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To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

arstechnica.com

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Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#111

Post by andai »

mirimir wrote: post #92

Questions about what methods investigators can legitimately use aside, the practical implications are clear. You can not count on Tor alone for real anonymity. So what might these NITs be doing? In the simplest case, they'd be dropping malware that reports ISP-assigned IP address, local IP address, network hardware MAC, and whatever to FBI servers. And it's probably Windows malware. To protect against that, you isola…

Is there a benefit of running Whonix in Qubes? Or just that running Qubes is a good idea in general?

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#112

Post by foldr »

setr wrote: post #69
waqf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incentive structure for the police That assumes that the police's incentive is simply to convict as many people as possible. Which, if true, raises other concerns.

I think it more assumes that the police's incentive is to maximize the ratio of accusation to conviction as much as possible, which is a reasonable goal. If they were simply trying to maximize the total number of convictions, then this wouldn't necessarily help; the police would just make broaden the kind of cases they'd accuse And ofc, it's the function of the police to maximize the misdemeanor to conviction ratio;…

>I think it more assumes that the police's incentive is to maximize the ratio of [conviction to accusation] as much as possible, which is a reasonable goal.

Strictly speaking it's not a very reasonable goal. The best way to achieve it would be to pick, say, the three easiest to prosecute cases every year and only prosecute those.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#114

Post by mirimir »

andai wrote: post #111
mirimir wrote: post #92

Questions about what methods investigators can legitimately use aside, the practical implications are clear. You can not count on Tor alone for real anonymity. So what might these NITs be doing? In the simplest case, they'd be dropping malware that reports ISP-assigned IP address, local IP address, network hardware MAC, and whatever to FBI servers. And it's probably Windows malware. To protect against that, you isola…

Is there a benefit of running Whonix in Qubes? Or just that running Qubes is a good idea in general?

There's arguably better isolation between the Tor gateway and workstation VMs. See https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes/Why_use_Qubes_over_other_V...

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#116

Post by mfukar »

moomin wrote: post #9

So, let's see now: a man is going free who should probably be going to jail for a long time, because the state doesn't want to disclose the methods of gathering evidence against him, which we can speculate are because they are illegal or sourced from non-law-enforcement agencies. A case with near-identical facts and the same judge _is_ going to trial and, not content with tapping your email, the state now wants to pu…

Apparently "innocent until proven otherwise" also doesn't resemble "How the world should be" in this comment.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#117

Post by wheelerwj »

sandworm101 wrote: post #8

I think they want to to disclose. I think prosecutors expected that they would be allowed to do so by now. They probably assumed the exploit would have been patched away, or that some better tool would have come allong by this point in time. Id bet good money that this tool is still in active use by some three-letter agency. Should it be discovered or patched before the SOL, its intel value will drop and prosecutions…

SOL?

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#118

Post by mfukar »

Huffers2 wrote: post #14
woolly wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the majority of it probably isn't 'how the world should be', a man is going free because (we speculate) that the evidence against him was gathered illegally. This bit probably is 'how the world should be'.

I've never understood this. If I gather evidence against somebody illegally, and it proves their guilt, shouldn't we both go to jail?

I'm pretty sure there's a common saying about two lefts not making a right. Or two rights not making a wrong? Can't quite remember.

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#119

Post by dajohnson89 »

tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #89
dajohnson89 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence for the claim that TOR is so badly compromised? My understanding of the article is not that TOR was hacked, but rather that a tor user was tricked into opening a non-tor site and thus giving away his/her IP address. Also if just the exit node is compromised, encrypted connections are still safe (TTBOMK).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/0... Not the FBI per se, but it shows that someone is clearly attempting to compromise TOR users. Also there's been whispers about it forever. Much like the "black rooms" at datacentres before all the NSA leaks. The FBI has a long history of tracking down and compromising CC theft and CP rings, along with silk road and the hoards of clones. Most of these site…

While a compromised exit node is bad, isn't the situation improved if your TOR session is encrypted? With an encrypted session over tor, and a trusted endpoint, what is your risk profile beyond your exposure to the endpoint?

Re: To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

#120

Post by wheelerwj »

throwawasiudy wrote: post #64

In case it isn't obvious to everyone, the government runs or has tapped most or all TOR exit nodes. This has been going on forever. Nobody knows exactly what the attack is...but if they're willing to drop cases to cover it up, its probably something that either: 1) completely breaks TOR permanently 2) is easy to bypass/block Since TOR has withstood a lot of scrutiny I'm betting on option #2. They found a total break…

yea, this is my theory. Occam's razor applies here more than ever.

If i recall, this case is one of the first times the term NIT was used and it could mean literally anything.

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