I briefly got banned on here for using a Tor browser?

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Girlwithaspergers
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10 Apr 2014, 6:28 pm

I never do anything bad on this site, but after installing and logging in with Tor (just to feel cool) I was banned from WP for about an hour. I've been getting a little paranoid about people in real life finding me on here and other sites, and I just heard about Tor so I kinda want t keep using it. Will I keep getting banned or is there a way to fix things so the admins will know I'm not a criminal or anything?



honeyaureus
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10 Apr 2014, 8:06 pm

Edit: NEVERMIND. Be careful. There is a dark and scary world out there with Tor.

P.S., Tor masks your IP address, that would explain the temp ban.



TallyMan
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11 Apr 2014, 3:42 am

Spammers often use TOR; so if you use it you may find you're trying to connect via banned "spammer" IP addresses. You will likely find it very hit and miss trying to use TOR to access Wrong Planet. There is no way to distinguish spammers on TOR from legitimate users. You may also raise red flags with the CloudFlaire software that hosts cached pages of this site for the same reason. Basically, spammers and other trouble makers on TOR spoil it for everyone else. You will probably find similar problems using many other forums and sites. Beware also that some people host malicious TOR exit nodes and can spy on data being passed; so never use TOR for online banking or anything sensitive or you may be giving your passwords and account information directly into the hands of organised criminals.


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Cornflake
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11 Apr 2014, 8:07 am

What TallyMan said - also:

Girlwithaspergers wrote:
I've been getting a little paranoid about people in real life finding me on here and other sites, and I just heard about Tor so I kinda want t keep using it.
Your IP address is not visible to other members and in any case, using an IP address to track back to an actual person is something that can normally only be achieved by your ISP or law enforcement professionals working with them.
Importantly, as TallyMan mentions - all of your network traffic is visible to a Tor operator so you're potentially more vulnerable in that situation than you would be outside of Tor.

In practice, people are more likely to be found by others because of what they post: personal information, location details, a member name used on several other sites etc. It's worth remembering that posts to WP are effectively posted to the entire Internet for anyone to view (with the exception of the Adult and Members Only forums).

Quote:
Will I keep getting banned or is there a way to fix things so the admins will know I'm not a criminal or anything?
There are several IPs known to WP and CloudFlare as being used by Tor systems and as your system randomly selects one, your access problems will start.


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Girlwithaspergers
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11 Apr 2014, 6:43 pm

Yeah. I ended up uninstalling Tor and just going back to using Google Chrome. It wasn't really that useful to me anyway, as I watch a lot of video and do other things that Tor doesn't have much wiggle room for. I mainly just wanted to give it a shot because it's considered high tech and "in" for geeks. In fact, long before Tor existed, I used a similar and even more strict set of Firefox extensions to protect my privacy while IT-obsessed in middle school. It used to drive my parents nuts because my dad used to share my laptop at the time and hated having to disable Ghostery, NoScript, WOT, and all of my profanity filters and things just to look at the newspaper online. I have much less patience for that now. I thought Tor might work for Bittorrent, and the idea that they were both purple icon-ed and had a word part in common really stimulated my aspie senses for some reason. However, half of the downloads won't even work on Tor. Ugh. Google Chrome at least matches all of the colors in the Microsoft Office apps on my dock. Since it's such a pain, I don't see the point in it or what all the hype was about.


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sliqua-jcooter
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11 Apr 2014, 8:51 pm

Girlwithaspergers wrote:
Since it's such a pain, I don't see the point in it or what all the hype was about.


There are legitimate use-cases for using Tor. Accessing this website isn't one of them.


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Sethno
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12 Apr 2014, 1:22 pm

Girlwithaspergers wrote:
...I ended up uninstalling Tor and just going back to using Google Chrome...


8O

BAN HER!! !! !!


Sorry. Just kidding. I really dislike the Chrome browser. :lol: