Disclaimer: I'm not good at designing things, so apologies if this post looks disgusting.

For those of you who don't know, Tor (acronym for The Onion Router) is a completely anonymous browser that encrypts all data, hides your IP and doesn't have cookies. The effects of these have many uses. One of the more malicious uses of Tor is avoiding an IP ban from Scratch. This means that someone with Tor can start the browser up, create a new account, and then use it to do anything. If the account is banned (for simplicity, lets say that the account is banned because they are a spambot,) they just make a new one. At first glance, this makes it seem pretty logical that anybody using Tor would be preventing from accessing Scratch. When you try to go to Scratch with Tor, you just get a blank screen, preventing all access with Tor. However, I do not support this. Here's why:
The exact same idea of anonymity can be accomplished with Chrome's incognito mode and any VPN, which is not banned. No cookies, no IP tracking, and data encryption. The key difference between Tor and this setup with incognito mode is the level of encryption. Tor has very strong encryption, making it untraceable to powerful governments. Most VPNs, however, have weaker encryption. This makes it possible for your data to be decrypted and have your IP traced. However, Scratch does not have the resources to decrypt something like that, and therefore the decryption is mostly reserved for corrupt governments. As such, incognito mode with a VPN and Tor have the same effect when going to Scratch. The only difference is that Tor is much slower, but also more secure. Therefore, if you want to make spambots incognito mode and a VPN are the best choice. If you want to keep your data secure, and don't care about making spambots, you would use Tor.
Here's a simplified explanation: Incognito mode + VPN is better for making spambots, worse for security. Tor is worse for making spambots, better for security. Yet Tor is banned and incognito mode + VPN is not banned. This should change.
Thank you for reading this wall of text and have a nice day.

Wow, I only use incognito mode to stop scratch automatically signing me in when I'm trying to use two accounts at once. Perhaps, instead of unbanning Tor, we should implimet a feature that checks to see if Scratch can find your IP address.

-Iimitless- wrote:

Wow, I only use incognito mode to stop scratch automatically signing me in when I'm trying to use two accounts at once. Perhaps, instead of unbanning Tor, we should implimet a feature that checks to see if Scratch can find your IP address.

So you're saying that we should prevent all VPN access?

You may not have TOR configured correctly if you're getting a blank screen. It's true that many TOR exit nodes are indeed IP banned, but not from accessing the website, only from making forum posts, posting comments, and the like. You can still view the website, make accounts, and share projects. I've never heard of anyone getting a blank screen.

TOR will most likely never be unbanned though as it's almost entirely used maliciously. Your point about the VPN is different as although most mainstream VPNs can access Scratch, they require money to use and are abused much less often, unlike TOR.

Wrong wrong wrong.

Computer_Fizz wrote:

TOR will most likely never be unbanned though as it's almost entirely used maliciously.

Just because you can do something bad with something doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. For example, knives are good for cooking, but can also be used to kill people. Does that mean that the government should make a new law about not being allowed to buy metal knives? No. Most Tor users are mostly overly paranoid (and for good reason) people who just want a bit more privacy.

Computer_Fizz wrote:

they require money to use and are abused much less often

Not every VPN needs money. There are a couple limited, but free versions. Look on the Chrome store and you'll see.

or just use a proxy and be done with this.

Computer_Fizz wrote:

unlike TOR.

What makes you say that? You know Tor does barely no advertising (if none at all) and VPN companies do it a lot, right?

—

Please do your research.

ResExsention wrote:

Computer_Fizz wrote:

they require money to use and are abused much less often

Not every VPN needs money. There are a couple limited, but free versions. Look on the Chrome store and you'll see.

or just use a proxy and be done with this.

Thank you for pointing this out (and the rest of the post) I use ProtonVPN, which is an example of a free VPN.

ResExsention wrote:

Just because you can do something bad with something doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. For example, knives are good for cooking, but can also be used to kill people. Does that mean that the government should make a new law about not being allowed to buy metal knives? No. Most Tor users are mostly overly paranoid (and for good reason) people who just want a bit more privacy.

Whether or not something can be used for good purposes doesn't change how often it is used as such. I would predict that most people who use it have malicious intent, especially on Scratch.

ResExsention wrote:

Computer_Fizz wrote:

they require money to use and are abused much less often

Not every VPN needs money. There are a couple limited, but free versions. Look on the Chrome store and you'll see.

or just use a proxy and be done with this.

I said the word most for a reason. I don't appreciate how you take what I say out of context. Yes, I am aware that some free VPNs exist. But almost all of them are either instable or banned as well, or both. There are also much less free VPNs than paid.

ResExsention wrote:

Please do your research.

Most of this is just common sense. If you don't have the understanding of TOR, that's not a bad thing, but so far you are just disrupting the conversation.

Addendum : I also should probably mention a bit about TOR in general : the usage of TOR is not intended to be as a VPN or proxy, but as an anonymization tool in general, from things like agent strings, tracking cookies, and even much more obscure things such as browser resolution (which is why there are often white bars around the corners). Using TOR as a VPN is not its intended purpose, nor do TOR relay nodes act as VPNs. It is, however, possible to connect to TOR nodes using a VPN.

Ok… I don't want to start a flame war here. I personally use Tor on some occasions so that's addressed.

As I said before: if knives are dangerous yet good for cooking, should the government ban them? No, of course not. Sure, people may try to get around IP bans, but believe me there is no absolute way to ban someone. I don't think it even matters if Tor is blocked or not – simply heading to a coffee shop across town is “Tor” enough.

Your statement about VPNs costing money was true, I agree. However though, free is free, and for those who don't know better it won't matter as long as it's unbanned and has a price tag of zero. And there is still that coffee shop.

And wait, are you familiar with Tor?

ResExsention wrote:

Ok… I don't want to start a flame war here. I personally use Tor on some occasions so that's addressed.

As I said before: if knives are dangerous yet good for cooking, should the government ban them? No, of course not. Sure, people may try to get around IP bans, but believe me there is no absolute way to ban someone. I don't think it even matters if Tor is blocked or not – simply heading to a coffee shop across town is “Tor” enough.

Your statement about VPNs costing money was true, I agree. However though, free is free, and for those who don't know better it won't matter as long as it's unbanned and has a price tag of zero. And there is still that coffee shop.

And wait, are you familiar with Tor?

I'm a bit confused. Are you trying to dispute my point or Computer_Fizz's point? Sorry if I'm being a bit dull, it's just that the quote box didn't show up so I'm confuzzled.

I'll say that I do have a bias against TOR.

The only times I've heard TOR brought up is when people at school either:

1. Get around the school filters (given the computers have it installed somehow); and
   
2. Access malicious/inappropriate content.
   

As a moderator of a forum outside of Scratch, I understand why someone would want to use a VPN when they access the site - it does give a level of protection (I won't say completely - there are ways to trace back to computers albeit it's very hard with a VPN, let alone with a TOR connection) that a traditional connection doesn't provide.

But it's an absolute pain in the neck to moderate when we have trolls, not spambots, who feel it's okay to troll our forums with a VPN connection.
Dealing with users involves pulling up the information from the IP, then we need to contact the ISP to notify them of an issue with continuing to violate our rules, only to find that we can't use any of the information to get the user to stop. Contacting companies that host the VPNs is even worse - often our responses about their (not our) Terms of Service violations aren't responded to and it leaves the troll unchecked and still available to troll the website.

Yes, I do have access to IP addresses for other users, but administrators have very strict policies as to when we're allowed to look up this information. Privacy policies, essentially a binding contract to all administrators and moderators of a website, restricts such information to IP-bans and investigations involving multiple accounts. I feel there is no reason to access a forum that's made for kids on such a connection - the government can track you, but what are they going to do with your information on a kids website if you haven't done anything bad?

Partial2Partials wrote:

ResExsention wrote:

Ok… I don't want to start a flame war here. I personally use Tor on some occasions so that's addressed.

As I said before: if knives are dangerous yet good for cooking, should the government ban them? No, of course not. Sure, people may try to get around IP bans, but believe me there is no absolute way to ban someone. I don't think it even matters if Tor is blocked or not – simply heading to a coffee shop across town is “Tor” enough.

Your statement about VPNs costing money was true, I agree. However though, free is free, and for those who don't know better it won't matter as long as it's unbanned and has a price tag of zero. And there is still that coffee shop.

And wait, are you familiar with Tor?

I'm a bit confused. Are you trying to dispute my point or Computer_Fizz's point? Sorry if I'm being a bit dull, it's just that the quote box didn't show up so I'm confuzzled.

@Computer_Fizz

I wanted to address the other half of the point – not in a rude way. Sorry about that.

I support this suggestion. Is it really beneficial if people are just going to continue finding workarounds? You know Tor has a couple of nifty secrets, right?

ResExsention wrote:

Partial2Partials wrote:

ResExsention wrote:

Ok… I don't want to start a flame war here. I personally use Tor on some occasions so that's addressed.

As I said before: if knives are dangerous yet good for cooking, should the government ban them? No, of course not. Sure, people may try to get around IP bans, but believe me there is no absolute way to ban someone. I don't think it even matters if Tor is blocked or not – simply heading to a coffee shop across town is “Tor” enough.

Your statement about VPNs costing money was true, I agree. However though, free is free, and for those who don't know better it won't matter as long as it's unbanned and has a price tag of zero. And there is still that coffee shop.

And wait, are you familiar with Tor?

I'm a bit confused. Are you trying to dispute my point or Computer_Fizz's point? Sorry if I'm being a bit dull, it's just that the quote box didn't show up so I'm confuzzled.

@Computer_Fizz

I wanted to address the other half of the point – not in a rude way. Sorry about that.

I support this suggestion. Is it really beneficial if people are just going to continue finding workarounds? You know Tor has a couple of nifty secrets, right?

Nifty secrets? Like what?

DownsGameClub wrote:

I'll say that I do have a bias against TOR.

The only times I've heard TOR brought up is when people at school either:

1. Get around the school filters (given the computers have it installed somehow); and
   
2. Access malicious/inappropriate content.
   

As a moderator of a forum outside of Scratch, I understand why someone would want to use a VPN when they access the site - it does give a level of protection (I won't say completely - there are ways to trace back to computers albeit it's very hard with a VPN, let alone with a TOR connection) that a traditional connection doesn't provide.

But it's an absolute pain in the neck to moderate when we have trolls, not spambots, who feel it's okay to troll our forums with a VPN connection.
Dealing with users involves pulling up the information from the IP, then we need to contact the ISP to notify them of an issue with continuing to violate our rules, only to find that we can't use any of the information to get the user to stop. Contacting companies that host the VPNs is even worse - often our responses about their (not our) Terms of Service violations aren't responded to and it leaves the troll unchecked and still available to troll the website.

Yes, I do have access to IP addresses for other users, but administrators have very strict policies as to when we're allowed to look up this information. Privacy policies, essentially a binding contract to all administrators and moderators of a website, restricts such information to IP-bans and investigations involving multiple accounts. I feel there is no reason to access a forum that's made for kids on such a connection - the government can track you, but what are they going to do with your information on a kids website if you haven't done anything bad?

So you propose that we ban both VPN and Tor?

Nifty secrets –k it's not really a secret but one of them is hidden Tor nodes that don't show up on the relay database. I'm betting Scratch only blocked the public ones.

Partial2Partials wrote:

DownsGameClub wrote:

I'll say that I do have a bias against TOR.

The only times I've heard TOR brought up is when people at school either:

1. Get around the school filters (given the computers have it installed somehow); and
   
2. Access malicious/inappropriate content.
   

As a moderator of a forum outside of Scratch, I understand why someone would want to use a VPN when they access the site - it does give a level of protection (I won't say completely - there are ways to trace back to computers albeit it's very hard with a VPN, let alone with a TOR connection) that a traditional connection doesn't provide.

But it's an absolute pain in the neck to moderate when we have trolls, not spambots, who feel it's okay to troll our forums with a VPN connection.
Dealing with users involves pulling up the information from the IP, then we need to contact the ISP to notify them of an issue with continuing to violate our rules, only to find that we can't use any of the information to get the user to stop. Contacting companies that host the VPNs is even worse - often our responses about their (not our) Terms of Service violations aren't responded to and it leaves the troll unchecked and still available to troll the website.

Yes, I do have access to IP addresses for other users, but administrators have very strict policies as to when we're allowed to look up this information. Privacy policies, essentially a binding contract to all administrators and moderators of a website, restricts such information to IP-bans and investigations involving multiple accounts. I feel there is no reason to access a forum that's made for kids on such a connection - the government can track you, but what are they going to do with your information on a kids website if you haven't done anything bad?

So you propose that we ban both VPN and Tor?

We kind of already do both (although the VPN and proxy stuff have a bit of a wider range in terms of IP addresses, so those end up being blocked on a case-by-case basis. If you happen to land on a blocked one, it's because it has been misused a lot by SEO spammers or trolls).

Unblocking Tor is a rejected suggestion due to it's high misuse by trolls. A blank screen, though, is a different problem - the block only limits website use, not your access to it.