Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

marx.wtf

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 86 posts

Re: Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

#41

Post by [deleted] »

noirscape wrote: post #7
jagged-chisel wrote: post #2

Is there something new here? I’m under the impression that we knew this kind of thing was possible with enough resources.

Nothing new, and I'm pretty sure these sorts of attacks have been possible and used ever since it's founding. TOR ultimately works like any old relay system; if you control enough nodes, you can effectively decloak people if they happen to connect to only your nodes. Nodes are assigned for connection based on a trust value so all a Nation state would have to do is host enough nodes (relay+exit) and they'd be able to…

[deleted]

Re: Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

#42

Post by potato3732842 »

ryandv wrote: post #36
jeffhuys wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's all fun, I don't have anything to hide either. But what if I actually WILL in the future, retroactively? I've said a few things here and there, what if certain types of speech end up getting banned and if you don't remove it on time (or lost access), you risk jail-time? Seems far away, but it's literally happening in England. Please watch out with this kind of thinking - it's dangerous to everyone.

> what if certain types of speech end up getting banned and if you don't remove it on time (or lost access), you risk jail-time? So racism, homophobia, and transphobia? Why would you support technologies that promote and support the dissemination of hate speech and misinformation?

>So racism, homophobia, and transphobia? Why would you support technologies that promote and support the dissemination of hate speech and misinformation?

Historical content ought not to be censored at the behest of the morals of the present. There is great value in being able to access the content of the past in it's primary source form. If that makes me some sort of "ist" so be it.

Re: Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

#43

Post by c0wb0yc0d3r »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #39
j-bos wrote: post #5

One advantage of imperfect privacy solutions like Tor is they force authorities to invest if they want to snoop. In the before times if soneone wanted to read your mail they'd need to at least convince a judge and then spend manpower interecepting the envelopes, today they can just ping google for a bcc.

Is that true? IIRC they still need to do the legal paperwork to get an email from google et al (FISA request?).

Yes paper work is required. I think OP is pointing out that that it doesn’t require the same amount of work it used to. Especially from law enforcement.

Re: Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

#45

Post by immibis »

orbisvicis wrote: post #17
rustcleaner wrote: post #6

The dark network of the future will be an onion-routed Hyphanet/Freenet, with monthly "bandwidth quotas" that make links communicate uniformly at X GB/hr regardless of traffic (padding when there is none) until the monthly quota is hit right at the end of the month. If internodal links don't vary in externally measurable ways when utilized, netflow is diminished.

Doesn't i2p also use this model?

i2p is a bit harder because the circuits aren't end-to-end. Your traffic goes through typically 3 relays, then an all-to-all mixing where it goes directly to the start of the recipient's relay chain, then 3 of their chosen relays. A new connection is NOT set up through the whole network for each overlay connection - it uses your same outgoing relay chain, and your last relay sends the packet to the first relay in the recipient's incoming relay chain.

It also uses a separate chain in each direction which makes any attack based on observing timing both ways more difficult.

It's also not Sybil resistant at all.

Re: Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

#46

Post by amiga386 »

notpushkin wrote: post #11
ryandv wrote: post #10

[flagged]

It’s 2024 and I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not.

It's your lucky day! I have trained an LLM that reliably detects sarcasm. It was trained on only the finest sarcasm, dramatic irony, situational irony, ridicule and tomfoolery. As an amazing side effect it can even detect whether statements were made in bad faith or good faith with 100% reliability. You need never guess someone's intentions again! The machine will tell you.

I intend to launch it soon, don't miss this investment opportunity!

Re: Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

#48

Post by immibis »

rmarq10 wrote: post #12
jagged-chisel wrote: post #2

Is there something new here? I’m under the impression that we knew this kind of thing was possible with enough resources.

The articled confirms that the authorities are conducting a dragnet operation. Everyone who connected to a certain entry relay was tracked and reported. Does the tor daemon connect automatically? If so, even people who installed tor for fun and forget about may be on the list. Did the lucky ones have the "Bundestrojaner" (gov surveillance app) installed on their machines?

They selected that relay after they determined it was the one used by the person they were trying to go after. That isn't a dragnet.

There probably is a dragnet too.

Re: Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

#49

Post by rapind »

Attrecomet wrote: post #27
amiga386 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your proposal is too modest. Why should only law enforcement see our messages? All messages should be treated like the banns of marriage and read aloud by the local priest or posted on the church walls, so that all interested parties can learn their contents and raise any relevant legal objection.

In actual fact, your proposal is too modest. Why should only electronic messages be so publicized? After all, relevant communication, either for our protectors in law enforcement (and secret services, don't forget their hard work for our prosperity) or for us members of society, happens via all kinds of mediums. Privacy of correspondence might have had some relevance in the past, but today, with LLMs helping us work…

I’m OK with this so long as I’m in a position of power and exempt from having my communications public.

Re: Law Enforcement Undermines Tor

#50

Post by immibis »

ryandv wrote: post #36
jeffhuys wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's all fun, I don't have anything to hide either. But what if I actually WILL in the future, retroactively? I've said a few things here and there, what if certain types of speech end up getting banned and if you don't remove it on time (or lost access), you risk jail-time? Seems far away, but it's literally happening in England. Please watch out with this kind of thinking - it's dangerous to everyone.

> what if certain types of speech end up getting banned and if you don't remove it on time (or lost access), you risk jail-time? So racism, homophobia, and transphobia? Why would you support technologies that promote and support the dissemination of hate speech and misinformation?

In Germany (which also happens to be the country that successfully attacked Tor) it is currently illegal to support Palestine. Is there anything in your private messages that you wouldn't want the government to know?
Post reply on HN