Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you did illegal things illegally. Yep. I said I don't understand people who do illegal things over their own connection, i.e., stupidly. And who owned the public AP? McDonald's.
McDonald's has video cameras pointing at every inch of their property 24/7. All they need is a timestamp from the AP and they'll go find your license plate in the parking lot on the surveillance tapes.
The FBI Identified a Tor User
141–150 of 367 posts
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't they need to know who he is before they could target him and acquire his IP? Unless your suggesting parallel construction?
I read the doc and it seems like the case is built on information gathered by the government but they won't say how. They don't want to say how because it's supposed to be a national security issue, which is understandable but not how our legal system works (or should work). They are saying that they got his IP via tor and that that IP address went to ISIS websites, but again they won't say how they have this informa…
Yeah, it's been a problem for a while now. I do think you're referring to Parallel Construction, a.k.a. evidence laundering.
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there proof of anything like this or is it just a conspiracy theory you’re peddling?
Parallel construction is not a theory in any way in the US. It is a "decades old, a bedrock concept" according to the DEA. Outside the US, I have no idea.
Genealogists use parallel construction to build out their families. Data from a large variety of sources gets used to indicate and corroborate individuals.
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#144Note: I connect to Tor from my torified Glinet router which is doing Tor-over-Tor which is considered 'dangerous'[1] but I do it anyway.
This might be overkill for most, and I'm not doing anything illegal (I mostly browse clearnet sites instead of hidden services anyways).
[1] https://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/427/is-running-tor-o...
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#145I have second hand knowledge of lawsuits that have been dropped by the FBI during discovery because it would require them revealing zero days they have on Tor. Recently this has started getting increasing levels of press exposure[1] including in CSAM cases. The FBI has also continued to run CSAM websites after takeover to collect intel, and likely run honeypots for other content. If your adversary is a state actor, p…
> If you're sitting in front of a computer that you're using for something the U.S. government has significant interest in prosecuting, that device should be considered compromised and adversarial - you should act accordingly. Yep: stop breaking the law. The vast majority the US government has significant interest in prosecuting, the general public is OK with.
Did you really just shoot down your own argument by acknowledging that there are some things the government has a significant interest in prosecuting, but which the general public doesn’t find objectionable?
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#146I have second hand knowledge of lawsuits that have been dropped by the FBI during discovery because it would require them revealing zero days they have on Tor. Recently this has started getting increasing levels of press exposure[1] including in CSAM cases. The FBI has also continued to run CSAM websites after takeover to collect intel, and likely run honeypots for other content. If your adversary is a state actor, p…
Is there really any way to hide from a motivated state actor? Asking about it on HN is definitely not one. Relevant xkcd: 538 [1] [1] https://xkcd.com/538/
the police-justice system is usually broke for commoners. So yeah, if you're not doing a serious offense, they will never catch you. Where I live, you can buy weed. Even if the government says they're motivated to stop it, they don't have the resources to plant police everywhere. If your home was 'visited' by burglars, they would just take fingerprints. They wear gloves, and that's enough to avoid the state actor.
if you're doing a real serious crime, you can kind-ish avoid attention, if you know retention laws and stuff. if the (mostly digital) traces you generated are too old, they would have disappeared or would not be usable in court. if you appeared on mall CCTV months before you did the crime, have been browsing sites over a year before, ... these data should technically have been deleted.- Just don't create new data in the meantime.
In a similar fashion, some white collar criminals host data in their lawyers office. it is so hard to have a warrant for a lawyers office that you can be safe. A law teacher at our engineering college said it was convenient to hang out with a lawyer - just drop your phone in their purse if cops show up.
then, you can avoid some digital communications. Putin and friends are well known for being mostly offline, unlike some ministers at western governments, for example. Send letters, and you will have that perfect forward secrecy.
there has also been some stories about plausible deniability ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability ), especially among rogue corporations and corrupt politicians. ie when you create data, you can do it in a way where it says what it says, but it's not meaningful in court.
don't drag attention on you. cops shows teach you how so many criminals are found out after a traffic stop, when they were speeding or ran a red light. The government can't check everyone, so they check those who stand out.
Lastly, I remember watching a youtuber who got out of prison, and who said that three people could only keep a secret if 2 are dead. it's a bit pessimistic and dark, but maybe don't just involve everyone in your crimes.
I would like to know if series like Breaking Bad are (or were) realistic. I know some criminals learned a lot from movies.
Edit : or just befriend politicians, you would be above any law in most places. Someone in France once stole 2.5 billions $ in one shot from the government. It what became known as the uramin scandal, and nobody was caught. So everything is possible.
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you're sitting in front of a computer that you're using for something the U.S. government has significant interest in prosecuting, that device should be considered compromised and adversarial - you should act accordingly. Yep: stop breaking the law. The vast majority the US government has significant interest in prosecuting, the general public is OK with.
Lol if you don't want to be fucked with by the government, just don't break the law! Unfortunately that doesn't work. Sometimes legal activities are best kept under wraps. I have a signed and executed federal search warrant in my drawer. I was tossed in a cell. I was dragged to a hospital. I was sent the bill for the "search" and am currently being hounded by debt collectors. Nothing was found and I did nothing wrong…
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#148I will never understand people who do illegal things over their own IP. Is it really that hard to find an open access point? Way back in the day when I torrented all my content I used a long-range wifi antenna connected to a public AP and a dedicated PC with a scrubbed drive that never connected to my home network.
>According to the complaint against him, Al-Azhari allegedly visited a dark web site that hosts “unofficial propaganda and photographs related to ISIS” multiple times on May 14, 2019. I don't understand... how can this be illegal?
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#149I have second hand knowledge of lawsuits that have been dropped by the FBI during discovery because it would require them revealing zero days they have on Tor. Recently this has started getting increasing levels of press exposure[1] including in CSAM cases. The FBI has also continued to run CSAM websites after takeover to collect intel, and likely run honeypots for other content. If your adversary is a state actor, p…
Is there really any way to hide from a motivated state actor? Asking about it on HN is definitely not one. Relevant xkcd: 538 [1] [1] https://xkcd.com/538/
I believe one of the theories about the proliferation of the current organization of political entities is that the only organization that can reliably compete with one nation-state is another nation-state.
Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User
#150I have second hand knowledge of lawsuits that have been dropped by the FBI during discovery because it would require them revealing zero days they have on Tor. Recently this has started getting increasing levels of press exposure[1] including in CSAM cases. The FBI has also continued to run CSAM websites after takeover to collect intel, and likely run honeypots for other content. If your adversary is a state actor, p…
Schneier himself predicted this in Applied Cryptography in the mid-90's.