Forums upgrade feedback and questions

andersking · n00b Joined: 03 Aug 2005 Posts: 8 Location: Australia

Hi, I have been affected by this blocking access to tor users. But i;m confused as to why as i don't have tor installed on any of my PCs. It is extremely annoying as the error message is very cryptic and offers no way to fix it. I've had to use another computer to write this on.

I'm not really interested too much in the reasons (they sound reasonable). but i would like to know how i can get access to the forums again. Or why i am blocked even without running tor (i didnt even know what it was until i was blocked for supposedly using it).

Andrew

tomk · Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 8:58 am Post subject:

jmbsvicetto · Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 7:50 pm Post subject:

andersking · n00b Joined: 03 Aug 2005 Posts: 8 Location: Australia

It appears that i am on a Tor blacklist, most likely due to a previous user. Its causing me problems with other sites too. it may be better to post a link to the blacklist on the error page, ie

http://www.sectoor.de/tor.php

(i'm assuming it sthe blacklist you use) rather than the current

pilla · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:35 pm Post subject:

amne · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 4:59 pm Post subject:

anoland · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 27 May 2003 Posts: 86

I've performed two experiments since my last post a couple days ago. Since I still want to run tor on my own and still access the forums I have to configure my tor server's exit policy to not connect to the forum IP address (which appears to be 140.211.166.170). The first day I overrode my exit policy with

pilla · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 5:13 pm Post subject:

tomk · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:13 pm Post subject:

anoland · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 27 May 2003 Posts: 86

andersking · n00b Joined: 03 Aug 2005 Posts: 8 Location: Australia

pi314 · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:29 am Post subject:

Interesting stuff and my opinion about it:

Aktually it's a shame that a project like tor is beeing treated like this. Tor allows users to have some privacy in a big bad world. Ok, it's not always THAT bad, but big brother might be watching you and so I like tor and some freedom. Everyone should have some privacy and therefor tor is currently one of the best ways to go. By blocking tor from "the good world" it will be pushed more and more into a bad world and at the end the project will be destroyed.

So my question: Is it realy so bad that there is no other way than banning tor? Is gentoo - or better some of the gentoo-staff - part of the big bad word destroying our freedom? Ok, there are always some black sheep but isn't it what they want? Don't they want to destroy our social life? And yes, they are good at it. They are good because they make us destroy our freedom by ourselfs.

regards
a happy tor user that wants to use it for all pages he visits

EDIT: maybe just disalowing tor users from creating new accounts would be a fair compromise

pilla · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:38 pm Post subject:

pi314 · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:20 pm Post subject:

nephros · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 10:58 pm Post subject:

I just want to voice my opinion that I am unhappy with the decision to ban tor users.

Not so much because of the administrative reasons, which are quite transparent, but because of the - kind of - strongarming tendencies the Gentoo Forums are demonstrating here.
And also, and forgive me my Bush here, because of the message it might send out to our friends -- that it is ok to ban users of anonymizers out of (in)convenience.

Tor users and the EFF are our friends -- or better, the subset of EFF supporters and OSS or FLOSS supporters is quite large -- and this step might have broader consequences than the advocates of it might be aware of; the Gentoo Forums are after all one of the largest and most renowned outposts of our community and with this position comes -- IMO -- responsibility to also observe the bigger picture for Linux and related projects.

Without pulling too much of RMS here, it is after all more about speech than it is about beer; for me the tor policy smells more about beer...

No need to discuss this post really; the arguments pro and contra presented in other posts in this thread; I just wanted to deposit _my_ opinion.
_________________
Please put [SOLVED] in your topic if you are a moron.

tuxp3 · n00b Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 61

well, now i'm not a big guy on privacy, or security, but i can see how using an anon proxy is one of the free speech without catch of repurcussions, (such as a gov or other org/group (good or bad) thats monitoring/recording/using in anyway) the data that tor (and others) help to make truely 'free speech'. however, as with any service, that free speech can be bad, because of the abuse presented. hence the line between the good and bad is fuzzy, and i commend the gentoo-fourm-admins on making a best effort in making this short term solution, even tho it has a large drawback.

However, the current situation is far from ideal, its mearly a quick fix, not one thats prime for permenant policy.
a long term policy that would probably require a bit more work . such as rewriting the forum code's add user, would be a far better solution, but tor users, please understand that this hopefully be the case, but for the time being, finding some other solution so that you can still access your rights on gentoo forums is your only choice.

Tux

sgs · n00b Joined: 06 Nov 2002 Posts: 33

There is a good reason to connect to the forums using Tor. It is a matter of principal. Our rights to free speech and privacy are being attacked under the "War on Terror" banner. Since the general public have so little understanding of computers and networks we have an uphill battle.

We all have a duty to make widespread use of Tor and encryption technologies. This will protect the privacy of everyone. I have no reason to be anonymous but I still use these technologies to protect this right. I've had exactly the same problem with Slashdot. Its good that gentoo openly discusses the problem.....Slashdot doesn't even have a policy.

Keeping the forums nice and free of spam is vital however so I'm dropping use of a proxy to connect. Couldn't say the same about Slashdot.....I simply don't trust those people.....so I won't post there anymore.

It would be nice to use Tor with the forums .... above posts suggest some possible ways. Thought I'd post this because it didn't look like anyone had pointed out this very good reason for using Tor......of course maybe some people are using the forums to post hidden cryptographic messages....hee hee.

BTW.....nixnit....your avatar should have an epilepsy warning! I found it real hard to read the first 2 pages.

nixnut · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:07 pm Post subject: Re: There is a reason!

starrbuck · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 8:57 pm Post subject: Re: There is a reason!

sgs · n00b Joined: 06 Nov 2002 Posts: 33

Sorry, but I made no such implication. I tried to make it clear that I support the ban at least temporarily for the sake of functioning forums. I perfectly accept that it was making too much moderation work.

There are however good reasons to encourage use of technologies like Tor, and encrypted communication rather that just give up because its too difficult. I was hoping to outline some good reasons - without writing a full philosophy of communication.

I am hoping that in the long / medium term the site developers / admins will be able to find a way to make it work satisfactorily. This isn't a demand. I am a philosopher - as such I tried to point to a worthwhile reason for any work to be done in this area.

I don't mean to imply anything at all in this post, I shouldn't have spouted off about Slashdot in my last post. I hope my point is clear.