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Finally, after 4 months, I can reach beehaw again. Was beehaw under attack? (self.support)

submitted 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) by debanqued to c/support

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For the past four months beehaw has been unreachable to those of us on the Tor network. Glad to see access was finally restored. Was there an attack?

I could really use a way to periodically backup my posts to my local disk so if Tor is spontaneously blocked again I at least have my history. I’ve not found a Lemmy equivalent for Mastodon Archive.

(edit) For security, it would be a good idea to setup an onion instance. The Tor network has built-in DDoS protection for onion hosts.

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[–] SweetCitrusBuzz 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Um, why would you log in over TOR? I thought the whole point of TOR was to be anonymous?

[–] debanqued 6 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

I am anonymous. Only doxxing experts know who is behind my account. Using clearnet makes it trivially simple for doxxers. Activitypub msgs include the IP address of the sending source which anyone with their own instance can see, IIRC.

But note as well Tor offers more than anonymity. It mitigates tracking by your ISP.

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

ISP tracking as far as I'm aware can only see the sites you go to, not any of the content etc. As long as they use TLS etc.

I suppose for some seeing the sites you go to is bad enough though. Personally, I'd use a privacy-centered VPN if I was that concerned rather than TOR since TOR feels less like I should log in with it, but I get what works for me won't work for everyone.

[–] debanqued 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Indeed the ISP can only see where you go when using TLS, and that data can be aggregated to who you are along with everywhere else you go. It’s sensitive enough that in the US lawmakers decided on whether ISPs need consent to collect that info. Obama signed into force a requirement of ISPs to get consent. Then Trump reversed that. Biden did not reverse it back AFAIK.

W.r.t VPNs, you merely shift the surveillance point; you do not avoid the surveillance. The VPN provider can grab all that info just as well.

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Privacy focused VPNs usually have tech to mitigate that like forgetting as soon as they have gone through the server for example, but I get that can be undone.

[–] debanqued 3 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

It’s worse than being reversible. The problem is that it’s unprovable. A switch from “zero logging” to “log everything” is wholly undetectible to users. You have to rely on blind faith that a profit-driven entity will act in your interest and resist their opportunity to profit from data collection. All you have is trust. Tor avoids that whole dicey mess and reliance on trust.

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz 2 points 22 hours ago

Oh, if beehaw doesn't make you sign up with an email account I suppose that makes sense, I forget if it made me, it was long ago.

Yes, I'm aware there are email anonymisation services, but likely there's still a list on those sites of what is for who. Unless you used a sign up and forget account, I suppose.

Anyway, I hope your problem gets solved 🙂