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The Tor anonymity network allows users to protect their privacy and circumvent censorship restrictions but also shields those distributing child abuse content, selling or buying illicit drugs, or sharing malware online. Using data collected from Tor entry nodes, we provide an estimation of the proportion of Tor network users that likely employ the network in putatively good or bad ways. Overall, on an average country/day, ~6.7% of Tor network users connect to Onion/Hidden Services that are disproportionately used for illicit purposes. We also show that the likely balance of beneficial and malicious use of Tor is unevenly spread globally and systematically varies based upon a country's political conditions. In particular, using Freedom House's coding and terminological classifications, the proportion of often illicit Onion/Hidden Services use is more prevalent (~7.8%) in "free" countries than in either "partially free" (~6.7%) or "not free" regimes (~4.8%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the mass media coverage of U.S. Operation Iraqi Freedom by journalists. A content analysis is provided concerning the quality and effectiveness of three types of journalists involved with that war including journalists that the U.S. government embedded in military units, journalists that were stationed in Baghdad, Iraq, and journalists that were independent and were thus free to roam. Topics include news coverage which emphasized a soldier's experience in war while downplaying the invasion's effects on Iraqi people.