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Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

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Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#2
http://www.scribd.com/doc/192157170/Eldo-Kim-Complaint

It sounds like they determined from the email provider that the message came from a Tor exit node, then from there they looked for who had made a connection on Harvard campus to known Tor relays. He had, so they interviewed him and he confessed to everything. I don't see any strong indication of a weakness in Tor from this, but it's a bit concerning that you could be interviewed for having used Tor at the same time as something like this. I run a relay full-time, I don't know if this is better or worse for me.

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#4
Why bother risking expulsion/FBI charges/a tainted professional reputation for the rest of your life for more time on a test? Even if he succeeded, I doubt anyone could pull something like that off and then focus on schoolwork for the next day or two. Plus, .

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#5
Firstly, this dude made an incredibly stupid decision to even go through with his plan to get some extra time on a test. Secondly, the way he actually went about doing it was completely asinine. He did it from his own machine on the school's network.

No matter the nature of your activity, if you're trying to obfuscate your identity using systems like TOR and GuerillaMail, you probably shouldn't do it on the network of the people you're attempting to hide your identity from...

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#6
post #4

Why bother risking expulsion/FBI charges/a tainted professional reputation for the rest of your life for more time on a test? Even if he succeeded, I doubt anyone could pull something like that off and then focus on schoolwork for the next day or two. Plus, .

Stress can make people pretty irrational I guess.

I wonder if there is any sort of correlation between the prestige of a school and how often someone calls in a threat or pulls a fire alarm. I had a fire alarm go off while I was taking a final twice when I was in university. Seems like it is probably a semi-frequent occurrence.

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#7
post #2

http://www.scribd.com/doc/192157170/Eldo-Kim-Complaint It sounds like they determined from the email provider that the message came from a Tor exit node, then from there they looked for who had made a connection on Harvard campus to known Tor relays. He had, so they interviewed him and he confessed to everything. I don't see any strong indication of a weakness in Tor from this, but it's a bit concerning that you coul…

This basically adds no new information about Tor, except what we already knew -- that you should really have a private bridge, and that Tor traffic is readily discernible from normal traffic (hence, avoid using it on networks where authorization is linked to your identity!). The affidavit doesn't say how they linked the GuerillaMail address to Tor, presumably they used a subpoena.

He could have easily avoided detection (not to say that would have been a good thing) by using something like SkypeMorph (https://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/software/CodeTalkerTunnel.html)

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#8
post #2

http://www.scribd.com/doc/192157170/Eldo-Kim-Complaint It sounds like they determined from the email provider that the message came from a Tor exit node, then from there they looked for who had made a connection on Harvard campus to known Tor relays. He had, so they interviewed him and he confessed to everything. I don't see any strong indication of a weakness in Tor from this, but it's a bit concerning that you coul…

It's not damning at all to have used Tor around that time, but it's not a huge leap of logic, either.

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#9
post #2

http://www.scribd.com/doc/192157170/Eldo-Kim-Complaint It sounds like they determined from the email provider that the message came from a Tor exit node, then from there they looked for who had made a connection on Harvard campus to known Tor relays. He had, so they interviewed him and he confessed to everything. I don't see any strong indication of a weakness in Tor from this, but it's a bit concerning that you coul…

Running TOR at the same time the message was sent. Plus The police do not have to have probable cause to speak to you. Of course what you say back is entirely up to you.

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#10
post #2

http://www.scribd.com/doc/192157170/Eldo-Kim-Complaint It sounds like they determined from the email provider that the message came from a Tor exit node, then from there they looked for who had made a connection on Harvard campus to known Tor relays. He had, so they interviewed him and he confessed to everything. I don't see any strong indication of a weakness in Tor from this, but it's a bit concerning that you coul…

Serious question: why do people talk so highly of a security protocol which even Harvard students fail hard at actually using in real life? If people who are the global 99.999'th percentile of tech literacy lose their lives and careers relying on this stuff, in what way is it a meaningful solution to third-world victims of repressive governments?

I'm assuming at this point that thousands of Syrian, Egyptian, Iranian, Chinese, etc. dissidents are dead from misplaced trust in Tor and other crypto magic, and no one's the wiser.

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