I know that in the eyes of a surveillance state, I'm looking suspicious, but this happens to protect what I'm wishing to hide. But, nonetheless, just because some people think I'm doing something illegal via Tor, it doesn't mean they can arrest me without evidence.
I don't say that they will arrest you without evidence, I have never said or mentioned that. I say that they will try more to track you when they see that you are trying to protect your privacy, especially when it comes to public tor usage. I don't say people who use Tor are criminals, for sure, they aren't but there is a group of people who use that for criminal activities and that's more than enough excuse for governments to spy on you even if you don't do anything bad. Tor is also different from VPN. VPN is used by many people and they can't simply spy on so many people but Tor is used by narrow audience.
Just imagine, they see that John uses Tor, they automatically suspect John is hiding something or doing something wrong. This prioritizes John and they probably track your more carefully. But if you hide your Tor activity, like via a tor bridge and they don't know that you use Tor, they won't prioritize you and see you like a regular internet user and regular user is never their important target.
When you discover that majority of people don't care about privacy online but you care, you'll also discover that you probably look a little different from crowd for those, who watch everyone. In order to protect your privacy, you have to act like you don't care, like, using Tor bridges to hide your tor activity or VPN + Tor.
You can't act beyond an extent. VPN providers are likely honeypots. If you connect to Tor via a VPN (which is
not recommended), you might as well look suspicious, because:
- VPNs are not used by the "crowd" either.
- VPNs can hand over logs if the authorities request it, and see you're connecting to Tor.
You can't protect your privacy if you're "acting" you don't care. You obviously don't get to the streets and start yelling "I'm protecting my privacy" (as that would actually reduce it), but that doesn't mean you won't utilize privacy protecting tools like Tor, because the ISP will deem you suspicious. Your alternative is to let the ISP know what you're doing. Your choice.
You can use Tor Bridge but it's not the best solution because Tor Bridges are meant for people who really need it, i.e. for people who want to access censored content from Iran and other countries. I don't promote VPNs but for basic privacy, some VPNs like Mullvad and IVPN are good solutions, they are probably less likely to be honeypot but you know, number one rule is to be critical and pessimist when it comes to tools you use for protecting your privacy, you should always assume worst case scenario.
By the way, showing your ISP that you use Tor is like yelling "I am protecting my privacy" in the street. Obfuscated servers are better choice.
