The potential harms of the Tor anonymity network cluster disproportionately in free countries (original) (raw)
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Abstract
Measuring the proportion of Tor anonymity network users who employ the system for malicious purposes is important as this technology can facilitate child abuse, the sale of illicit drugs, and the distribution of malware. We show that only a small fraction of users globally (∼6.7%) likely use Tor for malicious purposes on an average day. However, this proportion clusters unevenly across countries, with more potentially malicious Tor users in "free" countries (∼7.8%) than in "not free" regimes (∼4.8%). These results suggest that the countries which host most of the infrastructure of the network and house the Tor Project plausibly experience a disproportional amount of harm from the Tor anonymity network.
Publication:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
Pub Date:
December 2020
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