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Is Tor still safe to use?

blog.torproject.org

541–550 of 602 posts

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#541
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now to add additional problems. 1000 tor nodes on a single platform would be very noticeable and geographically limited. Platforms also have different weight attached to them in the consensus, which adds further time requirements before a node is promoted. The developers do not want a single platform provider to be able to observe a large portion of all the traffic, so there are counter measures. The attacker could t…

Considering multiple world governments have already shown in leaked documents that this is exactly what they do, I personally wouldn't trust my secrets with tor.

But and God forbid you read TFA, those leaked techniques were all done before the latest mitigations that the Tor Project is writing the blog about.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#542
post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember reading on here years ago that people were concerned that the government was reading their "private" emails. I've always just considered email to be sent in plain text. Just 10 years ago only 30% of emails from Gmail were encrypted. Even though now its 99% of outgoing email is encrypted, but all those emails sent before are probably sitting in a database somewhere. And it still reverts to unencrypted if the recipient doesn't support TLS.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand "he was using the dark-web Tor browser beloved of criminals and widely used amongst drug sellers" is probably pretty convincing to jurors.

What jury? Only 2% of criminal cases go to trial. The goal is to give them nothing they can use to bring you up on (false) charges. Using Tor isn't a chargeable offense in free countries.

I think the point was that you aren't being "charged" with using Tor, you are being charged with buying drugs online. You have Tor installed and unfortunately a very small percentage of people have Tor installed. That might be enough to convince a jury, or be enough pressure for you to plead down to a lower crime to reduce that risk.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#544
post #222

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…

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Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure. And while we're at it pigs should fly. Functional security means understanding your risks, and using privacy tools is a risk - in the sense that it does single you out in the current environment. Your actual communications can be secure, but that doesn't stop a bad actor/government from picking you up and beating you with a wrench until you talk - if they get suspicious enough. Just saying "everyone sho…

> I mean, sure. And while we're at it pigs should fly. Pigs have significantly higher density than birds and lack wings. Getting them to fly under their own power would be quite a challenge. By contrast, installing Tor Browser is actually pretty easy. > Your actual communications can be secure, but that doesn't stop a bad actor/government from picking you up and beating you with a wrench until you talk - if they get…

> Visit HN using Tor Browser. No one comes in the night to put a bag over your head.

HN used to often not create new user accounts when connecting from Tor.

Twitter doesn't let a new user account to pass the prove you're human AI challenge. It says it passes but then shows an error message that there was a technical issue.

By using Tor I'm cut off from Twitter. Twitter is my social media of choice. By using Tor I'm cut off from social media.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's half the point. If someone has an intention to undergo some illegal activities with full intention not to be caught, only 100% "safe" solution works for them. Normally we talk about risk tolerance, but this particular use case is a bit special.

There are no "100% safe" solutions. There will always be weaknesses and vulnerabilities in any system. The sort of criminal who requires or expects 100% safety is quickly going to be caught due to being a dullard. Knowing you're never truly "safe" is what good criminals are keenly aware of at all times: you can plan and prepare for certain eventualities. Once you think you're "safe", it's the beginning of the end.

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Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these people always made other mistakes that led authorities to them. Says who? The intelligent community entity that busted them? If they're using a tool to discover X or Y they're not to let anyone know that. For example, I live in the NYC area. A couple of times per year there's a drug bust on the New Jersey Turnpike of a car headed to NYC. The story is always a "random" police stop ends up in a drug bust. Rando…

You're ironically vastly overestimating the cops. It's not that they have good intel, it's that it's copaganda. They'll just make something up for publicity if they don't get something useful.

Evidently, you don't know what the NJ Turnpike is like in terms of volume of traffic.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont see how TOR is better than just spinning up a server on the public cloud for each asset. Since each asset would have a different IP they couldnt use one assets knowledge to catch the others. Non-NATO countries tend to monitor internet traffic and so would know if you access TOR.

Servers in the public cloud are a lot easier to do traffic analysis on.

Each server is only used by a single operative though, how do you even find which IP to analyze? The story with Tor and espionage is that if an asset connected to cia website the gov which monitors internet access would know they went to the site. Even if its not a public site they just need to have one operative defect and tell them the site and they can catch all the other operatives who use it. But if everyone connects to a different IP I dont see how traffic analysis helps you discover you is connecting with the cia.

Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#549

I remember Adrian Crenshaw doing a speech at Def Con 22 about how people got busted using Tor. Even then he point out in most of the cases, it was bad OpsSec by the person, and had nothing to do with Tor. How applicable do people think this information is now 9-10 years later? DEF CON 22 - Adrian Crenshaw- Dropping Docs on Darknets: How People Got Caught https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ2OZKitRwc

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Re: Is Tor still safe to use?

#550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is well understood public knowledge. https://community.torproject.org/onion-services/overview/

Hook, line, and sinker. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266729522... https://www.usenix.org/system/files/raid2019-iacovazzi.pdf https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/flow-correlation-a...

This: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266729522...

Uses a dataset created from aggregation of logs from all nodes in a simulated Tor environment to train a model that can identify the onion server's IP based on fingerprints created from that model.

>We ran the modified Tor software in the Shadow simulation environment to obtain a large amount of circuits for analysis. Shadow is a discrete-event network simulator developed specifically for Tor network simulation experiments and can run Tor software directly. Therefore, Shadow follows all logic related to Tor circuits. In the simulation environment provided by Shadow, we can build servers, clients, directory authorities, onion services and relays, and can control all nodes. Therefore, we can get circuit data in Shadow without the real Tor network.

This is: a) Not a real world example b) Not an example of interception of unencrypted traffic between a client and an onion site c) Not de-anonymization of a client

This: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/raid2019-iacovazzi.pdf

Is super interesting, it's a real world example of using collusion of an entry node that inserts "watermarked" data to identify an onion service.

It does not: a) Intercept or break encryption between client and onion service b) De-anonymize a client

This: https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/flow-correlation-a...

Is the same data watermarking scheme to use entry collusion to identify onion services.

None of your examples show that a connection to an onion server is insecure insofar as data integrity or client anonymity is concerned.

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