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Is Tor still safe to use?

blog.torproject.org

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Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#531

Post by berkes »

perlgeek wrote: post #481
berkes wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, most of these same sectors in the same governments have strong need to be protected from spying themselves. So in many cases it's really a case of "we want a monopoly on secrecy". Which should be a massive red flag for everyone, from left to right, from liberal to conservative, from anarchist to communist and so on. But somehow isn't picked up by any of these. I presume because they all believe somehow th…

I don't see government monopolies as immediate red flags. In most nations it's widely accept that the state has a monopoly on violence (usually through the police force), and it's not clear to me what a good alternative to that would be. I also want my government to have a monopoly on taxation, I don't want any private company or gang to be able to just collect taxes from me, without any repercussion. As for secrets?…

Good point. And while I too accept a state to have a monopoly on things, especially those you mention, secrets aren't those.

Because we all have them, need them, and because a society cannot function without them - there are many books and papers written about the "nothing to hide fallacy". We all really need some privacy. How much, is a different question, though. So in this discussion: maybe we don't need the level of "TOR by default for everyone", IDK.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#532

Post by godelski »

autoexec wrote: post #486
godelski wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US Navy Tor was made for spies. But you know what's really bad for spies? If accessing a certain IP/protocol/behavior reliably reveal your spy status. For Tor to be effective for hiding spies it has to be used by the public. Even if it's only nefarious actors (say spies + drug dealers + terrorists) it adds noise that the adversary needs to sort through. What I fucking hate about many of these conspiracies is ho…

> It's important to remember that the government and even a single agency (like the NSA) is just as chaotic, disconnected, and full of competing entities as any big tech company has (if not worse). And yet even as early as 2003 they were taking a copy of every single bit that ran over the AT&T backbone ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ). It's amazing how effective these "chaotic, disconnected, and full of co…

Yes, they can be very effective. There's no denying that. The proof is in the pudding as they say, since we have governments and businesses. But that's tangential to the point I was making.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#533

Post by zorrn »

bragr wrote: post #222
alasdair_ wrote: post #35

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…

>This could cost less than $5000 for a month I ran a bunch of nodes for a couple years and that's optimistic by perhaps an order of magnitude. No $5 a month VPS provides enough bandwidth to sustain the monthly traffic of a Tor node, and nodes need to be continuously online and serving traffic for about 2-3 months[1] before they will be promoted to guard relays. Throttling traffic to stay in your bandwidth allocation…

We also recently saw the xz backdoor wich was worked on for many years so I think it could be possible if you really have on target.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#534

Post by kreims »

flufluflufluffy wrote: post #449

As knowledgeable users of the Internet in 2024, we would do well to assume that nothing is 100% “safe” (I.e. there’s no such thing as perfect security/privacy). However, some things, like Tor, can make your use of the Internet safer . If all you’re doing is arguing that Tor shouldn’t be used because it isn’t/was never “safe”, then you might as well not use the Internet at all.

Well, for the sake of clarity I would say Tor is safer only if it’s not a honey trap. That is not knowable as a user, but I think that suspicion is well-deserved.

I think the Middle East gave us a very clear example of how state actors may target channels in unexpected ways.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#535

Post by [deleted] »

PurestGuava wrote: post #530
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only 100% safe method is to not do the illegal activity at all. Nope. Not even that is 100% safe because you can be falsely convicted of a crime you never even committed. Many privacy tools reduce that risk as well, because you're less likely to be convicted by e.g. a lazy prosecutor willing to take things out of context if you provide them with less source material to trawl through.

> Nope. Not even that is 100% safe because you can be falsely convicted of a crime you never even committed. That's so exceptionally unlikely as to be something you can discount as a possibility, providing you don't actually commit crimes.

[deleted]

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#536

Post by takeda »

jandrese wrote: post #500
flufluflufluffy wrote: post #449

As knowledgeable users of the Internet in 2024, we would do well to assume that nothing is 100% “safe” (I.e. there’s no such thing as perfect security/privacy). However, some things, like Tor, can make your use of the Internet safer . If all you’re doing is arguing that Tor shouldn’t be used because it isn’t/was never “safe”, then you might as well not use the Internet at all.

I wish the people back in the 90s understood this when trying to set up encrypted email.

As someone who used Internet in the 90s I don't follow. There was almost nothing encrypted.

SSL/TLS was introduced for POP3/IMAP, but I don't think that was bad.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#537

Post by belorn »

TylerE wrote: post #528
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have the opposite of a point. The logical conclusion of that line of reasoning is that everyone should use privacy tools so no one can be singled out. And that ordinary users with "nothing to hide" should be the first to start using them.

Why should ordinary users do something that provides no meaningful benefit and makes their experience substantially worse?

Anyone who search for medical information online should always use a VPN and a browser that cleans itself before and afterward. Health status is one of the most valuable user data available to data brokers and is heavily collected and sought after.

I also use tor in my work in order to get a third-party perspective on a website, or when inspecting suspicious links.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#538

Post by glenstein »

flufluflufluffy wrote: post #449

As knowledgeable users of the Internet in 2024, we would do well to assume that nothing is 100% “safe” (I.e. there’s no such thing as perfect security/privacy). However, some things, like Tor, can make your use of the Internet safer . If all you’re doing is arguing that Tor shouldn’t be used because it isn’t/was never “safe”, then you might as well not use the Internet at all.

>If all you’re doing is arguing that Tor shouldn’t be used because it isn’t/was never “safe”, then you might as well not use the Internet at all.

Exactly, and this same form of spurious argument came up in an hn post yesterday about cavity prevention, centering on an argument that a new advance in cavity treatment "cannot guarantee" to end cavities forever. [0]

I feel as though I've never been fooled by these arguments, although surely I have different types of weaknesses that are unique to me. But it seems to stand out as a form of argument that somehow has persuasive power among intelligent types whom I would never expect to fall for other forms of obviously fallacious arguments.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41573550

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#539

Post by MagicMoonlight »

alasdair_ wrote: post #35

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…

Yes it’s 100% going to be compromised if you are an enemy of the US government.

The primary purpose of tor is for their own use, which is why they have developed and funded it. So the underlying principle is secure, but they’ll definitely be paying for enough of the nodes to compromise it for you.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#540

Post by halJordan »

flufluflufluffy wrote: post #449

As knowledgeable users of the Internet in 2024, we would do well to assume that nothing is 100% “safe” (I.e. there’s no such thing as perfect security/privacy). However, some things, like Tor, can make your use of the Internet safer . If all you’re doing is arguing that Tor shouldn’t be used because it isn’t/was never “safe”, then you might as well not use the Internet at all.

This misses the point, the user in question was fully deanonymized. This blog post is saying that those successful techniques are no longer usable.

It's entirely appropriate to pursue a defense in depth strategy while questioning any particular layer.

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