Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

blog.torproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 101 posts

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#71

Post by emodendroket »

itdaniher wrote: post #69
emodendroket wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is four years old. This claim I heard in an interview from him for his book that just came out (he got a bunch of e-mails through FOIA requests, as I understand it), and isn't addressed by this "very concise refutation." And some of the claims seem a little bit of a stretch (using the "Gate" suffix is a nod to Gamergate? Isn't it more plausible that this is the same reference to Watergate that's been app…

He posted the FOIAd docs here: https://surveillancevalley.com/the-tor-files/master-list He and I discussed them a bit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/itdaniher/status/961307347950940161 I was not impressed by his response. The "bunch of emails" seemed remarkably banal. I've written similar emails about sponsored open-source work myself. edit: email stack 1: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4367176-Tor-BBG-corr…

I haven't really had time to go through everything, so I was just going by what I remembered from the interview. The idea that they were sharing zero-days seemed like a big deal but I didn't really see which one he was referring to skimming those earlier, so I didn't bother linking. The other point he harped on a lot was them taking marching orders (for instance, that the application should be localized for Farsi during a time when the US was looking to promote dissenters in Iran).

I am reading the book now so I feel like I'll have a better judgment once I've finished. I didn't find your Twitter exchange very illuminating either way.

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#72

Post by confounded »

3pt14159 wrote: post #27
jernejzen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty bold claim about !%. Do you by any chance have any refs or links at hand explaining the topic more into depth. There are quite a lot on Tor www but covering more common use.

If you're good enough to understand how to use Tor securely you're good enough to know why random "newbuser"s shouldn't be on it. Tor is far more fingerprintable than people think it is and its riddled with adversaries and malware. Even if you're good you have a separate problem now: Keeping the USG et al from painting a target on you. It isn't worth it. You're in league with wannabe terrorists, misguided natsec jour…

> You're in league with wannabe terrorists, misguided natsec journalists, blackhats, child pornographers.

Stop this FUD. You can make the same argument about safes, VPNs, disk encryption, paper, roads, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

What are the specific exploits in Tor which are “easy as shit” to use? If you’re unable to be specific, why is that?

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#73

Post by angry_octet »

jerheinze wrote: post #39
3pt14159 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're good enough to understand how to use Tor securely you're good enough to know why random "newbuser"s shouldn't be on it. Tor is far more fingerprintable than people think it is and its riddled with adversaries and malware. Even if you're good you have a separate problem now: Keeping the USG et al from painting a target on you. It isn't worth it. You're in league with wannabe terrorists, misguided natsec jour…

> Tor is far more fingerprintable than people think it is You seem to have no idea about the existence of pluggable transports.[1][2] > and its riddled with adversaries and malware. Yes, and so is I2P... Freenet... the Internet? > Even if you're good you have a separate problem now: Keeping the USG et al from painting a target on you. Isn't that an argument for using Tor? As Mike Perry (who works now on the vanguard…

And while ios might be a harder target for malware, Safari has plenty of problems -- such as inability to block JS unless needed, no adblocking. And iOS is quite chatty, sends all sorts of info back to Apple. No potential to filewall at all.

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#74

Post by chii »

rotrux wrote: post #29
chii wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you think tor is going to 'inevitably win'? Win at what exactly?

Ahh ok good question I didn't really flesh that out. >"Why do you think tor is going to 'inevitably win'?" Not just tor, but p2p in general. Basically the theory is that, as a species, we're used to few-source/many-sink communications networks. We've been using them from the printing-press all the way up to DVDs. The internet & its "many-source" capabilities represents a threat to the prior (and existing) information…

i understand your sentiments, but i think the p2p model is never going to become so mainstream that they take over the equivalent centralised model. The reason being that "normal" people prefer ease and convenience.

The internet is practically already interactive television! very few people create and host, compared to the number of consumers.

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#75

Post by emj »

jerheinze wrote: post #52
3pt14159 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on HN for almost 10 years. You aren't going to get a cut and dry answer from most pros because most pros aren't going to post things in public forums. Pluggable transports have nothing to do with it. I've actually helped defenders against Tor based attackers. I've de-anon'd them. It was easy as fucking shit because most attackers are dumb and the Tor browser isn't 0day proof or as network isolated as people…

> having a wipeable iPad will stop browser fingerprinting Huh??

The theory is that making your computer less finger printable and hence less unique is near impossible compared to a iPad you wipe on every use (you still have to use the iPad for other things). https://panopticlick.eff.org/ is pretty scary I'm almost always unique unless I do a trick like that.

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#76

Post by diggan »

chii wrote: post #74
rotrux wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh ok good question I didn't really flesh that out. >"Why do you think tor is going to 'inevitably win'?" Not just tor, but p2p in general. Basically the theory is that, as a species, we're used to few-source/many-sink communications networks. We've been using them from the printing-press all the way up to DVDs. The internet & its "many-source" capabilities represents a threat to the prior (and existing) information…

i understand your sentiments, but i think the p2p model is never going to become so mainstream that they take over the equivalent centralised model. The reason being that "normal" people prefer ease and convenience. The internet is practically already interactive television! very few people create and host, compared to the number of consumers.

> The reason being that "normal" people prefer ease and convenience

You're assuming we can't build a p2p network that is faster and better than the centralized ones we have today. People will eventually choose p2p because it brings them more ease and convenience.

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#77

Post by cm2187 »

Stupid question: there are so many public places that provide free wifi without authentication. If you go into one of these places and it is populated enough, and you have MAC randomization on, no smartphone on you, isn’t it good enough? Surely there are CCTV. But if you connect from a changing room or toilets of a busy mall, I don’t see how anyone could trace the connection.

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#78

Post by letsgetphysITal »

cm2187 wrote: post #77

Stupid question: there are so many public places that provide free wifi without authentication. If you go into one of these places and it is populated enough, and you have MAC randomization on, no smartphone on you, isn’t it good enough? Surely there are CCTV. But if you connect from a changing room or toilets of a busy mall, I don’t see how anyone could trace the connection.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

See how unique you are. Spoiler; You are unique unless you are paranoid. Really, really paranoid.

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#79

Post by otempomores »

letsgetphysITal wrote: post #78
cm2187 wrote: post #77

Stupid question: there are so many public places that provide free wifi without authentication. If you go into one of these places and it is populated enough, and you have MAC randomization on, no smartphone on you, isn’t it good enough? Surely there are CCTV. But if you connect from a changing room or toilets of a busy mall, I don’t see how anyone could trace the connection.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/ See how unique you are. Spoiler; You are unique unless you are paranoid. Really, really paranoid.

Its not paranoia if your mind makes them up to compensate for crushing self isolation due to not paranoia...

Re: Italian Anti-Corruption Authority Adopts Onion Services

#80

Post by cm2187 »

letsgetphysITal wrote: post #78
cm2187 wrote: post #77

Stupid question: there are so many public places that provide free wifi without authentication. If you go into one of these places and it is populated enough, and you have MAC randomization on, no smartphone on you, isn’t it good enough? Surely there are CCTV. But if you connect from a changing room or toilets of a busy mall, I don’t see how anyone could trace the connection.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/ See how unique you are. Spoiler; You are unique unless you are paranoid. Really, really paranoid.

Unique doesn't mean identified (and if you disable javascript browser fingerprinting doesn't really works). In any case Tor doesn't help with that either.
Post reply on HN