a discussion about tor and the autonomi network in terms of anonymity

[aao]

Asking on this forum I was told in the future it will not be an option to have node launchpad run its internet traffic over tor. That is why I want a discussion about what are the implications of such a decision?

I decided to do all internet access over tor. I am pretty sure I am failing and this or that program manages to connect to the internet directly. But if it happens it is against my will.

The government or isp can stop you from using tor. But if they do not, then they cannot know what you are doing on the internet.

If you run node launchpad on your computer what information does people or internet entities get about you? My understanding of autonomi is, that nobody knows what piece of data is on which computer. Correct? But what information does the internet get about you if you run the node launchpad?

For instance the session messenger uses their own onion router system. I would prefer if you could use session over tor because now the internet knows you are using session. And the same goes about the node launchpad. Maybe the internet do not know what data you are trafficking on the internet. But the internet knows you are using the node launchpad and autonomi. And I do not think the internet should have that piece of information.

If autonomi spreads around the world and given governments do not want that I assume those governments could shut down autonomi in their countries? You can say the same thing about tor. But tor is working on circumventing censorship.

What if autonomi made an opposite approach to the anonymity matter? Providing a node launchpad version having tor built in. Such that the node launchpad and autonomi would become part of tor supporting tor relays and tor exit nodes. Technically could such a node launchpad tor version be made? Could an autonomi application provide you with tor anonymity? Privacy and security is good, but anonymity is also a matter.

My understanding is that you can put internet shops, forums and everything else on the autonomi network. In that case I would only use autonomi if it provided anonymity. Thanks for your comments.

[neo]

@aao

If you run node launchpad on your computer what information does people or internet entities get about you? My understanding of autonomi is, that nobody knows what piece of data is on which computer. Correct?

Correct, it is encrypted without backdoors.

If your machine has spyware on it then all bets are off no matter what you do. I added that just in case its is mentioned.

All they know is your machine is talking to hundreds/thousands of other machines, and packet sizes, although none of the data is known, some deep analysis may work out your nodes are talking on some decentralised and/or distributed network and maybe even guess at Autonomi.

BTW TOR has so many exit nodes being US feds, DoD, since it is used by them as well. I do not rely on TOR to hide much at all. Its more of who it hides my packets from.

@aao

f autonomi spreads around the world and given governments do not want that I assume those governments could shut down autonomi in their countries?

In most cases this would require ‘whitelisting’ the internet in those countries so only certain addresses can be contacted. Basically that means the country is withdrawing from dealing with the world.

@aao

Could an autonomi application provide you with tor anonymity?

You could in theory, but the drawbacks is that it would make it so slow that people would use other ways to talk. Storing larger files would become so slow that many use cases would disappear.

If you are so concerned then rent a VPS and run a VPN through it.

Didn’t see you ask about data stored on node, but here is some thoughts
As to the data a node holds, well it is only a portion of any file and that is encrypted. To decrypt even that portion needs the portion before and after to be able to. Of course in the right order too and impossible (in realistic terms) to find those other two portions.

EDIT: BTW TOR still has your machine talking to another machine with encrypted data, Autonomi is different in that a node talks with hundreds of other machines just to store/access files/sites. The ISP still doesn’t know if your node is talking TOR or Autonomi, unless TOR announces its packets as being TOR packets, or the ISP knows the TOR entry node’s address.

Hint: Tor entry/exit nodes are well known so the authorites know full well you are using TOR, and in that respect Autonomi is probably more private/secure. Also this allows the authorities to use time of delivery to track TOR packets through the TOR network if they have access to ISP logs for each country. Autonomi is probably more secure in that people who use TOR use it to access the Internet and thus can follow your packet to destination and deduce what you are accessing, whereas Autonomi has no such connection to the visible Internet, no relation of IP address to web site