Still?
Is Tor still safe to use?
181–190 of 602 posts
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because you're an enemy of the Iranian, Saudi, North Korean, etc. gov't. Because your ex-spouse wants to murder you. Because you just escaped Scientology, or another cult. Because you're a criminal. The NSA doesn't handle that. Because you're a journalist talking to sources in the industry you're investigating.
Those second and third points are pretty laughably paranoid-fantasy reasons to use Tor—even if one found oneself in either situation.
Respectfully, a large number of people rightfully fear for their lives, safety, and freedom due to being stalked or abused by a current or former partner. I have personally known several.
Using victims' devices and communications in order to locate, and then harass, trap, or attack them, is commonplace for stalkers.
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the same reason we have SSL on this site, despite the fact that it has no sex, no storefront, nor any access to my banking or private information. If everything is SSL secured, then we don't have to explain why any specific thing is SSL secured. The same reason can be applied to use of TOR.
The point ranking on comments, which is private, would be of interest to parties training an LLM and want the data annotated, but your point stands.
I’m not sure how much more useful that is than just using HN’s automatic ranking for comments, at least outside of parent comments on posts; As far as I can tell, child comments are always ORDER BY score DESC.
Even for top level comments, HN’s algorithm for ranking is pretty useful for assigning “worth”
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tor was literally developed by the Naval Research Lab. Not a part of the IC. I know because I work there. AMA (edit: about tor. Because people say a lot about it without actually knowing much. But now I should put my phone down so… too late!) To protect our most sensitive communications and vulnerable communities , Tor usage should be normalized so it is common and not notable.
I still think the IC, and especially the state department, benefits from having Tor fulfill its actual design goals most of the time. There are operations and state department goals that can benefit from Tor working properly. It's the same with encryption in general -- the IC benefits from there being strong and bug-free crypto implementations. That they have in the past backdoored some of them doesn't change that th…
The job these days is boring but secure. Tor stuff was more exciting, then I switched teams because grass-is-greener.
At least for the teams I have been on and my view of leadership, there is very little political talk.
But patriotism isn’t politics… lol. The higher you get the more “hoo rah America!” is a part of the motivational speech or report or whatever. Down here in the streets it’s just another job. Pride in the country isn’t much of a driver. At least for me.
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
You only need to control the entry and exit node - since you know the next and previous hop for all traffic you touch, and default chains are 3 long. With circuits changing every 10 mins, within a few days you would have deanonymized at least some percentage of traffic for nearly every user. I'd call tor broken against any adversary with a little technical skill and willingness to spend $5000. I'm 80% sure Tor is des…
I imagine most exit nodes are likely controlled by the US government and/or its close allies. Who else wants to have their IP address banned from most of the internet and potentially get visits from their country's equivalent of the FBI? If most Tor users ran exit nodes and most people used Tor, it would effectively make internet traffic anonymous. But without those network effects, it is vulnerable by design to dean…
I run an exit node, and I know several people who do, I dont suspect any of them to be anything but people who care about privacy, surveillance, and helping people get access to the free internet from restrictive locations. I admit, I bristled at your comment, because I do not like myself, the EFF, and many of my close friends being imagined as part of the US Government.
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#186Don't quite get it - why doesn't CCC share information with the Tor Project maintainers?
Maybe they want to reveal it on the CCC in december?
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those second and third points are pretty laughably paranoid-fantasy reasons to use Tor—even if one found oneself in either situation.
Respectfully, a large number of people rightfully fear for their lives, safety, and freedom due to being stalked or abused by a current or former partner. I have personally known several. Using victims' devices and communications in order to locate, and then harass, trap, or attack them, is commonplace for stalkers.
How many of these people are justified (by evidence, not merely paranoia) in thinking that Tor would circumvent whatever communications interception may or may not have been put in place?
And of those people, how many people have ever even heard of Tor, let alone know how to use it?
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#188From what little I've heard, de-anonymization of Tor users is largely done by targeting their devices with zero-day exploits. That is still a valid method, I wouldn't trust Tor personally, but I'm with the Tor project that there is no credible evidence of a large scale de-anonymization attack.
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine most exit nodes are likely controlled by the US government and/or its close allies. Who else wants to have their IP address banned from most of the internet and potentially get visits from their country's equivalent of the FBI? If most Tor users ran exit nodes and most people used Tor, it would effectively make internet traffic anonymous. But without those network effects, it is vulnerable by design to dean…
I run an exit node, and I know several people who do, I dont suspect any of them to be anything but people who care about privacy, surveillance, and helping people get access to the free internet from restrictive locations. I admit, I bristled at your comment, because I do not like myself, the EFF, and many of my close friends being imagined as part of the US Government.
I ran an exit node for a while, and found myself auto-banned from so many services that I stopped running the node and threw away my IP range (which now would be worth $$$ - oh well!)
Re: Is Tor still safe to use?
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The answer is less than 0.14%. Is this per circuit? So if someone switches circuits every X hours, the chance of being caught after a year is actually quite high? And even catching 0.14% of pedophiles would probably be worth it to the FBI or whatever, nevermind Iran catching dissidents or whatever. My point is that is seems very cheap to do this (I as a random staff engineer could do it myself) and catch some people…
You're misusing probability and ignoring critical information. There's 1000 red marbles added to a jar with 8000 blue marbles (9000 total). Take three marbles from the jar randomly, one at a time. The odds of getting three red marbles is ~0.14%. That's all. Tor nodes are not randomly picked marbles. The Tor network is not a jar.
they’re using probability correctly. if you have a critique state it clearly