Comment by 👻 ps

I'm not using tor, but interesting to bookmark I2P if exists.

Oct 12 · 2 months ago

8 Later Comments ↓

@ps I keep meaning to check out I2P as well.

tor among other things allows to selfhost without having a real ip.

but it is slow, it requires that your town or country have an access to tor root servers, and it is designed to anonymize.

yggdrasil on the other hand also allows to selfhost, but is fast, utilizes ipv6, has end to end encryphion, creates a mesh network over hierarchical, dependent from geography internet. and of course doesn't anonymize.

i think if everyone just had ygg installed we would solve the problems we have, i. e. everyone would be able to self host, everyone would be able to access.

@norayr ygg is local vpn, when i2p is an additional (application) layer.

anyway, I'm using ygg to connect i2p network (with i2pd)

• there is another modern network called Mycelium, which provides a similar IPv6 API to Yggdrasil but in the 0400::/7 range.

In my opinion, the main problem with mesh networks to use them directly is that there is no single input address. By using few raw IPs you never know which link is better to share. Therefore, I found I2P useful for creating a shared, permanent domain with enhanced privacy for visitors.

Tor project is not interesting for me, but it is created to access Internet, so that's different goals I'm looking for.

it created for different purposes, for instance to publish data and not be found by those who don't want it to be published.

After years of experience with mesh networks like Yggdrasil, I'm starting to interpret mesh networks literally: it’s just a network socket (IPv6, in this case) that provides me with a gateway to the free, community-driven internet universe. Unfortunately, this gateway is not sufficient to navigate the entire space in a world where every step is logged by the system. That's why I2P seems like a stealth add-on for my spaceship, even if it makes it a bit slower.

Since Google seems to know what I'm thinking, I was served a YouTube video about Tor. From the content, you'd think nothing good happens there. And here I've been visiting BBC web and a few fairly innocuous Gemini capsules. Tor must be where Antifa posts their meeting minutes. All joking aside and on a potentially related note*, I pulled an old Pi 3 out a drawer.

• Tor not Antifa

(I also discovered Alhena runs okay on the 1 gb Pi but you could probably start a cup of java before it opens - what a difference a few generations make).

Is the motivation mostly to show support for the technology?

Tor's anonymity is improved by more people using it, so part of the motivation behind hosting services is to contribute to the network's anonymity.

but it is slow, it requires that your town or country have an access to tor root servers

@norayr This isn't entirely true. You can use bridges if Tor is blocked in your country, and there are plenty of ways to get bridges without needing any initial access to the Tor network.

slow is also relative. Tor used to be painfully slow a decade ago, but I usually don't notice it anymore. Sometimes you might get a bad circuit but changing that is one or two clicks. For gemini content which is usually small text files, there's no practical impact in my experience

I was served a YouTube video about Tor. From the content, you'd think nothing good happens there. And here I've been visiting BBC web and a few fairly innocuous Gemini capsules.

@bluesman back in the day of v2 onion addresses, it was possible to somewhat infer the popularity of an onion service. From the media reports you'd think elite hacker hitmen drug dealing kidnappers with scary scars on their face (covered by a ski mask at all times) would be the most popular. but it was actually facebook's onion service. I don't remember the exact numbers but I believe Facebook put out a report at some point claiming there was over a million users who used the onion service, and the vast majority of them were just normal users who weren't up to anything nefarious.

it's a bit ironic to use an anonymization network to access social media that requires you to use your real name (though there is some merit to it in some cases), but I do get a laugh knowing that while so-called journalists spread fear about Tor, someone is probably using it right now to like their grandma's vacation photos.

@wasolili Not to mention there are probably real journalists using it to keep from being jailed or killed.

Original Post

Onion Services — I've been messing with Tor since adding SOCKS5 support to Alhena. I think the whole onion service thing is interesting and was surprised to find a few in Gemini. I set up my own service (temporarily) to see what was involved. I like the idea for running one but I'm wondering why. Is the motivation mostly to show support for the technology?