This post will spark some debate, it's just based on my experiences working for a fairly large ISP. I have several subnets registered with ARIN, so, I'm not full of shit. We came under fire awhile back from a spamming companies actions. The feds got involved, it was a really big deal, and this is because TOR was used to submit the emails for relaying.
This is an expression by myself and is clearly an opinion of mine. It is not meant to offend anyone, I just discovered that BlueLight is blocking Tor. From my experience, site admins, such as myself, do this to keep the heat away because we've all seen what happens when the feds don't get answers... That's how it is at my company anyways. You cannot tell them Tor connected. But, the way around this is to just give them the address of the exit node and say you don't know it's tor and that you don't have the money or technology to block tor. The feds will force you to block tor if you don't. We went through a big issue with them back in 2010. Yeah, it was pretty harry. Blocking Tor saved us a lot of money in legal fees.
Anyway, let me start off with showing people why VPN's are simply dumb. They provide protection to noone. Anyone who thinks a VPN provider will stick their neck out to protect a $20/mo. user is simply not thinking clearly. Thats just stupid to think like that. \
"My free VPN will stand up for me and protect my civil liberties!!!" Uh, okay.
With some of the recent takedowns of people using VPN services I think it's important to open up TOR. VPN's ARE NOT SAFE.
http://www.atlantaitservice.com/cms...busted-by-hide-my-ass-vpn-service-ozhouse-alt
This really scares me that BlueLight is ANTY-TOR. Why? It scares me to even think of the answer, so, I'm prohibiting myself from thinking about it.
The list of Tor Exit Nodes is here:
http://exitlist.torproject.org/exit-addresses
So, it's super simple to know whether or not an exit-node is accessing the site. Super super simple.
Now, if the government need to be sure they could still arrest someone, they would simply promise protection as long as sites did not allow TOR. Since VPN's are super simple to track, let me clarify that, here is why VPN's are so simple to track:
Scenario 1: User on VPN:
User connects to BlueLight via VPN and expresses themselves freely and talks about the cure for cancer.
US Gov feels threatened and labels user a terrorist because ANY enemy of the USA is instantly called a terrorist. Ever notice that?
Anyway, so, the USA contacts BlueLight and threatens them, or threatens to seize their assets. The USA Gov also shows BlueLight a ton of evidence that the user was selling crack on BlueLight, and shows that the user hacked BlueLight and that the user shot several BlueLight members. The feds at this time shoot over a court order as well.
BlueLight realizes that those offences are bannable offences, especially the last one (shooting members), and is thinking about protecting the majority of users on the site vs just the one user, BlueLight decides to give the Feds the users IP.
So, the Fed's simply ring up the VPN company and tell them that the user has stolen all the credit cards from the web site, and sends them a court order. The VPN company explains that they don't keep logs, blah blah, blah. The feds point to the part of the court order where it says:
"Company MUST comply with the federal order to assist law enforcement, or client will be deemed in contempt or court and could face prosecution..."
The VPN provider enables logging on that account.
VPN provider sends the feds the IP of the user.
The feds do a quick Whois -x on the IP and get the ISP NOC contact and Company contact.
Then send a CID request to the NOC and Company contacts.
Now, under a CID it could take up to 30 days to get a response. But, with a federal case it's probably going to take 24-48 hours.
Once the ID is made, life is now over for the person who cured cancer. The pharma companies sigh relief, and the fuck the little guy revolution moves forward.
Scenario 2, User is in control of his safety, user uses Tor
Ok, this scenario is a short one because the USER IS IN CONTROL OF HIS SAFETY. NOTHING IS TRUSTED TO A THIRD PARTY. PERIOD.
Okay, you have both scenarios. As you can see, it's clearly dangerous for a user to have to trust a third party with their freedom. Whether it be a website, or a VPN provider. Why on earth do we have to constantly trust someone else with our freedom from the law???
The USA imprisons more people than anywhere else in the world. I'm sure they've threatened many website operators to stop accepting tor traffic as it is the only thing they cannot prosecute.
Users need to unite, and take their freedom into their own hands. They need to stop trusting everyone else to keep them out of prison, they need to trust themselves and use tor.
Anyway, I appreciate you letting me post the truth, having been in networking for a long long time, I can tell you that I've responded to dozens of LE requests over the years. I know first hand how severe they get when you don't have answers. So, I realize that with Tor you wouldn't have answers and that would really piss off the government. At least with VPN traffic you just send them to the VPN company and this means no heat for BlueLight, but, while saving a lot of trouble for BlueLight, the user goes to jail. But, I understand it. When I worked in a NOC, if we had to tell the LE people that the user was using TOR, they would have kicked down our doors and thrown me in jail, so, I totally understand, I really do.
But, isn't there a way around this because your sight is in Russia? I know us jurisdiction counts in Russia from those mob trials, so I already know what your going to say, but, at the same time, there must be a way.
Anyway, long live freedom of speech, I love that we have a place to express. Thanks for a wonderful place.
