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This is not correct. Tor is generally not bottlenecked by the quantity of available nodes, the usual bottleneck is the quality of nodes picked by your client rather than the quantity of nodes available.

Of course, technically, this problem is related to the quantity of high quality nodes :)


Yes, but let's not forget it's voluntary based. There are lots of high quality nodes, although less which are basically burning money and getting nothing in return. We all believe in a censorship-resistant and free web but only few are willing to take action. My two small guard/middle relays are rented at 10$/m each and is only 100Mbit/s non-metered up/down because it gets expensive.

Regular OS X safari: Our tests indicate that you have strong protection against Web tracking.

>Your browser fingerprint has been randomized among the 378,837 tested in the past 45 days. Although sophisticated adversaries may still be able to track you to some extent, randomization provides a very strong protection against tracking companies trying to fingerprint your browser.

>Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 18.53 bits of identifying information.

Anyway, this test doesn't really communicate the results very well. Yes, Tor browser stands out. No, it's not easy to differentiate between different Tor browser users via this kind of fingerprinting.


Huh, I use a "stock" (I think?) MacOS Safari and got "Your browser has a nearly-unique fingerprint" and "Partial protection" for ads and invisible trackers.

Did you change a setting or add an ad blocker or something?

edit: I feel like someone with a username "monerozcash" must have some customization to your browsing experience, that maybe you don't even remember doing...


No, on this device literally the only customization I have is the RECAP browser extension. And even RECAP only runs on whitelisted websites.

It’s probably precisely because his browser is not customized that it’s not easily fingerprintable, because stock Safari has privacy protections and users generally don’t change anything.

I got a very similar result on unmodified iOS Safari, randomized among 380k users and conveying 15.5 bits of information. I only have the Dark Reader extension.


I'm downloading safari right now.

EDIT: just saw I need to download playonlinux or wine. Forget about it.


The randomisation features were significantly improved in Safari 26. Is that the version you have?

Could you clarify if that's with or without JS?

I have not disabled JS or made any other configuration changes on this device. Entirely stock Safari and entirely stock MacOS.

That's not really believable. I'm starting to think this website isn't very reliable.

No, it's believable. All this website is communicating to us that most MacOS Safari installs look the same.

It's not "install" that matter here. If two people have the same "install" but their browser windows have different sizes, they'll be distinguishable. Or any perperty that can be queried via JS.

Let me rephrase it: you believe it, I don't believe.


Browser window size and timezone are basically the only identifying details the page gets besides the fact that I use Safari on MacOS

For window size only 1 in 380326.0 browsers has this value.


For example, what does the section "time zone" and "time zone offset" read for you? You have JS on, so what did JS return on that point?

I'm downloading safari right now.

EDIT: just saw I need to download playonlinux or wine. Forget about it.


It gets my correct timezone.

> For window size only 1 in 380326.0 browsers has this value.

Sorry, who concluded that this is fingerprintin resistant? Does the website tell you that, or was this your conclusion? Because my reading is with a number that small, you're almost uniquely identifiable. Is it possible you're misunderstanding what the report is showing?

Would you be assed to continue this conversation elsewhere? I'd like to get to the bottom of this?


That's the website output.

Those two values are the only ones returned by the browser which are useful for fingerprinting beyond "stock safari". Window size being the biggest part of that, but window size tends to change fairly regularly.


It's doubtful Snowden was in possession of his NSA data dump at the time he arrived to Moscow, the things he had memorized would have been of very limited value.

If the Russian government was in possession of his data, I'd consider it fairly surprising that they seemingly never leaked any of the materials.

While it's not strictly impossible that Snowden through the Russian Government was the "second source", given that all the leaks from the second source came after Snowden had landed in Moscow, none of the "second source" files were included within the Snowden dump a bunch of journalists have access to. There are also various more specific reasons to belive that Snowden probably would not have had access to all the things originating from the second source, and even more so many of the things originating from TSB.

Same is true of Snowden possibly being TSB, whether or not "second source" and the TSB were the one and the same. It's just not really credible.

Here's a good starting point if you're not familiar with the second source https://www.electrospaces.net/2017/09/are-shadow-brokers-ide...


The funniest thing is that he'd probably be in US prison by now had they not cancelled his passport.

This seizure was absolutely legal under the UNCLOS, the US unquestionably has valid justification under international law to seize this (and any other) stateless vessel.

So, despite all the stupid trolling there's an actual answer to this question.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea authorizes any state to interdict stateless vessels, which this was.


I can find no such claim in the news, the articles all say “Venezuelan oil tanker”

Poor quality articles.

Here's an actual industry source which captures the whole story in the headline https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1155836/Weve-just-seized-a-tank...


I stand corrected, thank you.

I still don’t approve of it, but it does appear to be “legal”


It's generally considered best practice to detain these vessels as they tend to present a danger to ... well, basically everyone.

It's really a good thing the US did this, one less dangerous stateless vessel at sea. Trump admin does lots of bad things, this is beyond reproach.


UNCLOS gives any state the authority to interdict stateless vessels.

>a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually -DJT

Spoiler alert: It wasn't

Trump tanker DWT: 310309

Sirius Star DWT: 318000


hmmm... "seized" :)

Sirius Star ... on 15 November 2008, becoming the largest ship ever captured by pirates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Sirius_Star


I'm too lazy to edit the wikipedia page to say "seized" instead of captured, so let's just pretend I did that.

China also doesn't have the capabilities to extract the super heavy and poor quality Venezuelan crude, only the US has those capabilities.

Essentially all of the existing infrastructure in Venezuela was built by Americans, and is crumbling.

While Venezuela has tremendous amounts of oil, most of it is not very easy to extract profitably.


> China also doesn't have the capabilities to extract the super heavy and poor quality Venezuelan crude

They could build this. That's orthogonal to planting an oil-burning carrier group halfway around the world next to nuclear CVNs that could be reached from U.S. soil by Cessna 172s.


It would not be worth it for them, they have much more lucrative options in their own neighborhood.

> It would not be worth it for them

Oh yes, we completely agree. More to the point, the tens of billions of dollars they'd burn–at a minimum–on a pointless proxy war with the U.S. would be better spent continuing to reduce China's reliance on foreign oil.


I specifically meant that it wouldn't be worth it for China to do any kind of large scale oil extraction in Venezuela even if the US let them. Most of the oil in Venezuela is really hard to extract profitably.

Without US expertise and investment the oil in Venezuela will tend to stay in the ground.


> China also doesn't have the capabilities to extract the super heavy and poor quality Venezuelan crude, only the US has those capabilities.

Strangely, India does too.


True, but so far at a pretty small scale and with much of the equipment sourced from the US as far as I understand it. I don't think they've been able to get the costs down to profitable levels either, right?

Actually, India has one of the worlds largest refineries for extra heavy crude oil processing. The Reliance Jamnagar refinery have a crude capacity ~1.4 million barrels per day (bpd).

The Nayara refinery (Russian stakeholder) is rather smaller at 390–400 kbd. There are a few other state owned and private refineries in the South that can process heavy crude cumulatively upto a million bpd.

You are right that the equipment was from US (Lummus Technology). However, due to sanctions, the Nayara refinery has begun retrofitting from eastern suppliers.

It is sad that both Venezuela and Iran (and now Russia) are all now under West-enforced oil sanctions. Makes life difficult for poor nations that don't have native oil supply. It is not possible to compete with EU for economic oil purchase in the global market


Refiners, yes. The problem for Venezuela is the extraction, Venezuelan oil is very hard to get out of the ground.

I feel like associating piracy with Somalians like you just did is also bordering on "saying vile things about Somalia", presumably only a very small fraction of Somalians are pirates.

Just food for thought.


I agree and point taken. But I also did not state or imply that most Somalians are pirates. I was just repeating the common racist memes I see on Twitter as a parody of them.

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