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Is Tor still safe to use?

blog.torproject.org

361–370 of 602 posts

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#361
post #49

Don'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?

It's unlikely that they want so save the technical details for the conference. It would put people at risk if the tor project would not be able to fix the issue in the meantime.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#362

Here is what I don't understand: Let's say I as a private individual fund 1000 tor nodes (guard and exit nodes included) and have them all log everything. This could cost less than $5000 for a month, with some time needed to get guard node status. I want to find a certain kind of person so I look for people that access a specific hidden service or clearnet url. Surely eventually I'm going to get a hit where all three…

>Surely eventually I'm going to get a hit where all three nodes in the circuit are my nodes that are logging everything? The word "eventually" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Let's say you actually manage to add 1000 servers to the tor network somehow without getting detected. The network currently sits at just under 8000 nodes. For simplicity, lets also ignore that there are different types of nodes and geogra…

[deleted]

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#363
post #3

For context, here's the NDR report: https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/panorama/aktuell/Inve... And more info here: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024-Septe... Edit: The NDR alleges a timing attack (no further explanation) that allows "to identify so-called ‘entry servers’" Very little information is actually available on the nature of the attack. The NDR claims this method has already lead to…

Also relevant - wikipedia for Boystown, the pedo site in question

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boystown_(website)

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone would do the thing-to-be-detected (e.g. accessing CSAM) every day, then that 0.14% probability of detection turns out to be 40% for a single year (0.9986^365) or 64% over two years, so even that would deanonymize the majority of such people over time.

That is why in tor it picks a specific guard node and sticks with it. To prevent this kind of attack where you change nodes until you hit a bad one.

The attack Germany is thought to have actually used was to flood the network with middle nodes and wait until the victim connects to their middle node. Then, it knows the guard node's IP. Then, it went to an ISP and got logs for everyone who connected to that IP.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!)

It's recommended to put an exit node on its own dedicated IP address.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75% [0] of all Tor nodes are hosted within 14 Eyes [1] countries, so it would actually be quite trivial for the NSA to de-anonymize a Tor user. It baffles me that Tor Browser doesn't provide an easy way to blacklist relays in those countries. [0] Here, you can do the math yourself: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#aggregate/all [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Fourteen_Eyes > Edit: For all the cynics…

TOR as it exists now is a honeypot simple as. Same as that documentary called "Benedict Cumberbniamnatch's Great Work" where they cracked the radio signals of the Frenchmen but they had to let the submarine sink so that they knew that the other guy doesn't know that they knew. NSA uses ROT which is TOR-inspired but takes the techniques and incognito aspects 7 or 8 steps ahead.

You do know Hitler was the German Reichskanzler, not French?

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#369

Here is what I don't understand: Let's say I as a private individual fund 1000 tor nodes (guard and exit nodes included) and have them all log everything. This could cost less than $5000 for a month, with some time needed to get guard node status. I want to find a certain kind of person so I look for people that access a specific hidden service or clearnet url. Surely eventually I'm going to get a hit where all three…

>Surely eventually I'm going to get a hit where all three nodes in the circuit are my nodes that are logging everything? The word "eventually" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Let's say you actually manage to add 1000 servers to the tor network somehow without getting detected. The network currently sits at just under 8000 nodes. For simplicity, lets also ignore that there are different types of nodes and geogra…

I think the FBI/CIA/NSA could afford 8000 nodes if they wanted to.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#370
Here's imaginary attack with adversary. Just push as much traffic as possible from many hosts to the given hidden service. Now observe traffic metadata from high level network operators. With enough filtering it should be possible to detect where traffic spike is terminated.
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