3 Comments
author

I get this isn't the 'usual' article readers are used to, however censorship is clearly ramping up, and there is a lack of any 'real' options. People asked me for alternatives to Substack, if they existed, and I replied there really weren't any.

The Tor network isn't perfect, and there are flaws, but it's functional and we have to use what we've got, not what we wish we had. The end-to-end instructions already available on Tor Onion site hosting are wildly fragmented with differing, contradictory instructions.

The official Tor website is very vague, and even if one completes the steps, there's no 'follow-through' on many webpages, and certainly little warning or considerations for any possible security risks. This tutorial is to get people started in a good place where they can go on to modify the installation as they see fit.

I recently got stealth banned from Element (part of the Matrix network) where it simply 'stopped working' which prompted this investigation. I've marked it as paid because I put a lot of hours into researching this, including trial-and-error testing.

I suspect posters may have criticisms or feedback: I strongly encourage *evidenced* criticisms of the setup. I have low tolerance of people posing as know-it-all experts with no evidence to back up their claims, especially claims that attempt to weaken security or stifle our fightback against censorship.

Yes, Tor has ties to the US government (US navy, specifically). I remind ARPA (precursor to DARPA) invented the Internet (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/modern-internet) and your real IP address is already visible to the government (and frankly I'm of the view if they wanted to unmask you online they could anyway). The primary threat vector this is aimed towards are corporate abusers and corporate level censorship (media DOXers and the like). I would have to build an entire new "net" offline from scratch with a new set of protocols for it to be disentangled completely from the government and I'm not rich enough nor smart enough nor have enough free time for that. I'm using what I've got to hand, which at this moment is the imperfect Tor.

Hopefully this helps you overcome the ever encroaching censorship.

Expand full comment

Cheers buddy. I only started using Linux Mint in 2020 when Gates of Hell started his rampage. Managed to create a Linux boot thumb drive and install thanks to the very helpful guides dotted around the internet.

I otherwise have minimal understanding of the Linux terminal, Tor or much else outside of the 6,000+ pdf documents in my research archives.

I may give this a try at a later time as need may fancy.

Expand full comment
author

I've tried to make the instructions as simple to execute as possible, so even if you're not familiar with networking, it keeps the number of technicalities to a minimum. For example, I eliminated nginx2, which whilst it can help with handling many client connections, just adds an extra step for people beginning their own sites, when apache2 suffices.

In theory one could try to make a .sh install script but I recognise people may not trust someone's executable code (and there's always the risk some update or change breaks something).

Expand full comment