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To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

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Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#91

Post by AnthonyMouse »

knieveltech wrote: post #53
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if the victim of torture can afford our legal system. A (most likely Federal) judge would deny qualified immunity to those responsible, and they'd be held accountable at least in civil court, possibly criminal, although doubtful, given the way state prosecutors crawl up the police butt.

A federal judge deny qualified immunity? I'm struggling to contain my incredulity. There are instances where cops shot people who were unarmed and attempting to comply, where filmed doing it from multiple angles, and the cops still walked.

There also cases where cops shot people and the cops went to jail, but nobody talks about those.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#92

Post by mirimir »

Questions about what methods investigators can legitimately use aside, the practical implications are clear. You can not count on Tor alone for real anonymity.

So what might these NITs be doing? In the simplest case, they'd be dropping malware that reports ISP-assigned IP address, local IP address, network hardware MAC, and whatever to FBI servers. And it's probably Windows malware.

To protect against that, you isolate userland and the Tor process in separate machines, or at least VMs. So adversaries that compromise browsers etc can't discover ISP-assigned IP addresses, and can't reach the Internet except through Tor. Also, you don't use Windows or OSX. Whonix does this, and you can run it in Qubes.

It's possible that these NITs are exploiting a bug in Tor itself. Even if that were so, however, isolating the Tor process from userland would mitigate that risk.

Perhaps the FBI has access to substantial numbers of malicious Tor relays, operated by the NSA etc. To mitigate that risk, you can hit Tor through nested chains of VPN services. Even if they identify the final VPN exit in your chain, they will probably need to track back through the chain to identify you. And by including unfriendly jurisdictions in your chain, you can make that harder.

Finally, it's possible that the NSA has sufficient global intercepts and logs to deanonymize any network connection, no matter how complicated and indirect. It's impossible to say.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#93

Post by fl0wenol »

hawkice wrote: post #78
waqf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

When we no longer have elected police, sherrifs, or district attorneys, then the numbers won't matter as much as the severity or sensationality of the crimes investigated.

But if the numbers = tough on crime, then there is pressure to obtain evidence illegally. If it becomes pervasive, then investigating the misconduct will never be prioritized because it doesn't seem as impressive to the voting public, and furthermore the justice system very rarely goes after their own.

So it's good there's a consequence for not walking a fine line; it's the embarassament of having your work undone.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#94

Post by mirimir »

tptacek wrote: post #26
Huffers2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The reason we believe the exclusionary rule works so well is that it strikes directly at the incentive structure for the police.

That's debatable. Parallel construction seems pretty common. The NSA shares information with the FBI, DEA etc, and then they exploit that information to collect clean evidence. So there's never any mention of NSA help.

Of course, that arguably involves perjury. But judges seem pretty OK with ignoring that. I do suspect that the Playpen cases involved parallel construction, and that they just screwed up on this one.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#95

Post by chii »

tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #89
dajohnson89 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/0... 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 site…

this is why we should encourage more tor traffic for regular, normal use. making the cost of deanonymization more costly.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#96

Post by riprowan »

Huffers2 wrote: post #14
woolly wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've never understood this. If I gather evidence against somebody illegally, and it proves their guilt, shouldn't we both go to jail?

How can tainted evidence be used to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, when the entire basis of trust in the collection of the evidence is ostensibly gone.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#97

Post by mirimir »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #80
throwawasiudy wrote: post #64

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).

Here's how it could have worked. User logs into Playpen onion site, which the FBI is running (and still serving child porn, I note). Then malware gets downloaded. Maybe it was a classic dropper, or maybe part of an image file or whatever. OK, so Tor browser doesn't affect Internet connectivity for other apps. So the FBI malware just phones home, pwning the user.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#98

Post by mirimir »

daxelrod wrote: post #68
throwawasiudy wrote: post #64

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…

I was under the impression from reporting on the sting that Playpen was an onion site, not a clearnet site. If that's the case, traffic wouldn't be going through an exit node to get there, right?

Right, no exit involved. Both user and onion site build normal three-relay circuits to a rendezvous relay, picked by the onion site.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#99

Post by alasdair_ »

Huffers2 wrote: post #14
woolly wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've never understood this. If I gather evidence against somebody illegally, and it proves their guilt, shouldn't we both go to jail?

One reason that I didn't consider until relatively recently is the issue of standing.

It's not possible for random people to successfully sue, say, the police for illegally gathering evidence if they have no proof that they were harmed and no proof that it happened.

The issue is that only people charged with a crime have the standing needed to bring this matter up in court. The (possible) crooks keep the police and justice department honest.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#100

Post by mirimir »

chii wrote: post #95
tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/0... 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 site…

this is why we should encourage more tor traffic for regular, normal use. making the cost of deanonymization more costly.

I believe that Tor Project ought to encourage bulk data transfer through and among onion services. That would add chaff to protect other users. There's resistance because it would increase network load. However, there's considerable excess capacity for middle relays, because they attract so little attention. There's even excess capacity for entry guards, and policy could be changed to increase that. It's exit relays that are rate-limiting, and onion sites don't use them.

Using multiple Tor instances with MPTCP, I've managed 50 Mbps between onion sites with gigabit uplinks.

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