Yasha Levine: Interview about Tor, spies and the cult of crypto
I&#x27;ll paste a single quote for you to help anyone thinking of reading this drivel to make up their mind before reading. I personally enjoyed to see how some people will allow themselves to force a narrative if it only serves to help their political agenda.  Here is a quote that explains why the author dislikes Tor:<p>&gt; What is Tor really useful for? For media piracy, for child pornography, for drugs, intelligence, and deflecting from corporate surveillance.<p>And here is a quote telling you why he thinks this:<p>&gt; At its core, the crypto culture is very right-wing. In America at least its tied to nationalism, to white power movements, to libertarianism: it is born out of a very conservative, right-wing view of the world, that sees the government and any of its attempts to meddle in the lives of the people as an evil force. And Silicon Valley is a pretty right-wing place. They have more liberal values towards gay marriage and things like that, but actually it is a very male-oriented, very white place; and very opposed to any kind of social programs that are run by the state, or any state attempts to regulate private property or enterprise. And these things overlap. The culture is very regressive, and maybe some of that exists in Germany, I don&#x27;t know.<p>And the following (in reference to how corporate spying is worse then government spying):<p>&gt; It’s a really useful PR tool that helps deflect peoples’ worries about privacy on the internet from the true problem, which is Silicon Valley, and redirects the conversation from corporate surveillance to government surveillance. Government surveillance is a problem, and it’s important that people talk about it, but it needs to be a broader conversation. You have to start at the corporate level and work up I think.<p>I think there are a few HUGE problems with this logic and I really hope the author&#x2F;interviewee can answer these questions for me:<p><pre><code>    1. Why is being right-wing inherently seen as bad or immoral?
</code></pre>
On all of the political charts I&#x27;m usually far libertarian and far right. Does this mean I am immoral? Does this mean my opinions are less valid? This is a common tend today to call something a &quot;right-wing&quot; philosophy but I would never do that, in an attempt to shame the believers, for a left-wing philosophy.<p>For instance, one such left wing philosophy would be welfare. I can definitely see how welfare helps people, I definitely support some form of welfare in a society, and I&#x27;d keep supporting it given a different political climate in America. The idea that every human should have at least some basic standard of living (food, water, shelter, a bed) resonates strongly with me. What I don&#x27;t necessarily support is the government, or any single corporation for that matter, handling it. Does that mean I&#x27;m evil? I don&#x27;t think so but many people seem to feel this way now and it deeply troubles me. Some people think that disagreeing with a single portion of an idea really means you want to tear down the totality of structures built around the idea. That&#x27;s definitely not the case.<p>I&#x27;d much rather instead of me giving money to the government, the government giving money to a charity organization, and then that charity organization giving it to the people I&#x27;d want a much more direct way of doing this transaction, preferably a way that is verifiable and with little overhead.<p><pre><code>     2. Have you read anything from the crypto-anarchist movement?
</code></pre>
I&#x27;m definitely not part of these people but I do think that their ideas still have some merit. I&#x27;d also like to say that these people are anything but &quot;based in white power and nationalism&quot;. Anything but. If you&#x27;ve read any of the popular pieces [0] you will see they are extremely against any power structures. That is entirely the basis of their ideology. They want the benefits of a governed society without the ability for a government to medal. I&#x27;ll let this person explain since I&#x27;m not qualified to answer this [1].<p><pre><code>     3. What qualities do you think an anonymization network should have? Are the spy community and pedophiles using your software not a good benchmark of the success of your anonymization network?
</code></pre>
They are both groups with very strict needs: they cannot be discovered, they must be able to transfer lots of data often, and they also must be able to do it from behind strict firewalls in some cases. These are both the exact use cases of someone from (Insert Dictatorship) who is afraid of someone hacking off one of their limbs because they said something long the lines of &quot;I don&#x27;t agree with (insert policy)&quot;.<p>If pedophiles and spies aren&#x27;t using your free-speech platform to communicate then it&#x27;s not safe enough for them, and it&#x27;s definitely not safe enough for someone behind &quot;enemy&quot; lines in a dictatorship with not access to news&#x2F;unfiltered opinions.<p>[0] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;groups.csail.mit.edu&#x2F;mac&#x2F;classes&#x2F;6.805&#x2F;student-papers&#x2F;fall94-papers&#x2F;brian-zuzga.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;groups.csail.mit.edu&#x2F;mac&#x2F;classes&#x2F;6.805&#x2F;student-papers...</a>
[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;Anarchy101&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1uioxz&#x2F;what_is_cryptoanarchy&#x2F;ceisjcg&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;Anarchy101&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1uioxz&#x2F;what_is_...</a>