The Trump administration has likened them to the digital arm of al-Qaeda and, in an unprecedented move, just added them to the list of global terrorist organizations
I’d probably be fine with browsing a simpler alt-net if it gained just a bit more normality. The thing that scares me about surfing around TOR is the malware and one wrong click leading to gore/csam/other scarring stuff I can’t do anything about.
Yes, you can run into some vile content, but we had Kiwi Farms up and running on the clear web and teh various chans have had plenty of terrible things on them. Heck, before I purged Meta I’d “reported” hardcore porn ads on Facebook to them they just load because someone paid them to and nobody bothered to check the content before delivery. Granted, the type was pretty normal so not really scarring, but seeing it pop up on what is supposed to be a SFW feed, especially when I had to go directly to the page of actual friends to see stuff that was just posted but they buried, because you’re letting a corporation filter and prioritize what you see…
You do have to take precautions, but I download cracked games from a Russian bot network and have had no issues, I just check the content manually and make damn sure anything I run (or even open) is sandboxed.
We might end up with a resurgence of scams like McAfee if that became normal, but I think it would be worth it, plus people learning to watch out for themselves again would probably raise the quality of the Internet that has been steadily falling since the Eternal September began.
I’d probably be fine with browsing a simpler alt-net if it gained just a bit more normality. The thing that scares me about surfing around TOR is the malware and one wrong click leading to gore/csam/other scarring stuff I can’t do anything about.
Yes, you can run into some vile content, but we had Kiwi Farms up and running on the clear web and teh various chans have had plenty of terrible things on them. Heck, before I purged Meta I’d “reported” hardcore porn ads on Facebook to them they just load because someone paid them to and nobody bothered to check the content before delivery. Granted, the type was pretty normal so not really scarring, but seeing it pop up on what is supposed to be a SFW feed, especially when I had to go directly to the page of actual friends to see stuff that was just posted but they buried, because you’re letting a corporation filter and prioritize what you see…
You do have to take precautions, but I download cracked games from a Russian bot network and have had no issues, I just check the content manually and make damn sure anything I run (or even open) is sandboxed.
We might end up with a resurgence of scams like McAfee if that became normal, but I think it would be worth it, plus people learning to watch out for themselves again would probably raise the quality of the Internet that has been steadily falling since the Eternal September began.