81–90 of 142 posts
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They might be actively using it in other investigations that might be compromised if this exploit were fixed.
But can't those cases just be dismissed also? Unless they decide that case is worth the release of information.
In case it isn't obvious to everyone, the government runs or has tapped most or all TOR exit nodes. This has been going on forever. Nobody knows exactly what the attack is...but if they're willing to drop cases to cover it up, its probably something that either: 1) completely breaks TOR permanently 2) is easy to bypass/block Since TOR has withstood a lot of scrutiny I'm betting on option #2. They found a total break…
Do you have any evidence for the claim that TOR is so badly compromised? My understanding of the article is not that TOR was hacked, but rather that a tor user was tricked into opening a non-tor site and thus giving away his/her IP address. Also if just the exit node is compromised, encrypted connections are still safe (TTBOMK).
Only that it would be incredibly cheap and valuable to do so.
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This actually bothers me greatly. Not carrying through once charges are filed should be equivalent to "not guilty".
So, in a timeline this: * "We have an eyewitness! File the charges." * "Our eyewitness recanted, dismiss." * "We now have DNA evidence, refile the charges." You actually think the trial should not be allowed to go forward?
Actually, yes. If you filed a case on something so flimsy and it collapses, the case should get dismissed.
It would sure make prosecutors go the extra mile to make sure that there is concrete evidence before filing charges.
Simply filing charges can destroy someone's life. The prosecution should have to put something at risk when they do so.
So, let's see now: a man is going free who should probably be going to jail for a long time, because the state doesn't want to disclose the methods of gathering evidence against him, which we can speculate are because they are illegal or sourced from non-law-enforcement agencies. A case with near-identical facts and the same judge _is_ going to trial and, not content with tapping your email, the state now wants to pu…
If the site mentioned in the article had 150,000 members as they say, that's a lot of people to lock up for years for pointing a browser at a url.
You don't stumble on "kiddy stuff" on TOR accidentally. You actively seek it. 150.000 is a lot of pedos in the wild.
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While the majority of it probably isn't 'how the world should be', a man is going free because (we speculate) that the evidence against him was gathered illegally. This bit probably is 'how the world should be'.
I don't completely understand how demonstrating the chain of investigation should require the disclosure of the vulnerability. I really hope the execution of the law isn't going to depend on 12 random people understanding the finer points of cryptanalysis. I wish there were some way to get a private but independent verification that X technique allowed IP addresses to be collected if they did action Y (e.g. logging o…
Otherwise you could just create the data. With the above, you still can - it does however allow for inconsistencies to arise, and when they do a closer inspection can be conducted. (IANAL)
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> incentive structure for the police That assumes that the police's incentive is simply to convict as many people as possible. Which, if true, raises other concerns.
I mean, illegally obtained evidence is still evidence. I don't think it's absurd to think police want to convict as many guilty criminals as possible, particularly if the crime is heinous enough to justify risking their own jobs by breaking the law to get evidence.
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I think it more assumes that the police's incentive is to maximize the ratio of accusation to conviction as much as possible, which is a reasonable goal. If they were simply trying to maximize the total number of convictions, then this wouldn't necessarily help; the police would just make broaden the kind of cases they'd accuse And ofc, it's the function of the police to maximize the misdemeanor to conviction ratio;…
> maximize the ratio of accusation to conviction Um -- I think you meant that the other way around :-)
In case it isn't obvious to everyone, the government runs or has tapped most or all TOR exit nodes. This has been going on forever. Nobody knows exactly what the attack is...but if they're willing to drop cases to cover it up, its probably something that either: 1) completely breaks TOR permanently 2) is easy to bypass/block Since TOR has withstood a lot of scrutiny I'm betting on option #2. They found a total break…
Do you have any evidence for the claim that TOR is so badly compromised? My understanding of the article is not that TOR was hacked, but rather that a tor user was tricked into opening a non-tor site and thus giving away his/her IP address. Also if just the exit node is compromised, encrypted connections are still safe (TTBOMK).
Not the FBI per se, but it shows that someone is clearly attempting to compromise TOR users.
Also there's been whispers about it forever. Much like the "black rooms" at datacentres before all the NSA leaks.
The FBI has a long history of tracking down and compromising CC theft and CP rings, along with silk road and the hoards of clones. Most of these sites are primarily or only accessible over TOR.
Running compromised TOR nodes would be an extremely cheap way to monitor a large portion of illicit Internet traffic. The frequent busts are usually attributed to other reasons to shift attention away from TOR, but this is classic parallel construction.
The feds will nearly always get you on secondary evidence when the primary means is too sensitive... See stingrays. The sheer number of TOR based site busts however is telling.
Anyone relying on TOR for security is a fool. It's more heavily monitored than the regular net.
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I've never understood this. If I gather evidence against somebody illegally, and it proves their guilt, shouldn't we both go to jail?
You're getting a lot of huffy responses to this question, but it is an entirely legitimate one. In fact, many (maybe most?) western countries don't have the same exclusionary rules the US has. There are other remedies to police misconduct. If you were starting a nation from first principles, it's not an iron law of justice that your courts have that rule. The reason we believe the exclusionary rule works so well is t…
It also strikes directly at the incentive structure for defendants.
If you prove that the government wronged you but even then you still go to jail, you have little incentive to spend your resources proving that. And neither does anybody else, because prosecutors are not very interested in looking for prosecutorial misconduct.
But if proving government misconduct will keep you out of jail then you have every incentive to do it and the government won't be able to get away with it as much.