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​Sorry David Cameron, There’s No Point Trying to Ban Tor

A new note from the UK parliament’s science and tech office suggests attempts to ban Tor would be unacceptable and impossible.

Earlier this year, UK Prime Minister David Cameron sparked controversy when he apparently suggested a crackdown on encryption and anonymising tools. But a new parliamentary note says that any attempt to "ban" Tor would be ill-advised and probably impossible anyway.

Quite what Cameron meant when he spoke in the wake of the Paris Charlie Hebdo attacks isn't totally clear—Downing Street told Tech C​runch he'd been misinterpreted—but it certainly sounded like he wasn't a fan of anonymity services, of which Tor is the most popular.

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In his s​peech, Cameron said that it had previously always been possible "in extremis" to access the content of people's communications. "The question remains: Are we going to allow a means of communication where it simply isn't possible to do that? My answer to that question is: no, we must not," he said.

The new n​ote from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) looks at anonymity on the darknet, and most specifically Tor, which allows users to browse the internet anonymously.

The authors acknowledge that, actually, anonymity can be used for many purposes—only a "very small fraction" of Tor users' activity is associated with Tor Hidden Services (that is, websites only accessible through Tor using a .onion address).

"Banning online anonymity systems altogether is not seen as an acceptable policy option in the UK"

Other uses of Tor, they explain, could include circumventing censorship, aiding activism and journalism, or protecting against digital abuse. They even suggest that law enforcement could use Tor in undercover operations "without revealing their Government-specific IP address to the website owner."

In this way, the report differs from a lot of the political rhetoric around anonymity services, which tends to focus on their potential for criminals; it acknowledges legitimate reasons a user might want to remain anonymous.

"There is widespread agreement that banning online anonymity systems altogether is not seen as an acceptable policy option in the UK," the note concludes, and adds that it'd probably be technically infeasible in any case—an argument many proffered in response to Cameron's comments.

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Other countries that have attempted to crack down on Tor have found it difficult. For example, the note explains that while Tor is supposedly blocked in China, the Tor Project introduced "bridges"—entrance nodes that are harder to block—and it looks like at least some Chinese users are manag​ing to get through.

The report even notes legitimate uses for Tor Hidden Services, such as whistleblowing platforms that require the extra level of security.

And while the report focuses on trying to prevent crime on the darknet, it raises the question of how much crime on hidden websites, such as illegal marketplaces, affects the overall crime rates.

"It has been argued that online drug markets like Silk Road transfer parts of the drug dealing business from the streets to the internet and may shorten the supply chain from drug producers to consumers," it states. "Some say this can reduce the number of drug-related crimes like robbery and shoplifting, and thus lower the social and economic costs of drug misuse."

The upshot: It's probably best to leave things as they are for now.