The FBI Identified a Tor User

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #231

r3trohack3r wrote: post #95

I 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…

According to various sources, such as Snowden's "Permanent Record", the tor network was designed to allow spies in remote locations to communicate securely with a known endpoint (such as CIA headquarters) without anyone being able to easily trace their exact location. The content of the communication itself would not be readable due to strong encryption, but the metadata (source and destination headers) could reveal…

Post by HackerNCoder » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

Jerrrry wrote: post #97

michaelt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on what little I know of SSL, this suggests the server was compromised too? Not necessarily. If a passive snooper knows I used Tor Browser to make an SSL request to en.wikipedia.org and received 987,654 bytes then immediately made a SSL request to upload.wikimedia.org and received 1,234,567 bytes that might be enough information to work out I visited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency .

That size-inference side channel leak has been patched for years, random padding is added between hops to mitigate this. It is large files / DDoS going over the network that is still hard to obfuscate. Which is why TOR is intentionally slow, especially when requesting larger files. If it wasn't, you could watch the lump of data traverse across the pipe. source: n/a

Post by stuckkeys » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 7:05 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #92

Only whitelist Tor nodes that you have personally vetted. Always double vpn.

Post by troad » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 7:06 PM UTC

pfisherman wrote: post #215

r3trohack3r wrote: post #95

I 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. I would say that if you are doing something the US government has a significant interest in prosecuting, you might want to reevaluate your life choices and think about whether it is something y…

Post by skippyboxedhero » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

bmn__ wrote: post #242

dmux wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite HN comments of all time [0] suggested that MMO's provide plentiful means of covertly communicating: >MMO's are packed with possible communication channels in addition to chat. Ever wonder if that annoying gnome in the auction hall is jumping in morse code? Could signals be sent with bids? Could a character's inventory contents be arranged to leave a message to someone else who shares the login info…

> MMO's provide plentiful means of covertly communicating This is a plot device in http://enwp.org/Little_Brother_%28Doctorow_novel%29 >.