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BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

bbc.co.uk

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Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#241
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally, it's best not to run Tor relays from home as services will start to blacklist your IP as a proxy. Conversely, if you're engaging in illegal online behavior from your home IP, intermittently running a TOR exit node could be a useful mechanism for creating plausible deniability.

IANAL, and I wouldn't try explaining that to a prosecutor or a federal judge...

what's stopping someone running an exit node through a "no logs" VPN? (serious question)

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#242
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. None of us know how many points your comment has, or if you have an email address on file, or how many times you visited HN today, or what IP you're using, etc. But all of those things are in the HN database(s) I'm sure!

I'm normally the tinfoil-hat guy in any given discussion. I'll go out on a limb and predict that my HN internet points score is not a signal of interest to NSA selection criteria.

A small sampling of as few as 10 Facebook "likes" gives analysts a better picture of you than your friends. As few as 300, a better image than your life partner, should you have one.

(And if you don't, APTs, will assign one to you....)

https://www.wired.com/2015/01/facebook-personality-test/

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#243
post #235

Potentially I am misunderstanding how Tor's onion routing works, but according to https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html there are about 6000 tor relays right now. Surely if some well funded organisation (Eve) were to install a similar number of relays itself, then it is reasonably likely that for a given user a packet would eventually travel across relays solely owned by Eve, and at that point Eve could map…

Relays that are detected or flagged as malicious get quickly removed from the network, https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/badRelays More reading: https://blog.torproject.org/how-report-bad-relays

That page talks about malicious relays in the sense that they spoil traffic either through incompetence or malfeasance.

What I am thinking about is the hypothetical case that 3000 of the 6000 active relays today had been started and operated by Eve over the last few years according to Tor guidelines and without any external sign that the nodes were centrally controlled.

If that were true it would be hard for a user to detect, and it seems to me that Eve would be able to reasonably easily break the privacy protection of Tor.

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both if possible. A Pi 3 can saturate its ethernet adapter (~50Mbps) running a Tor relay. It's reasonably straightforward to setup. You shouldn't run exit nodes from a home connection due to possible abuse. If a person uses it to do something illegal you may end up with law enforcement busting down your door. Relays are safe though.

At least in the US law enforcement can't charge you with anything. More people need to run exit relays, especially from home, so it becomes an accepted use.

> At least in the US law enforcement can't charge you with anything

Citation please? Last I checked people get charged with things they didn't do, or weren't responsible for, in just about every system of justice - that's why we have courts.

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#245
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally, it's best not to run Tor relays from home as services will start to blacklist your IP as a proxy. Conversely, if you're engaging in illegal online behavior from your home IP, intermittently running a TOR exit node could be a useful mechanism for creating plausible deniability.

IANAL, and I wouldn't try explaining that to a prosecutor or a federal judge...

"TOR was developed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory and funded by DARPA to help U.S. intelligence and foreign freedom fighters communicate under oppressive regimes. I run this exit node to support their patriotic work to protect freedom abroad. I have no control of the traffic that emerges, and I don't collect logs in order to protect covert intelligence operations."

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question is the kind of liability you take on when running a tor node on a machine that "belongs" to you (for some definition of belong). Another is to find a place that will agree to power your machine and allow it to hook in to the ethernet if it runs a tor node. At any rate, running a tor node isn't as simple as running apt-get.

Running an entry or exit node is kinda risky since your IP will be associated with a lot of illegal content. Running an intermediary node is much safer. All kinds of nodes are important for the network. The amount of configuration you need to run a node isn't terribly difficult. There is plenty of documentation online and really it's just changing a few lines in the config file. The Tor daemon is pretty good about po…

Just exit nodes are dangerous. FYI All relays are entry nodes.

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US law enforcement can't charge you with anything. More people need to run exit relays, especially from home, so it becomes an accepted use.

> At least in the US law enforcement can't charge you with anything Citation please? Last I checked people get charged with things they didn't do, or weren't responsible for, in just about every system of justice - that's why we have courts.

Ah, fair point, I meant convicted. However ISPs threatening to cut off your service for running a Tor relay is a good indication you won't even be charged, as the ISP (and the local authorities) should know you have safe harbor.

This leads to the other issue of your service being cut...

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question is the kind of liability you take on when running a tor node on a machine that "belongs" to you (for some definition of belong). Another is to find a place that will agree to power your machine and allow it to hook in to the ethernet if it runs a tor node. At any rate, running a tor node isn't as simple as running apt-get.

Is it possible to operate a TOR node through a corporate entity? The corporation assumes liability as does insurance.

You aren’t liable as a tor exit operator. That doesn’t mean you won’t get involved in nonsense or won’t be forced to get a lawyer to prove that but in the end you aren’t liable.

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't. It creates an interesting moral problem. If people who view such material are in the wrong because they support the harm it causes, then are not people who support Tor in general also guilty of the same? Yes, they have more noble reasons for doing so, but do the ends justify the means, especially when dealing with such a topic?

> If people who view such material are in the wrong because they support the harm it causes, then are not people who support Tor in general also guilty of the same? How is this any different than FedEx or USPS? They don't read your mail to see what it is. To a near certainty at least some of what they deliver contains child pornography. And what about roads? I bet child pornographers sometimes use roads for child por…

Moral issue aside, thanks to the unwisely expanded reach of the law via FOSTA (at least in the United States), a person who merely hosts such data might be liable:

https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/sex/a19573460/craigslist-s...

Because of the hypothetical impedance of some unknown (but likely very small) amount of trafficking, millions of people found it more difficult to find partners for their entirely consensual acts.

Re: BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't. It creates an interesting moral problem. If people who view such material are in the wrong because they support the harm it causes, then are not people who support Tor in general also guilty of the same? Yes, they have more noble reasons for doing so, but do the ends justify the means, especially when dealing with such a topic?

> If people who view such material are in the wrong because they support the harm it causes, then are not people who support Tor in general also guilty of the same? How is this any different than FedEx or USPS? They don't read your mail to see what it is. To a near certainty at least some of what they deliver contains child pornography. And what about roads? I bet child pornographers sometimes use roads for child por…

>And what about roads? I bet child pornographers sometimes use roads for child pornography related purposes. Does that mean we're all complicit as taxpayers?

Congratulations you've spawned another decade's worth of sov-cit arguments

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