[liberationtech] Tor-only wireless access

[Jonathan Wilkes]

On 06/25/2014 11:33 AM, michi1 at michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com wrote:
> Hi!
>
> On 18:01 Tue 24 Jun     , Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
>> On 06/24/2014 11:35 AM, michi1 at michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com wrote:
> ...
>>> Integrating tor should be rather straightforward: run a bridge on the uplink,
>>> run a tor client on client and tell the tor client to use a bridge at
>>> localhost:someport (my program will then route it to the next bridge)
>> Why can't the client just run Tor?
> This is basically because the tor client does not support discovering bridges
> in the local network.

But why is the bridge necessary?  Why can't you just allow the client to 
connect and just limit the connection only to the Tor network?

>   It does not have support for cor yet either. This may or
> may not change. The configuration described above should work without any
> changes to the tor client.

But the user must make configuration changes to the client based on 
information provided by an untrusted party.  In this case those changes 
would not undermine the user's technical defenses; nevertheless, the 
user learns or reinforces a bad habit. (Especially if they proceed to 
look up whether or not it was safe to use the bridge _after_ they've 
used it to connect-- again probably technically safe in this case but 
conceptually a very dangerous habit.)

It's a bit like putting on a suit of armor and letting a stranger flip 
open your visor so you can see.  You probably wouldn't get struck down 
that instant but you probably wouldn't make it through the winter, either.

-Jonathan