# Zfnd.org blocks Tor **URL:** \ **Category:** Zcash Foundation\ **Created:** [July 10, 2022, 10:05pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476 "2022-07-10T22:05:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nullius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/nullius/32/20935_2.png) [@nullius](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/nullius)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2022, 10:05pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/1 "2022-07-10T22:05:42Z")
Edit: Please see discussion downthread. > [@anon35140610](#): > > @nullius is it ok if I edit your topic to reflect that the Zcash Foundation is not in fact who blocks Tor? Can the original post be edited to reflect that it’s in fact Siteground (I’m not sure that I even have adequate permissions to do this myself but I can ask for the [@admins](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/groups/admins) to do so if agreed upon) that is responsible for this? I’m a regular and I think that allows me the permissions but not fully sure. > > It seems to me that the one thing you and I definitely agree upon is the need for appropriate representation of information I observe that Tor is still blocked and redirected. But I appreciate that ZF cares about this. When Tor-friendly people are notified of Tor-blocking behaviour in their hosting provider stack, I understand that it may take reasonable time to resolve. I will update OP as needed. **Last checked 2022-08-10 06:29 UTC:** Still blocked/redirected. (End of later edit. Original post follows.) * * * When I attempt to visit _any_ page on zfnd-dot-org or its subdomains, I am redirected to the standards-violating URI `https://zfnd.org/.well-known/captcha/` (or the same path at a subdomain), with a message that offends my dignity: > Please complete the captcha below to prove you’re a human and proceed to the page you’re trying to reach. ![zfnd.org_blocks_tor](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/original/3X/6/2/624d8ad48f1e7751fc42f9f42e81ed01facbc4a6.png) I realize that I am a sort of a canary in the coal mine, because [I use Tor all the time, for almost absolutely everything.](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/cherry-picking-tor-onion-v3-and-other-overlay-networks-from-bitcoin/42421) However, I find it disheartening if I am the first Zcasher to notice this. Does anyone else here regularly surf the Web with Tor? Are there any Tor users at the Zcash Foundation? Has @nickm_tor visited zfnd-dot-org to communicate about Zcash Foundation grants to the Tor Project? This abuse of the `/.well-known/` namespace violates RFC 5785. > **[RFC 5785: Defining Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5785)** > > This memo defines a path prefix for "well-known locations", "/.well-known/", in selected Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) schemes. \[STANDARDS-TRACK\] This abuse of the path `/.well-known/captcha/` is not registered with IANA—and it could not be, because it grossly violates RFC 5785. [https://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris/well-known-uris.xhtml](https://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris/well-known-uris.xhtml) This `/.well-known/captcha/` redirect on various sites has annoyed me for a long time. But I never cared much about those sites—not as I care about Zcash. #### A general message for site owners: If you mistreat Tor users, then some of them will simply decide that you don’t need their readership, their paying business, their friendship, or otherwise the benefits of associating with them. As a privacy activist, I actively, _vocally_ boycott most sites that block Tor. I do not beg and plead for the block to be removed: Instead, I tell all of my friends that the site is an unconscionable and unethical supporter of mass-surveillance. Blocking Tor is often an heuristic indicator that the site itself is probably loaded with trackers, and it wants to prevent you from protecting yourself against them. Boycotting sites that block Tor is like boycotting food producers that misuse pesticides: It is good for your own health. * * * ## What is causing this Tor block? After some research, I traced what I believe to be the source of this Internet abuse: > **[How Our New Anti-Bot AI Prevents Millions of Brute-Force Attacks](https://www.siteground.com/blog/new-anti-bot-ai/)** I presume that this is the Tor-blocker somehow appearing at zfnd-dot-org. If not, someone please advise what _other_ Tor-blocker is abusing the `/.well-known/` namespace. Siteground’s blog comments are closed, and I will not even try to contact them. Why would I waste my time? Their position is clear from the blog comments on that page: > [@](#): > > Eric G > Sep 03, 2017 > > Seems to be blocking the Tor browser. Entering the Captcha doesn’t always work. Failed four times in a row for me. > > **Hristo Pandjarov > Siteground Team** > Sep 05, 2017 > > With Tor browser, pretty much every request comes from a different IP. It’s widely used for malicous _[sic]_ traffic and different hacking attacks. Tor exit nodes are not endless and it’s normal that most of them are blocked. Please, use a regular browser in order to avoid such issues. > > […] > > Frank > Jan 22, 2018 > > Hi We have migrated an old forum to a new bbpress/wordpress version hosted on Siteground. We have users on our site that is generally very picky about protecting their privacy from eavesdropping from anyone, simply by principle. The number of such individuals are clearly on the rise. They use among other solutions, TOR and have never experienced problems with other sites. BUT they have just about given up our site which is very unfortunate as they are among the largest contributors to our forum. The problem is that they end up at your anti-bot-ai Captcha - which is fine and completely acceptable - but when they solve the captcha they are not referred back to the site, but are presented with a new captcha endlessly. Their ip seems not to be blocked as they gain acces if they manually enter the original URL after solving the captcha!?!?! Do you have an explanation for this behaviour? It must be possible to redirect correctly by issuing a cookie that the browser can present or similar (I am no security expert) (which would be acceptable for the users in this particular situation as would be part of encrypted information) How can we ensure that legitimit TOR users can use our site? Just telling them to use an unsafe browser is considered rude - we have tried that .-( best regards, > > **Hristo Pandjarov > Siteground Team** > Jan 22, 2018 > > The Tor browser makes requests constantly switching IP addresses. It is widely used by people who want to do malicious tasks without being detected. Although many, Tor has finite number of IP addresses and due to its regular usage, those addresses get blocked very, very fast. The problem comes from the fact that Tor uses a torrent like technology to make requests from a variety of IPs. Usually, if a regular user is presented with a captcha and solves it, they will never see the challenge again. We have very, very little false-positives with that system. However, due to the constant IP change for requests, users keep getting challenged with captcha. We can’t risk the security of our customers and allow IPs that have been used for malicious reasons to access our servers. I would recommend that you advice _[sic]_ your visitors to use a regular browser when visiting your site. > > […more…] I do not advocate that they should fix this: I advocate that everyone else should **boycott them until they go out of business.** Reasons: 1. Their overly-hyped security theatre blocks Tor users from even _reading_ ordinary webpages (!). 2. They demonstrate gross ignorance of, and abuse of Internet standards by polluting the RFC 5785 `/.well-known/` namespace with ridiculously nonconformant usages which are not, and _never could be_ registered with IANA. **Should you ever entrust your site’s security to anyone with such abysmal incompetence at technology?** 3. They hate Tor users so much that they not only block Tor, but also redirect so that Tor users lose the URI of whatever page they clicked on. I ignore and actively boycott most sites that block Tor; but if a Tor-blocking site seems sufficiently valuable to me, I _sometimes_ try different ways to view it. Siteground obstructs this with their redirect away from the page that I had wanted to see. 4. They hate Tor users so much that **they repateadly, arrogantly dismiss polite requests to change their own misbehaviour.** Don’t ask them to fix it: Dump them, tell them why, and tell everyone else to avoid them like plague. * * * ## I am unCAPTCHAed! CAPTCHAs are totally unnecessary for most read-only resources. Even for resources that are more susceptible to abuse, they are not the best option. > **[UserTesting Blog | UserTesting](https://www.usertesting.com/blog)** > > Get the best insights into the latest trends and all things human insight, CX, UX , product, marketing and research on our blog. And **it is _always_ insulting and offensive to human dignity to demand that people “prove you’re a human”.** Unacceptable! (No comment on the widespread allegation that I am actually a robot.) I refuse to complete CAPTCHAs simply to read _any_ site. If you value your limited lifetime and your human dignity, then so should you. * * * ## What should Zcash do? **Zcash’s mission is to promote privacy.** I urge the Zcash Foundation please forthwith to dump and to boycott the perpetrators of this toxic, destructive, counterproductive, _actively anti-Tor_ security theatre—and please to make sure in the future that Tor users can freely access your site. Indeed, I respectfully suggest that ZF, ECC, the current Z.Cash site, and the Zcash Community site should set up onions—as [Bitcoin Core](https://bitcoincore.org/) ([onion](http://6hasakffvppilxgehrswmffqurlcjjjhd76jgvaqmsg6ul25s7t3rzyd.onion/)) has had [since March of 2020](https://bitcoincore.org/en/2020/03/27/hidden-service/), and as the old Z.Cash site used to have five years ago. (What happened to that?) Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Zchurn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/85e7bf/32.png) [@Zchurn](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/Zchurn)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2022, 1:59pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/2 "2022-07-11T13:59:36Z")
I also noticed, and I couldn’t agree more. Please fix this. Adding an .onion service for the site may be a more friendly way to welcome Tor users and at the same time not have them blocked because of being on a Tor IP. ---
**Author:** ![anon35140610](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@anon35140610](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/anon35140610)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2022, 7:59pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/3 "2022-07-11T19:59:02Z")
> [@nullius](#): > > #### A general message for site owners: > > If you mistreat Tor users, then some of them will simply decide that you don’t need their readership, their paying business, their friendship, or otherwise the benefits of associating with them. Hello! Thank you for pointing this out and I apologize for the negative browsing experience. Our intention was not to prevent Tor users from accessing the Zcash Foundation site. Tor is a friend of the Zcash Foundation and will even be participating at our upcoming [Zcon3 event.](https://zfnd.org/zcon3) As you already pointed out, this actually has to do with our hosting service. We’re looking into how we can best address this and appreciate your patience in the meantime. ---
**Author:** ![nullius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/nullius/32/20935_2.png) [@nullius](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/nullius)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/4 "2022-07-11T20:48:42Z")
> [@anon35140610](#): > > Thank you for pointing this out and I apologize for the negative browsing experience. Our intention was not to prevent Tor users from accessing the Zcash Foundation site. […] As you already pointed out, this actually has to do with our hosting service. > > We’re looking into how we can best address this and appreciate your patience in the meantime. Thanks for your reply. I understood that in this particular case, it must simply be a matter of nobody noticing, nobody pointing it out. My nym “nullius” literally means ‘nobody’s’, so I noticed and reported the issue. 🙂 > [@anon35140610](#): > > Tor is a friend of the Zcash Foundation and will even be participating at our upcoming [Zcon3 event.](https://zfnd.org/zcon3) Alas, I cannot see the linked page. (Just tried again.) I do have access to plenty of non-Tor “clean” anonymous IPs; but I will be a stubborn activist here, and decline to circumvent the Tor block. Hey, on transparent blockchains, I also sometimes purposely add mixer “taint” to “clean” coins just to be [constructively disruptive](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=139581.0). Nonetheless, as a longtime Tor user and a longtime Zcasher, I am pleased to see the two projects working together! I am guessing that the Tor people will probably be happy to offer guidance on how best to increase all-around Tor-friendliness in the Zcash ecosystem. Obviously, I think it’s important to give pushback against webhosts that block Tor without their clients’ even knowing it. Please read my message not as a self-oriented “unblock me so that I personally can see your site”, but rather as, **“Let’s all stand together with Tor, and send a message that it is NOT OK to treat all Tor users as _ipso facto_ ‘attackers’.”** * * * > [@Zchurn](#): > > Adding an .onion service for the site may be a more friendly way to welcome Tor users […] This is an issue separate from the IP block, although of course it is related. I recall that Zcash used to do onions. `Z.Cash` had an onion; and there was even an onion for `apt.z.cash`, `zcaptnv5ljsxpnjt.onion`, which I used from a Debian system way back! (_Cf._ [the Tor Project’s](https://onion.torproject.org/) and [Debian’s](https://onion.debian.org/) respective lists of their official onions, including source repos and binary package repos.) I think it’s sad that we fell behind the onion-ness of [Facebook](https://www.facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd.onion/), [Twitter](https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion/), [_The New York Times_](https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/), and even [the American CIA](http://ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onion/). Behold [Alec Muffett’s](https://alecmuffett.com/article/16007) list of [legitimate mainstream onions!](https://github.com/alecmuffett/real-world-onion-sites) @anon35140610, perhaps that Zcon3 meetup with the Tor people may turn out to be a great opportunity for all sorts of things. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![nullius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/nullius/32/20935_2.png) [@nullius](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/nullius)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2022, 9:47pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/5 "2022-07-11T21:47:47Z")
P.S., @anon35140610, with apologies for the somewhat topic-drifting double-reply: I have a suggestion of something you may wish to discuss with the Tor people at Zcon3. Famous is the fact that Bitcoin was created by a strongly pseudonymous developer, known only as “Satoshi Nakamoto”. Yet alas, obscure remains is the fact that **Satoshi was a Tor user.** I would not be surprised if the Tor people may be unaware of this; they would probably be thrilled to discuss it with Zcash people at a convention about the premier zero-knowledge privacy coin. My source on this: [In 2013, theymos, the Bitcoin Forum’s administrator, said that](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178330.msg1869406#msg1869406) **“he [Satoshi Nakamoto] always used Tor, as far as I [theymos] can tell.”** That forum was [founded by Satoshi](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3) in late 2009, originally at [`www.bitcoin.org/smf/`](https://web.archive.org/web/20091215005450/http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/) before various URL changes; Satoshi did most of his circa-2010-era public activity there. I presume that theymos must have IP access logs from the Satoshi era. Accordingly, I take theymos’ statement as **authoritative primary-source historical information for documenting Satoshi as a Tor user.** I have frequently cited that theymos post to push back against people who want to ban Tor users from cryptocurrency sites: **“So, you would ban Satoshi from cryptocurrency? 🙄”** Similarly, I have frequently cited “Satoshi Nakamoto” as an incisive two-word argument rebutting those are against pseudonymous crypto-developers. It has been my standard argument for years. Sadly, it happened _again_ [right here on this forum only hours ago](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/what-made-me-change-my-mind-about-zcash/42212/5). Please pass this along to the Tor people. For my part, I take it as additional evidence that [Satoshi cherished the same values, and shared the same goals,](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637) as motivated the later work on [Zerocoin for Bitcoin, which begat Zerocash,](https://blog.lopp.net/zerocoin--zero-knowledge--infinite-anonymity/) which begat Zcash. ---
**Author:** ![anon35140610](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@anon35140610](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/anon35140610)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 12:50am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/6 "2022-07-12T00:50:20Z")
> [@nullius](#): > > @Winfred, perhaps that Zcon3 meetup with the Tor people may turn out to be a great opportunity for all sorts of things. 😉 Anything in particular that you have in mind? ZF welcomes suggestions and it seems you have a few? > [@nullius](#): > > I understood that in this particular case, it must simply be a matter of nobody noticing, nobody pointing it out. Thank you for the benefit of doubt. This was simply a case of oversight on my part - as this was my responsibility. I do have an Onion Browser, but I didn’t test the Foundation’s website on it, before its being deployed. I’m very sorry for that and I hope you continue to understand. > [@nullius](#): > > Obviously, I think it’s important to give pushback against webhosts that block Tor without their clients’ even knowing it. I totally understand. I have nothing to question as far as your intentions are concerned. I’m thankful you brought this to our attention. The last thing I would want is for people to think it had been intentional. ZF loves Tor, as does the rest of Zcash! It’s why we invited their Executive Director to be actively involved at Zcon3 - our annual privacy Zcash event! (You beat me to it but we will be announcing Isabella Fernandes’ participation at Zcon3 tomorrow actually!) > [@nullius](#): > > P.S., @Winfred, with apologies for the somewhat topic-drifting double-reply: I have a suggestion of something you may wish to discuss with the Tor people at Zcon3. Suggestion received! While I’m well aware of the history behind the creation of Bitcoin and Zcash, I appreciate the “walk down history’s lane!” ---
**Author:** ![anon35140610](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@anon35140610](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/anon35140610)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 1:17am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/7 "2022-07-12T01:17:36Z")
@nullius is it ok if I edit your topic to reflect that the Zcash Foundation is not in fact who blocks Tor? Can the original post be edited to reflect that it’s in fact Siteground (I’m not sure that I even have adequate permissions to do this myself but I can ask for the [@admins](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/groups/admins) to do so if agreed upon) that is responsible for this? I’m a regular and I think that allows me the permissions but not fully sure 🤷‍♀️. It seems to me that the one thing you and I definitely agree upon is the need for appropriate representation of information 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![nullius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/nullius/32/20935_2.png) [@nullius](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/nullius)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 1:28am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/8 "2022-07-12T01:28:05Z")
I quoted (some version of) your post at the top of OP. When time permits, perhaps I may smooth the presentation a bit; but it may suffice as-is. I did just test again. Tor is still blocked, which I should probably note in OP. When I make a post that is factually accurate and in good faith, I strongly prefer that it never be administratively edited over my head. I am happy to avoid any potential misunderstandings of ZF’s intentions towards Tor. Thank you for your attention to this. As a Tor user, it means much to me to see people in responsible positions take this seriously, instead of brushing off my concerns as not infrequently has occurred. ---
**Author:** ![anon35140610](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@anon35140610](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/anon35140610)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 1:35am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/9 "2022-07-12T01:35:59Z")
> [@nullius](#): > > When I make a post that is factually accurate and in good faith, I strongly prefer that it never be administratively edited over my head. I am happy to avoid any potential misunderstandings of ZF’s intentions towards Tor. Based on your response, I will make no such request to the [@admins](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/groups/admins) of this forum but would ask them to take note of my comments as they may want to act on this feedback for other situations. ---
**Author:** ![nullius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/nullius/32/20935_2.png) [@nullius](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/nullius)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2022, 11:44pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/10 "2022-07-15T23:44:59Z")
I understand that these types of issues may take a reasonable time to resolve. I have been monitoring the status of this issue—checking at least once or twice per day. After it was suggested that my OP may be administratively edited over my head, I have been editing OP with the dates and times when I checked to see if the issue had been resolved. I encourage the public to click the little pen icon at the top, and view the edit history. Javascript is required, but a forum account is not; _please_ go ahead and look! Five business days after I reported it, `zfnd.org` is still blocking Tor. I request an update. It has been a long time since I ran any significant website; but when I did, I always maintained things in a way that I could easily switch hosts. That is a matter of independence and censorship-resistance. I think it is prudent, like backing up data. I suggest that if the Zcash Foundation is stuck in a position that it can’t easily tell its Tor-hating host to take a hike, some policies and procedures should be improved. The Tor community used to maintain a list of Tor-friendly hosts on the old Tor Trac. (Not sure about now.) Tor-friendly hosts deserve our business; Tor-hating hosts do not! I think that if you reach out to the Tor community, people on the Tor side would be happy to help the Zcash Foundation find Tor-friendly hosting suitable to ZF’s technical requirements and its budget—ideally, payable with ZEC! 😺 * * * If this seems embarrassing to the Zcash Foundation, @anon35140610, I ask that you please consider how this feels to me as a Tor user and a Zcasher. I have tried to get my friends into Zcash. Like likes like. My Bitcoiner friends tend to be Tor users—not people who maybe tried Tor once or twice, but people who _use_ Tor on a daily basis. I have gotten a sort of a “LOLWUT” reaction from my own friends, when I had to explain to them that, um, **the privacy coin with hands-down absolutely the best on-chain privacy utterly lacks support for onions.** > > > Today, on the first anniversary of \[the \*\*15 July 2021\*\* official end of life fo…r onion v2\](https://blog.torproject.org/v2-deprecation-timeline/), I respectfully request that Zcash change some development decisions to prioritize v3 onions—and other overlay networks. > > The deadline for \*fully fielded\* v3 onion support passed one year ago. \[Tor nuked onion v2 from orbit almost nine months ago.\](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/40476) v2 onion is insecure, EOLed, unsupported—and now, as of a few weeks ago, totally nonfunctional on the Tor network. Accordingly, it is fair to say that \*\*Zcash does not support onions.\*\* > > Upstream Bitcoin Core has first-class support out of the box for the following privacy and/or censorship-resistance networks—all of which could be borrowed, without wasting Zcash dev cycles on reinventing the wheel: > > \* \*\*Tor onion v3:\*\* Issue bitcoin/bitcoin#18884, main PR bitcoin/bitcoin#19954, merged 2020-09-14, released in Bitcoin Core v0.21.0 on 2021-01-14. Other PRs relate to v3 onion support; the whole Bitcoin infrastructure was upgraded to onion v3 well in advance of the Tor Project’s 2021-07-15 deprecation deadline for v2 onions. As @daira noted (https://github.com/zcash/zcash/issues/5277#issuecomment-903833687), Bitcoin totally removed its v2 onion support shortly after that deadline had passed. > > \* \*\*I2P SAM:\*\* bitcoin/bitcoin#20685, merged 2021-03-02, released in Bitcoin Core v22.0 on 2021-09-13. > > \* \*\*CJDNS:\*\* bitcoin/bitcoin#23077, merged 2021-11-08, released in Bitcoin Core v23.0 on 2022-04-25. > > (This list is copied from \[my forum post of almost two weeks ago\](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/cherry-picking-tor-onion-v3-and-other-overlay-networks-from-bitcoin/42421). If I can spare the time and effort to work out a Github task list of commits, alone or working with others here, I will edit this issue.) > > \---- > > \## Please reboot the approach here: > > I am aware that the Zcash developers have some nitpicks over how Bitcoin did this. Although my concerns are different, I myself think that it was slightly suboptimal. I wish that I had ~~bikeshedded~~ spoken up during the \[BIP 155\](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0155.mediawiki) standardization process. Well, it is what it is—\*and it works!\* The code is written, tested, fielded. It has been used in mission-critical settings every day for the past year and a half. Please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. > > Here, and generally, I urge trying to keep a closer alignment with upstream. > > Zcash has a small dev team at a single company, with spectacular world-class expertise in a narrow specialty: Zero-knowledge proof privacy. Bitcoin Core is a massive effort with a large number of highly competent contributors, funded generously by decentralized, voluntary private grants from numerous parties around the world. The fruits of all that funding and labour are \*all\* MIT-licensed, freely available for Zcash to enjoy in the open-source spirit of give-and-take. > > Zcash has already richly benefitted from this: If Zcash had tried to write its own node from scratch, I estimate that in \*the best case\*, Zcash would have shipped its first mainnet at least two years later than it did—at a cost of many millions of dollars in additional development effort, never mind opportunity costs. (Best case. Many such projects stall out and fail as vapourware.) Since then, Zcash has obtained many of its best non-blockchain-privacy improvements from upstream. Bitcoin Core has a huge codebase under continual improvement, just waiting to be copied. Please, take advantage. > > Staying fully aligned with BIP 155 and Bitcoin Core’s implementations of support for Tor onion v3, IP2 SAM, and CJDNS gives Zcash what it needs ~~now~~ ~~yesterday~~ a year ago, \*and\* it lets Zcash continue to borrow from Bitcoin for \*\*the future maintenance burden.\*\* Doing things differently would saddle Zcash with \*\*technical debt\*\* of the worst kind: The kind that Zcash developers need to maintain in perpetuity, all by themselves. > > Staying closely aligned with upstream means that future features and improvements can be cherry-picked with minimal effort. As a developer interested in writing third-party code that interacts with both Bitcoin and Zcash (including on the P2P network level for added network-layer privacy), I note that a close alignment on BIP standards facilitates ecosystem growth—mainly to Zcash’s benefit. To Bitcoin, the market-dominant ecosystem with vast network effects, the ecosystem benefit here is negligible. > > Speaking as a Zcasher since Sprout and a long-term ZEC holder, I think that the foregoing is more important to Zcash than any theoretical inelegance in BIP 155. > > Speaking as a Tor user who ran \`zcashd\` with \`onlynet=onion\` for over five years, I identify this as a major pain point for Tor users. > > Speaking as a Bitcoiner-Zcasher, I am frustrated by how many excellent \`bitcoind\` features are missing from \`zcashd\`. This will be only the first of my efforts to point out the most important, real-world practical features where Zcash needs to catch up by copying more of Bitcoin’s reviewed, tested, freely available MIT-licensed code. > [@Cherry-picking Tor onion v3 and other overlay networks from Bitcoin](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/cherry-picking-tor-onion-v3-and-other-overlay-networks-from-bitcoin/42421): > > I respectfully request that v3 onions be prioritized. I know that the Zcash dev team dislikes Bitcoin’s approach to this. Please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. My perspective: I have been using zcashd with onlynet=onion since Sprout. It was beyond painful long ago, and it is probably far past the point of a false sense of privacy and security. The v2 deprecation deadline passed almost a year ago; and [Tor nuked onion v2 from orbit almost nine months ago.](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/40476) Thus, it is fair t… By the way, I suggest that the Tor Project’s Executive Director may be interested in knowing how and when that will be resolved. [The Tor Project’s v2 onion deprecation deadline](https://blog.torproject.org/v2-deprecation-timeline/) ([onion](http://pzhdfe7jraknpj2qgu5cz2u3i4deuyfwmonvzu5i3nyw4t4bmg7o5pad.onion/v2-deprecation-timeline/)) was **15 July 2021—one year ago today**. [Tor kicked v2 onions out of their own codebase nine months ago](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/40476) ([onion](http://eweiibe6tdjsdprb4px6rqrzzcsi22m4koia44kc5pcjr7nec2rlxyad.onion/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/40476)). Not only it is fair to say that Zcash does not support onions: It would be dishonest to claim that Zcash supports onions. [At this point, v2 onion support is like supporting the old v0/v1 “Hidden Services”](https://github.com/zcash/zcash/issues/5277#issuecomment-1186005630): It does not qualify as “supporting onions”. And it also leaves me in a difficult position to explain to my friends why the best privacy coin has governance and grantmaking processes run by a foundation whose website _they_ can’t see, because it discriminates against Tor users. Moreover, and more importantly in the big picture, **I am disturbed by this circumstantial evidence that most Zcashers don’t use Tor.** If [Bitcoin.org](https://bitcoin.org/) or [Bitcoin Core’s website](https://bitcoincore.org/) ([onion](http://6hasakffvppilxgehrswmffqurlcjjjhd76jgvaqmsg6ul25s7t3rzyd.onion/)) were to block Tor for even a split-second, there would be a nuclear explosion! It would not go unnoticed. Due to demand, community interest, and Tor usage by Bitcoin developers themselves, the shipping, release-version `bitcoind` had v3 onion support in Bitcoin Core v0.21.0, released 2021-01-14—over half a year before the Tor Project’s 2021-07-15 deadline. Bitcoin killed v2 onion from its own codebase, right after the v2 deprecation deadline. **Because Bitcoiners care about this stuff.** Where is the widespread interest from Zcashers? 😿 **I wish to deal with that constructively.** As an experienced privacy activist, I will be advocating for Zcashers to use Tor—to use Tor generally, to surf the Web with Tor Browser, [to boycott chat networks that are notoriously hostile to Tor](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/should-the-forum-move-to-discord/42298/43), and specifically to use Tor with Zcash. As a technical expert of some repute in other venues, I offer help and support to Zcashers who are interested in using Tor’s network-layer privacy together with Zcash’s blockchain privacy. And of course, I will be advocating for PGP as I have been doing since the 90s. **If you don’t do PGP, you don’t do “crypto”!** I think that that would make a positive topic for Zcon3. I’d like to see if there is any reasonable way for me to contribute. Alas, I still cannot see the website. 😾 ---
**Author:** ![nullius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/nullius/32/20935_2.png) [@nullius](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/nullius)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2022, 2:33am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/11 "2022-07-16T02:33:42Z")
Whoops. While I was making some preliminary preparations for a Zcash Forum post to help introduce more Zcashers to Tor, I noticed that the only way to donate ZEC to Tor is by sending to a t-address. Although this isn’t anything like having a website that blocks Tor—not even comparable!—it is definitely suboptimal, and not a good look for the Tor Project as a privacy advocate. Perhaps it is time to make some constructive improvements all-around. [Tor’s cryptocurrency donation page](https://donate.torproject.org/cryptocurrency/) ([onion](https://yoaenchicimox2qdc47p36zm3cuclq7s7qxx6kvxqaxjodigfifljqqd.onion/cryptocurrency/)) ([archival snapshot](https://archive.ph/DkSmG#selection-479.0-482.0)—[onion](http://archiveiya74codqgiixo33q62qlrqtkgmcitqx5u2oeqnmn5bpcbiyd.onion/DkSmG#selection-479.0-482.0)): ![tor_t-address](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/original/3X/a/2/a2bb99b1d9196a430d08d666833ac0c1f0247826.png) I will be reaching out to the Tor Project and its community, to help them optimize their support for strong privacy. I observe that the Tor Project has an XMR donation address; thus, I presume that they must already have in place any necessary procedures for auditability and accounting with selective disclosure of view keys. They have a BTC Pay Server (and even a BTC Pay onion) for accepting Bitcoin; that is consistent with current best practices for privacy. @anon35140610, I have a question for the Zcash Foundation: **How has the Zcash Foundation sent grant money to the Tor Project?** Thanks for any information you can provide about that, and if ZF has a set policy about it. I would dig around on the ZF website to see if this is disclosed; but I can’t reasonably do so, because `zfnd.org` is _still_ blocking Tor. 😾 I advocate that **the Zcash Foundation should have a strict policy of sending grants only with fully shielded ZEC. I hope that it has had such a policy since Sprout. If it does not, I urge making this an iron-clad rule with no exceptions.** People who cannot or will not receive fully-shielded ZEC should never receive any ZEC development-seigniorage money from the Zcash Foundation—_period_. To support auditing and accountability, the crypto-wizards at ECC have done an awful lot of work to support selective disclosure; and for Zcash Foundation grants, it would be appropriate for all of the necessary view keys to be available to the community. ---
**Author:** ![m4p8p2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@m4p8p2](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/m4p8p2)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 1:00pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zfnd-org-blocks-tor/42476/12 "2022-12-19T13:00:02Z")
As of December 2022 [zfnd.org](http://zfnd.org) is still blocking Tor users. It’s a real bummer, and I would really hope that zcash foundation starts caring about the privacy of the users a bit more