Live data from Hacker News

The FBI Identified a Tor User

vice.com

51–60 of 367 posts

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#51

I wouldn't get so excited about this. There have been tons of javascript exploits to leak IP addresses in the past, it's more likely that than the FBI running thousands of servers.

Doesn't the tor browser disable javascript entirely?

It does not. Noscript is set by default to allow scripts.

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#52
post #44

I wouldn't get so excited about this. There have been tons of javascript exploits to leak IP addresses in the past, it's more likely that than the FBI running thousands of servers.

Or even something way simpler, like the FBI secretly compromising the user's PC with malware prior to the arrest. Without more detail it's impossible to know whether this is even news.

Out of curiosity, will we get more detail? Presumably the FBI would need to reveal to somebody how they obtained this information in order for it to be admissible as evidence ("he did this, trust us" probably won't fly in court), but is there a legal means by which they could do that without revealing their exact methods to the general public? (I don't actually know what the law says on this subject.)

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#53

I keep saying this, but the inescapable fact about Tor is that its traffic patterns make you stand out prominently. Just the fact you’re using it automatically makes you interesting and worthy of a closer look. All well and good if you’re just maintaining a cookie recipe site on the dark web, but it’s rarely ever that, is it?

none of your business what dark web cookie recipe websites I maintain

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#54

Isn't all propaganda unofficial? It's not like there's a stamp on it ("This Propaganda was Approved by the Secretary of Media for the Islamic State"). Don't be fooled by that counterfit propaganda! Only buy the real deal!

Not at all. States can produce their own (and thus official) propaganda, but affiliates or supporters can do so on their own as well (unofficial).

When the ambassador of some country purchases advertising space in a national newspaper in the country they are stationed in and uses that to publish a letter or pamphlet, then that is likely officially sanctioned propaganda (the Chinese ambassador did this in the Netherlands to present the official Chinese view on certain matters related to China debated in Dutch media some years ago). That particular instance literally came with the stamp of approval (or rather the ambassador's signature).

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#56

I keep saying this, but the inescapable fact about Tor is that its traffic patterns make you stand out prominently. Just the fact you’re using it automatically makes you interesting and worthy of a closer look. All well and good if you’re just maintaining a cookie recipe site on the dark web, but it’s rarely ever that, is it?

Is your intention in repeating that to keep Tor usage below the critical threshold where that remains true?

I interpret op to be suggesting Tor isn’t as anonymous of one who conducts illicit activity would assume. That seems to be the trend time and time again.

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#57

I keep saying this, but the inescapable fact about Tor is that its traffic patterns make you stand out prominently. Just the fact you’re using it automatically makes you interesting and worthy of a closer look. All well and good if you’re just maintaining a cookie recipe site on the dark web, but it’s rarely ever that, is it?

[flagged]

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not be surprised given that Tor was specifically created to anonymize the traffic of US spies. It was released to the public to give plausible deniability to the spies. A new protocol that ONLY spies used would be obvious to track down, no matter how much encryption it had. But if everyone is using it for different purposes then you have to actually have to break the encryption to know if someone's using Tor…

After reading Edward Snowden's autobiography (Permanent Record, great read), I feel like Tor, end-to-end encryption and similar solutions/products are basically a dagger through the heart of intelligence services. As such, I find it hard to believe that they knowingly gave the public such tools. And if they did, it sure as hell backfired on them.

BBC which is run by BritishIntel Services, one of the very first things that they did when the war in Ukraine exploded was to set up many new TOR nodes

But yeah, TOR is certainly a double edged sword, but I am led to believe that they assess that it's offensive capabilities to pierce against Anglo-Oligarchy enemies offsets the drawbacks it produces on how they themselves deal with homefront dissidents

My take is that, well, yeah, that's one of the benefits of having overwhelming power and capabilities, that they can afford to take one or two punches in the nose, if that means that they will beat the ever living shit out of their actual enemies

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#60

I keep saying this, but the inescapable fact about Tor is that its traffic patterns make you stand out prominently. Just the fact you’re using it automatically makes you interesting and worthy of a closer look. All well and good if you’re just maintaining a cookie recipe site on the dark web, but it’s rarely ever that, is it?

Is your intention in repeating that to keep Tor usage below the critical threshold where that remains true?

Tor has a lot of pretty gnarly trade offs that will naturally keep usage low outside of people who really need it. The latency is nontrivial, exit nodes are congested and lots of sites don’t want to deal with Tor because so much abuse flows through it. Tor definitely has a similar problem to like voat or gab: a community with a strict no-witch-burning philosophy ends up filled with witches.
Post reply on HN