Tor: Love and Cybersecurity Thunder

How many times have you seen the trailer for “Thor: Love and Thunder,” so far? Thor and one of the Guardians of the Galaxy, in particular, have never been “closer.”

You know who.

What a lucky coincidence, Tor (not Thor) and The Guardian (of the Journalistic Galaxy) have also decided to take their relationship to the next level.

Readers of the Guardian can now access our journalism entirely within the Tor network

Previously, The Guardian readers could access their website by using Tor Browser to conceal their locations. “But the browsers’ communications have to exit the Tor network for the final leg of the journey in order to get to the site on the normal world wide web.”

Now, the Guardian readers, who’re also Tor users, access the news website as an onion service.

“The introduction of a Guardian onion service means that the entire communication pathway between a reader and the Guardian takes place within the Tor network, thereby avoiding potential risks with the “hop” between the Tor network and the world wide web service.”

So, no more Tor “exit nodes” and “digital breadcrumbs” for censorship-friendly “entities” to follow and locate “persons of interest.”

Congratulations are in order, But there are some concerns too

Tor Redditors agree this is good news, but they also still worry about “backdoors.”

Now, I have no clue what this second Redditor is talking about. Kudos to their enthusiasm, though, but I’d rather stick to the researchers in the cybersecurity laboratories. I know that Natalie Portman’s new biceps are more interesting and entertaining to read about than some “Duster Attack” report or officially “Tor Onion Service Attribution Based on Flow Watermarking with Track Hiding,” but give it a try for your own good.

Natalie “Thoressa” Portman will never be into you, no matter how much time you spend in a gym, so rather learn something new and accept that both Thor and Tor still have their limits.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2022

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is turning 18 this October. Nice. They’re still using the old slogan: “Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart.”

Some of my “old school” friends are still relying on and using the “virgin” computers. They still have at least one machine that has never been and it will never be online even for a second. That doesn’t sound nice, but it’s the last line of cybersecurity defense. Who can blame them for being “reasonably paranoid?”

Talking about cybersecurity awareness, the same Guardian wrote about “the ultimate counter-espionage tool” - manual typewriters. That’s old news, but a cautionary one.

“The head of the Bundestag's parliamentary inquiry into NSA activity in Germany said in an interview with the Morgenmagazin TV programme that he and his colleagues were seriously thinking of ditching email completely. Asked "Are you considering typewriters" by the interviewer on Monday night, the Christian Democrat politican Patrick Sensburg said: "As a matter of fact, we have – and not electronic models either". "Really?" the surprised interviewer checked. "Yes, no joke," Sensburg responded.”

Joke or no joke, in the meantime, the Anonymous group, or some of their “fractions” declared war on my country and our machines for not imposing sanctions on Russia.

I was sitting in an internet cafe with fellow freelancers from Ukraine and Russia, who have found a safe place to work in a “cyber no man’s country,” and commenting on hilarious local Twitter user reactions.

Yeah, good luck with that.

So, I’m wrapping up my cybersecurity story with two interesting love triangles: on the one side, we have Serbia, Russia, and Ukraine, on the other, Thor, Star-Lord, and Natalie Portman.

Yeah, it’s complicated. And, don’t forget to work out your biceps, regardless of your gender. It’s important.