Of course not! This is just…. caution.
I was talking to a high-end geek friend some months ago after the Snowden stories came out, and he told me bluntly: “If you use Tor or anything like that, you will bring yourself to the NSA’s attention.” And of course, he was right!
The NSA marks and considers potential “extremists” all users of the internet anonymizer service Tor, German media reports. Among those are hundreds of thousands of privacy concerned people like journalists, lawyers and rights activists.
Searching for encryption software like the Linux-based operating system Tails also places you on the NSA grid, says a report by German broadcasters NDR and WDR. The report is based on analysis of the source code of the software used by NSA’s electronic surveillance program XKeyscore.
Tor is a system of servers, which routes user requests through a layer of secured connections to make it impossible to identify a user’s IP from the addresses of the websites he/she visits. The network of some 5,000 is operated by enthusiasts and used by hundreds of thousands of privacy-concerned people worldwide. Some of them live in countries with oppressive regimes, which punish citizens for visiting websites they deem inappropriate.
But merely visiting Tor project’s website puts you on the NSA’s red list, the report says. But more importantly it monitors connections to so-called Directory Authorities, the eight servers, which act as gateways for the entire system.
At least in dictatorships the oligarchy (1%) openly oppresses its people by publically arresting, jailing and torturing them. We here in the United States allow the oligarchy (1%) to use the NSA to find out who the malcontents are. Then, in secret, the chosen one’s are destroyed economically while their reputations are demolished. Valerie Plame.
I guess I’m on their red list then. To bad I never did learn how to make Tor work . . .
I think I read about Tor and other ways of protecting yourself from hackers and NSA a year, or two, or more ago. Of course it was all way over my head, but something tells me just reading about it has already gotten us on santa’s naughty list.