111 (talk) 19:22, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

It has happened again. The logs do not make it clear as to why. What page-move vandalism occured? What edit summaries were removed? It seems strange that people would want to vandalize this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.136.113.151 (talk) 01:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Are we going to be told why? Who would want the Tor article editable only by account holders? 90.128.96.153 (talk) 01:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Can we please be told what happened to make this article protected? I think users have a right to know this.85.160.36.49 (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Node flags

The effort put forth to educate the readers about the various node flags is commendable. However, these are implementation details that virtually nobody wants or needs to know about. I propose that there instead be information about how Tor's implementation of onion routing is different from onion routing as described in the onion routing article. (Tor uses telescoping circuits.) An easy-to-understand explanation of the path data takes, and how it is encrypted and anonymized, would be great! I can't edit the article because I do not have a Wikipedia account. 83.189.125.144 (talk) 19:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello there! I expanded this section only because I had the relevant information handy. It came naturally after investing a lot of time searching. I agree with your arguments, the article needs a lot of work. If it's not unprotected soon, you can always post your contributions to the talk page. A register user will copy it to the main article, probably sooner than later. Regards, Adamantios (talk) 09:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Exit nodes

Adding reliable information about the legality of exit nodes to the 'legal issues' section might be useful. Since the ip address of the exit node is what the destination machine sees, the exit nodes may be the primary target of the police in some cases. Things like "can I suddenly become an exit node while running TOR" and "can I get arrested if I was a TOR exit node that routed an attack on some computer system", I think more people would like to know this before deciding to use this software. Theultramage (talk) 15:37, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

EDonkey, Kademlia

> BitTorrent "Due to the high bandwidth usage caused by the use of this protocol, it is considered impolite and inappropriate to use the Tor network for BitTorrent transfers"

I would assume that, like torrents, since EDonkey and Kademlia are similarly high traffic p2p services, and their usage is extensive, that they would not be polite or appropriate to use. Someone more familiar with the TOR community should probably indicate, if I am correct, that the usage of these on TOR would be equally discouraged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.250.219.28 (talk) 23:22, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Fix it please

Can someone please fix those links (the ones with random crap in them like oldd6th4cr5spio4.onion and l6nvqsqivhrunqvs.onion). I looks like someone tried redirecting them. And yes, complaining here is easier than creating an account and waiting 4 days. I see more "view source" button than "edit" pages these days... so much for that whole "anyone can edit" thing. 75.4.156.210 (talk) 08:25, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I normally don't see the raw .onion urls with my browser setup... hehe. I didn't know they worked that way. :) 75.4.156.210 (talk) 08:35, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Grammar issue

In the Implementation section "The rationale for using C is that Tor requires routers to run fast. "

Should acutally be

"The rationale for using C is that Tor requires routers to run quickly."