Easy Tor+Privoxy+TorButton

[maynoth]

Man I had to jump through hoops to use the newest versions of tor and privoxy,
I finally got it working but perhaps the latest versions could be installed and configured by default for anonymous web browsing.

[ZxEfR]

While the hoops I had to jump through were really big and low to the ground I have to agree with maynoth.....

I would really like to see a higher priority put on the availability of the most recent version of the more popular encryption and privacy (anonymity) software.....such as tor.

Privoxy is up to date.....however.......that may be due to that fact that the latest version of privoxy is from late 2006

But hey it's free.....I take what I can get with a giant smile to boot...

[Ede]

I fail to see the point in this. More software = Less space for more imporant stuff. What's the big fuzz about tor anyway? Anonymous browsing at the cost of net-speed? Sure, I'we tried tor, but found it useless.

What's the point in anonymous browsing anyway if you're not conducting illegal surfing, like cp and such?

[ZxEfR]

Sorry my reply is so long....but this issue for me is extremely important....and hard to talk about in just a few lines.

Ede --- "What's the point in anonymous browsing anyway if you're not conducting illegal surfing, like cp and such?"

I'm glad you asked such an important question.

Here is my take on that statement:

If you go back and read about history you learn that 100% of the time every government that has ever existed for any length of time eventually turns severely tyrannical. So things that are not actually criminal are made criminal.....especially religion.

Therefore learning from history we can see that the statement "if your not doing anything illegal" should never be used as an argument for anything concerning ones right to privacy.

I'm assuming "cp" is copyright or the copying and pasting of copyrighted material? If so then my answer to that is that cp must always take a back seat to ones rights.....i.e. the right to remain anonymous and to use encryption. while cp is very important it should be up to the individual cp owner to guard his/her material. If that means not putting it up on the internet then so be it.

Privacy, liberty, and rights are the most important things a person can possess....for without those you don't even have copyrights.....and more often than not you will even lose your life. Even though you really weren't "doing anything illegal"!

To me encryption and being anonymous is mainly about protecting myself from government...but it's also about the fact that I just plain don't want any Joe Smoe in my business. And speaking of business if am running a business and I need to send my partner some confidential business related material then I definitely don't want anyone seeing that information!

Also...about the programs just taking up space....that could have been an argument in the 80's and 90's but not today. Tor and Pivoxy are extremely small programs and storage space is extremely cheap now. Essentially unlimited.

Thank you for your consideration.

ZxEfR

[kosmonaut]

More software = Less space for more imporant stuff.

Well I think that Tor is important SW, and btw it does not use a lot of space.
I really think that it would be nice if LinuxMint would have Tor and Pri. installed by default. But on the other hand, I think that people you are aware about privacy will be able to install tor without any problems. A default installation is somehow risky...Well call me paranoid, but I think that such SW should be installed by the user him/herself. so that s/he knows what and why s/he does it.
Oh and btw: when ubuntu 7.10 arrives, will it be shipped with the newest Tor version? And if yes:The Tor version will be updated, with the next release of LinuxMint right?

Greetings K.

Edit: Sorry for my poor english. I am german. And for all you german privacy friends, here is a tor installation how to:
http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Tor
http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Privoxy

[ZxEfR]

kosmonaut --- "A default installation is somehow risky...Well call me paranoid, but I think that such SW should be installed by the user him/herself. so that s/he knows what and why s/he does it."

I never thought about that.....that is a very good point! I was wishing that Synaptic had Truecrypt too but now even if they added it I won't use it....I'm going straight to the source for all this stuff from now on!!!

[maynoth]

I fail to see the point in this. More software = Less space for more imporant stuff. What's the big fuzz about tor anyway? Anonymous browsing at the cost of net-speed? Sure, I'we tried tor, but found it useless.

What's the point in anonymous browsing anyway if you're not conducting illegal surfing, like cp and such?

I am guessing you don't live in the USA? Things have really gotten bad here, most of the things I use tor for are political in nature. This is about big brother, not illegal **** or such.

[Ede]

ZxEfR : CP = Child ****.

Didn't know free speech was just a dream in your "land of freedom". (Not ment to offend anyone here..)

That's just too sad.

With space, I was talking about the space on the live-cd. Clem goes cd on the next release. Space is scarce. Besides, I don't know how many of mint's users is americans, I believe most of us is europeans. The spanish community looks big, and more and more germans comes into the chat-channel.

Then again, as you said, tor is small, why not just make a mint-file out of it? I'm sure you don't need tor unless you surf the net anyway. :3

maynoth: I live in Norway. Seems like we have it alot easier than you. We don't ask tourists for what race they are when they visit us.

[ZxEfR]

"land of freedom" --- No offense taken by me.....I couldn't agree more.

The U.S. is definitely the land of the slave home of the ignorant coward now! Makes me sick to see most of my fellow countrymen not even know they aren't free.

I'm wondering when it's going to be live-dvd's?

[kosmonaut]

Just an other how.to:
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-instal ... refox.html

[WinXpNewb]

kosmonaut --- "A default installation is somehow risky...Well call me paranoid, but I think that such SW should be installed by the user him/herself. so that s/he knows what and why s/he does it.

Why is it risky?

[Ede]

Imagine that a OS with a preinstalled SW COULD have been bribed by the U.S. Government to contain some code that would allow them to monitor people, while they think they are hidden.

Hence, if you install it yourself, it's easier to see if it have any of that.

[kosmonaut]

Well...as we discuss TOR:
read this http://www.derangedsecurity.com/time-to-reveal%E2%80%A6/
I guess I have to rethink security issues after reading that

[ZxEfR]

Yeah I came to knowing about TOR via the Security Now podcast so I was aware of what TOR can and can't do. I never check my mail or do any banking through TOR or anything like that. I just used it as an anonymizer and even then I knew it's not perfect.

What I can't believe is that government IT would tell people to use TOR for security!!! That's just stupid. Uh......well after thinking about it for a couple seconds more....yes I actually can believe government IT would do that......

[Husse]

I read something in the beginning of the thread like "crypto and anonymity"
TOR is in no way a crypto tool - obviously some people have not understood that

[alexander]

hehe my first name is Tor
im not an onion however

this probably could be considered spam

[ZxEfR]

Hey now......first off....spam is yummy

And if it's truly funny then it's not spam as far as I'm concerned......

[alexander]

haha however it not funny

on a more Tor note however make sure you put the dot in!

Code: Select all

forward-socks4a / localhost:9050 .

I followed the tutorial and couldn't understand why https://torcheck.xenobite.eu/ was telling me Tor wasn't on.
After 40 minutes of stuffing around I realized it was that bastard dot.