Indeed the IRS website blocks Tor users from accessing tax information, as if tor users donât need tax information. Important legal guidance exists on irs.gov, so itâs obviously an injustice to block people from becoming informed about their rights and obligations.
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Whatâs the fix? Would it be effective to make a FOIA request on paper so the IRS must send the info on paper via USPS? Or would that require compensation to offset their burden?
Before you can claim itâs not a red herring, you must first grasp what is claimed as the red herring. Your reply displays that you donât. When a demographic of people are wholly denied availability, and you make the false assertion that availability is /never/ binary, itâs both incorrect and irrelevant. Incorrect because you can have 100% loss of availability in a context. Context is important. And itâs incorrect because people without access are inherently without availability.
THATâs incorrect. Thatâs the sort of weasel wording that people can see right through. Youâve taken the whole of taxpayers who are entitled (in fact obligated) to file tax, and excluded some of them as a consequence of infosec incompetence. You cannot redefine the meaning of a term to justify incompetence. Itâs purpose defeating for PR damage control.
This is where your lack of infosec background clearly exposes itself. You can also /randomly/ block large swaths of people arbitrarily and with the same mentality claim âbetter securityâ because you think a baddy likely got blocked, a claim that inherently requires disregarding availability as a security factor. You will fool people with that as youâre pushing a common malpractice in security which persists in countless access scenarios because availaibility to the excluded is disregarded by the naive and unwitting.
Nonsense. Infosec, comp sci, and all tech disciplines cover most diligently principles and theory which are resilient over decades, not tool-specific disposable knowledge. The principles and theories have not changed in the past 20 years. You seem to be in a program that short-cuts the principles and fixates on disposable knowlege, likely a vocational / boot camp type of school, in which case you should consider transferring to a school that gives more coverage on theory - the kind of knowledge that doesnât age so fast.
WTF? You donât know how Tor works. Perfection is never on the table in the infosec practice. You should forget about perfection â itâs distracting you. But Tor most certainly provides anonymity in the face of countless threat agents, among other features.
âOwesâ implies a debt. I never spoke of owing or debts. The IRS has an obligation to inform the public. When they exclude demographics of people from their service (in particular people who funded them), itâs an infosec failure and an injustice.
It is important. Which is why claiming thereâs a security issue because they donât support tor is silly. Just donât use tor. The website also doesnât support the entire demographic of people who donât use tech at all, like the Amish. No reasonable person would say thatâs a security issue.
No, itâs absolutely correct. You can continue to whine that they donât support your particular use case, but thatâs your problem. The documents and services are all available right now for all Americans. You insisting on using your niche protocol is nobodyâs problem but your own.
This is a stawman. Tor is notorious for bad actors. Not even remotely the same as blocking addresses at random.
You really need to go back to school. No principle and no theory in infosec requires every protocol be available in order to achieve âavailabilityâ. All of these fields are relatively new and still evolving.
Indeed, thatâs what I was saying.
So does a VPN, you twit.
English your second language? Itâs fine if it is, just know that âdebtâ and âobligationâ are synonyms.
Anything to be a victim. Grow up. Nobody owes you tor access.
Reread the thread. Youâve already been told that you canât dress up a deliberate act of sabatage as merely âneglecting to supportâ. Itâs the same silly claim that it was the first time you made it.
The Amish did not have a viable means of access that was artificially removed by a proactively inserted firewall rule. This fallacy of analogy shows your inability to grasp the absurdity of the comparison.
Of course if you donât grasp the fact that the Tor DoS is not lack of support but rather a proactive disabling of something that naturally works, then itâs clear why it appears absurd to you. But the appearance in your view is due to not understanding that servers serve Tor out of the box by default (unlike the Amish).
You clearly donât know what that word means. I presented my own argument, not yours. My words - my argument - simply exposes the absurdity of the basis of your claim as quoted. Hence why I quoted you without paraphrasing.
Sure, but youâre neglecting proportionality. Cars are notorious for drive-by shootings. But we donât ban cars on that basis because (like Tor) the numbers of legit users far outnumber the baddies. We donât oppress a whole community because less than 1% of that community has a harmful element â unless we are a corrupt tyrant deporting all possible deportable immigrants, or an incompetent admin blocking the whole Tor community.
Of course it is. Both scenarios block an arbitrary group of legitimate users who are exposed to collateral damage as a consequence of prejudiced trivia with the effect of collective punishment. Only to then claim âsecurity is betterâ on the off chance that a baddy was blocked, without realizing that availability consequences are selectively overlooked.
While claiming that anonymity is non-existent on the basis of lack of perfection â perfection that you now concede we never have.
Yes, to a much lesser extent than Tor in far fewer scenarios, of course, with higher doxxing risks by a motivated adversary. And? Are you just going to leave the red herring there like that or did you have a point?
I was about to ask you that. You clearly are struggling. âOwingâ is /not/ a drop-in replacement for âobligationâ. Anyone who speaks English as their first language would be aware of that nuance and spot your conflation of the words instantly. Itâs like you are entering an off translation.
There it is again. You continue to misuse that word â in this case to build a man of straw. I already rejected your first attempt at redefining my position as being owed something.
Youâre trying to turn this into semantics. They donât support tor. Thatâs a factual statement.
You presented a strawman and attacked that strawman.
Blocking tor is not the same as blocking random IP addresses. Thereâs really no point in pressing with this analogy.
Did I make that claim? I recall saying tor doesnât provide you with perfect anonymity. Another factual statement.
Cool, so use a VPN.
Itâs a synonym. Maybe you should look up synonym while youâre at it. The IRS is not obligated to support tor and they do not owe you that support.
Thatâs what youâre doing when you say:
Thatâs not the words of intellectual honesty. The honest and straight-shooting way to say it without weasel wording is to say they are blocking Tor. Accurate. Simple. Does not mask the fact that itâs a proactive initiative.
An analogy is not a strawman. If I wanted to present I strawman, I would have had to present the analogy as your argument. I did not. It was my analogy.
you did, in the context of Tor:
That is not what you said. Look above. Also, your newly revised statement (Tor not being perfect anonymity) is tue but an irrelevant waste of time, as you have been told twice already. Again, youâre distracting yourself with this pointless chase for perfection. Forget about perfection. Itâs not a reasonable expectation for the infosec discipline.
Not itâs not.
Your reliance on a dictionary is not helping you. Youâre not going to understand nuanced differences between near synonyms from a dictionary. You need to be immersed in an English speaking culture to reach that level of understanding.
You keep trying to pull this down to semantics because you donât have a leg to stand on. Nobody owes you tor access. Nobody is obligated to allow tor access.
You have options, youâre just refusing to use them, probably because you just picked up using tor for the first time out of high school and, like all young idealists, took a hard line on it. Grow up.
Really recommend you go look at a dictionary, thesaurus, and some introductory material on security.
You continue with this useless claim. There are legal obligations. Then there are moral obligations. Itâs an attempt at the equivocation fallacy to state a fact that is true of one meaning while the other is implied to the contrary. But more importantly, the arguement fails to counter the thesis. If someone says McDonaldâs burgers are poor quality, and you come along and say âMcDonaldâs does not owe you good quality foodâ, itâs as if you are trying despirately and emotionally to defeat the critic with an argument using an claim that misses the thesis (that the burgers are poor quality). Citing incompetent security does not in itself inherently impose obligation. Obligation can be argued either way depending on which side of the meaning under the equivocation fallacy refers to. But the more important thesis remains: that service quality is poor due to a deficiency of competence.
Unlike telling the burger consumer they have âoptionsâ, tax is not optional. Everyone is obligated one way or another to interact with the tax authority. So when service quality is poor, the option to walk is not there. Itâs a mandate that you are trying to dress up as if taxpayers are given autonomy. Autonomy is compromised when forced to choose between lousy or undignified options therein.
You absolutely should not be giving anyone infosec advice; most particularly given these rudimentary and arbitrary information sources, respectively.
You are neither legally owed nor morally owed tor access.
Not supporting tor does not indicate a security fault.
The McDonaldâs analogy doesnât apply to the context of this discussion. Youâre morally outraged that McDonaldâs doesnât provide plastic straws. Instead of using the straws provided, not using a straw, or bringing your own plastic straws, youâre yelling that theyâre poisoning the drinks.
There are other ways to handle your taxes, if you find them lousy or undignified, thatâs a real bummer for you.
Your opinions on security are worthless. You are clearly an uninformed zealot.
Itâs a demonstration of incomptence and itâs embarrassing for the federal government.
Wooosh â how could that go so far over your head? The analogy had similarities and differences both of which demonstrate how indefensive your stance is. The similarity exposes as clearly as possible how your claims about not âowingâ quality service misses the thesis entirely. The difference in the analogy contrasts the lack of choice in the tax situation compared to the private market (where you can simply walk when the service is poor). Moral obligation arises out of the mandate.
The moral obligation of treating taxpayers with dignity and respect is an equal obligation to all taxpayers. Undermining data minimization and forcing the needless disclosure of IP addresses of those contributing to the revenue service is indefensible and morally reprehensible. Youâve wholly failed in your effort to support the needless and intrusive practice of reckless forced disclosure of personal information irrelevant to the tax obligation.