Since these services are accessible directly in the Tor Network, and do not need to pass through an exit node, it should be considerably faster to access SoylentNews via the onion links than going through directly. There are a couple of caveats you should be aware of though using this service.
When you browse us through tor, a bit of magic happens on the backend (a process I like to call auto onioning), which causes the page to be rewritten with our normal links rewritten as tor links. For instance, a link to our wiki will get automatically replaced with its onion equivalent. Unfortunately, the process is bi-directional (a side-effect of mod_substitute), so if you post a link that we have an auto-onion entry for, it will cause the onion link to show up on the main index. Auto-onioning is only applied for users coming in from tor, and not for regular visitors. We'll probably do tweaks to Slash to get it to de-onion links as they come in, but just be aware of it for now.
(Score: 1) by physicsmajor on Tuesday April 01 2014, @06:57PM
I'm referencing this statement:
"The consistent IP however means that staff can see if a user is coming in from tor due to the consistent IPID. While we do not publish our IPIDs publicly, you should be aware that any of us can check to see where a given post is coming from."
Is this logged? If so, for what length of time? I'm mainly asking because, as a USA based entity, NSA letters could force disclosure of these data. Tor users prize anonymity and I support the development of this feature, but at present would be skittish to use it due to such persistence. Or I'd ensure that I never log in to the site, which somewhat obviates the utility and appeal.
I'm not sure how to address this type of concern in a satisfactory way post-Snowden revelations, other than swearing you do not log or retain such data and never will.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:38PM
The IPID is logged, and we don't currently have a deletion policy; perhaps something to change. That being said, even when using exit nodes, it is always possible to know when a user is coming from tor by checking IPs against exit nodes - the TorBlock plugin for mediawiki does this for instance.
In short, it is always possible to know if someone is using Tor due to the way the network works, its just difficult to know who is on the other end.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by _NSAKEY on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:53PM
Web servers being used as hidden services only show 127.0.0.1 in the access logs, so it's somewhat of a non-issue.
Speaking of non-issues, SSL over hidden services isn't really needed, since the tor network handles end to end crypto.