They say the internet is just someone else's computer. With Tor it's the computer of a person who wants you to think it's not their computer, and also that they aren't paying attention to (or somehow can't see) what you're doing on it.

I think the threat model is that the majority are not run by cooperating malicious parties.

Russia, china and usa all dont like each other much so are probably not sharing notes (in theory).

Or perhaps they _are_ sharing notes about tor users with each other, as part of a global club of intelligence agencies (a sort of new world order) who would rather not be overthrown. How are we to know?

Because if they each only have incomplete information, they each wouldn't know whether the information they have is relevant to preventing overthrow of their collective order, or intelligence that is only going to help their geopolitical adversary.

Basically, a variation of the prisoner's dilemma.

Also, those nukes we have pointed at each other are a pretty healthy hint.

the last sentence really just gave me a chuckle

Or perhaps someone with secret quantum computing can break all our encryption and has full transparency on all communications on the internet. Perhaps extraterrestrials are eavesdropping on everything I say in my living room, and sharing it with the KGB. How are we to know?

Occam's Razor definitely applies here.

"The simplest explanation is usually the best one."

Conspiracy theories are a logical reasoning black hole.

I personally feel it's generally best to avoid the mental Spaghettification.

In fact, you should assume they are. This doesn't imply the network doesn't have utility for a given actor.

Before 2020 when /r/privacy stimulated conversation that was worthy of good discussion you learned Tor the software made less available nodes accessible with newer deployments, that’s why it got faster. Regardless of how many nodes existed. The routing shifted. Now it’s way faster and there's specifically designated guard nodes seemingly pinged repeatedly out to the same allied nations.

The interesting thing is, the more agencies that run relays, the more they interfere with each other. So having something like US, Russia, and China a each running 25% of the network reduces the chances of any one getting all three relays.

This would help negate that interference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

Specifically what I chose US (allies implied), China, and Russia. These should be three competing factions.

I think even Russia and the US still do intelligence sharing on a lot of stuff - and that's before you consider that the US seems to be in everybody's networks anyhow, so non-sharing is probably just sharing with a bit more skullduggery.

I don't think they share on the bulk data. I would highly doubt they routinely cooperate on cyber crimes given Russia's stance on the matter (basically encouraging it).

Russia and China are allies. And I'm not sure if Beijing would even be interested in spying on TOR users since it's blocked so thoroughly it's basically unusable for Chinese residents.

I don't know they are that aligned to be sharing bulk data like that. I don't think the are considered formal allies.

China is for sure interested in spying on people in the US. I'm not sure if TOR users are of special interest though.

China and Russia are decidedly not allies.

They are neighbors with some overlapping interests and sort of similar goals if you squint. It wasn't very long ago that they were killing each other over border conflicts and annexed territory.

China right now is just using Russia for cheap energy, they don't actually care about the health of the state.

>It wasn't very long ago...

If that's how geopolitics worked China would still be an American ally, vice versa. But alliances can change. Once an enemy always an enemy isn't a thing.

>they don't actually care about the health of the state

That's true but it's not a requirement for Xi to care about Russia. In fact I'm very sure he doesn't care about the Chinese people either. Russia needs China and the CCP uses Russia, not just for cheap energy but for fighting a war that many Westerners haven't even realized that it has begun already. Russia and China have a common enemy, that enemy is NATO.

I get scared reading that wiki page. The fact that the Australians are powerless[1] to stop US operating Pine Gap on their own soil, says something about how important the stuff the NSA & co. is doing there. (Surveillance) Horrors beyond our understanding.

1: A good video explaining history & status quo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHMa-Ba-2Mo

Thanks, that's a fun video.