Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network • Hacker News Board

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#21

Post by kiiski » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:23 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #12

mkup wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Russians intend to make their venture profitable.

It wasn't clear to me from the article that there was any sort of time limit. Presumably a researcher could simply enter the contest once he was sure he had an exploit? The math doesn't really work out for profitability.

The deadline is August 13th, and the winner (if any) will be announced on the 20th. (According to an Helsinki Times article, but the English translation[1] doesn't have the dates)

[1]: http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/11...

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#22

Post by golergka » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:28 PM UTC

Previous thread about it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079195

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#23

Post by kar-kub » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:30 PM UTC

Last paragraphs are very interesting:

"In its 2013 financial statements, the Tor Project - a group of developers that maintain tools used to access Tor - confirmed that the US Department of Defense remained one its biggest backers. The DoD sent $830,000 (£489,000) to the group through SRI International, which describes itself as an independent non-profit research centre, last year. Other parts of the US government contributed a further $1m. Those amounts are roughly the same as in 2012."

I'm not familiar at all how those founding works, could someone, from US, explain how and why US government is giving money to TOR?

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#24

Post by dm2 » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:34 PM UTC

homhomhom wrote: post #18

dm2 wrote: post #17

What's to stop someone from selling one of these exploits to multiple nations and companies? What is the normal process for selling these exploits? They'd want to see the exploit first, I'm guessing in person, then they transfer over the money, then you give the code and details? What if someone wanted to remain anonymous during the transaction? What would be the best method of doing that? You couldn't really send a…

They don't want to 'buy' the exploit outright, just fund the R&D. Thank you sensationalist media.

I don't understand, it seems like researchers have to pay to enter and then are only given the funding if successful, that's not exactly funding R&D, more of a contest. It seems really strange that Russia would be offering this kind of bounty in effort to improve the program's security, don't they know how many activists and dissidents use it. Is the sole reason to aid their own spies?

They should just provide funds on a site such as https://hackerone.com/

I really wish the US government would offer bounties for their sites and systems. Right now if people try to exploit a US government system, even if they have the intention to properly disclose the vulnerability they face prosecution.

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#25

Post by noblethrasher » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:36 PM UTC

kar-kub wrote: post #23

Last paragraphs are very interesting: "In its 2013 financial statements, the Tor Project - a group of developers that maintain tools used to access Tor - confirmed that the US Department of Defense remained one its biggest backers. The DoD sent $830,000 (£489,000) to the group through SRI International, which describes itself as an independent non-profit research centre, last year. Other parts of the US government co…

Well, TOR was originally developed by the US Naval Research Lab for the purpose of securing government comms.

Source: https://www.torproject.org/about/overview

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#26

Post by Ecio78 » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:41 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #22

Previous thread about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8079195

I submitted this one as well but was not very successful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8083790

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#27

Post by pandaman » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:46 PM UTC

All the sources refer the same government requisition for a "performing the scientific research, code "TORUS/Fleet". The details should be available for people who chose to participate and foreign nationals are specifically banned from participation.

With the Russian word for torus being "тор" which could be transliterated as "tor" I see why people might get excited. But I'd like to see something more concrete than word play to support the news articles' theory.

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#28

Post by JasonIpswitch » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:47 PM UTC

kar-kub wrote: post #23

Last paragraphs are very interesting: "In its 2013 financial statements, the Tor Project - a group of developers that maintain tools used to access Tor - confirmed that the US Department of Defense remained one its biggest backers. The DoD sent $830,000 (£489,000) to the group through SRI International, which describes itself as an independent non-profit research centre, last year. Other parts of the US government co…

I've seen two explanations for why the US government gives money to the Tor Project. One reason is to support dissidents in countries like China. Another is that US agents use Tor, but that the network requires a degree of popularity in order for agents to "hide" in it.

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#29

Post by jbigelow76 » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:48 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #20

XorNot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because they're asking if someone's done it and wants some cash. If you had, monetizing the knowledge isn't exactly easy. No intelligence agency will bother paying for it.

Why wouldn't they? This is exactly the stuff I'd want to pay for if I was an intelligence agency; you want the hackers to come back with more exploits, after all.

No intelligence company would pay for it if it were publicized they had paid for it. It's more useful to keep quiet and let people think Tor is still anonymous.

Re: Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

#30

Post by pinkyand » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 2:50 PM UTC

kar-kub wrote: post #23

Last paragraphs are very interesting: "In its 2013 financial statements, the Tor Project - a group of developers that maintain tools used to access Tor - confirmed that the US Department of Defense remained one its biggest backers. The DoD sent $830,000 (£489,000) to the group through SRI International, which describes itself as an independent non-profit research centre, last year. Other parts of the US government co…

Two possible motivations:

1. Help political dissent in countries that cannot crack tor.

2. There's a reasonable chance that they can crack tor, at least to some extent ,especially with the help of the 5-eyes countries. Having that ability while "evildoers" think tor is safe is valuable.