I ultimately became entranced with Tor because of how well-documented and pervasive its use is, but yet how it is so enshrouded within misinformation and within its own closed-circuitry. My initial scouting yielded alarmist and ratings-driven articles painting Tor in a very unflattering light, but as I delved deeper into this topic I found that, like the Deep Web itself, there is much more content suspended just beneath the surface.
This egged me on further, and my project has been geared toward introducing midtones to the stark contrasts of opinion that exist about the Deep Web. In my project I want to soften the harsh light of this portrait and present Tor in more practical and relatable terms, largely omitting information about the frivolously well-documented and cloyingly outlandish neighborhoods of Tor. I want to talk about the everyman’s Tor.
So far, I’ve found out plenty about the aforementioned outlying sites of the Deep Web. My digging has also recovered some compelling articles about Tor’s usage in countries with heavy censorship, and its use as a key component of information exchange for political dissention and civil and social movements. Interestingly, I’ve also found that Tor is gaining more traction than ever here in the United States, a climate where censorship, surveillance, and spying are thriving.
More and more individuals are becoming anxious about the increasing ease of acquisition of information, courtesy of the internet. This anxiety is fueling action, and seeing as one of the key players in the spying game is the government, folks aren’t looking to bills to protect them, but to themselves, and therefore, to Tor.
This is the most interesting thing to me, the ubiquity of Tor. It isn’t just for drug dealers and weapons enthusiasts, no more than houses are. Tor is for anybody with any inclination to guard their personal information and online presence.
In my project, I want to attempt to vocalise the malleability of Tor, and the universal nature of its usership. I also want to emphasise anonymity as a fulcrum between anarchy and activism on the Deep Web, as well as the point of tension between government and corporate entities and the libertarian utopia known as the Deep Web.