Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project • Hacker News Board

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#61

Post by burtonator » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

jakear wrote: post #2

Last time Tor was mentioned here, a user posted this link [1], claiming Tor is a military financed destabilization project. Seems unbelievable, but there appear to be lots of supporting documents. [1]: https://surveillancevalley.com/blog/fact-checking-the-tor-pr...

I know Roger Dingledine personally and unless he's a VERY VERY good actor he would rather kill himself rather than go down this path.

That is unless the state actors know something he doesn't and is still pushing it forward.

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#62

Post by paulryanrogers » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

dontbenebby wrote: post #30

dogma1138 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a single intelligence agency or diplomatic service will rely on ToR for security that’s madness. A properly configured commercial or open source VPN is considerably more reliable and secure than ToR since you have no idea who is listening on the exit nodes or who can execute unmasking attacks by traffic shaping or monitoring if they control enough relays. For the most part any country which can perform intelligen…

>Not a single intelligence agency or diplomatic service will rely on ToR for security that’s madness... For the most part any country which can perform intelligence collection out of its embassy will have sufficient budget and and technical capacity to develop their own secure means of phoning home. The CIA has it's own onion service: ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onion Tor was developed by…

HTTPS with SNI leaks what one visits, and if an adversary controls enough of the network they could also use timing attacks.

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#63

Post by burtonator » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

stordoff wrote: post #59

jammygit wrote: post #49

What is the risk of hosting an exit node? I have heard that you can be liable for facilitating illegal actions if yours gets used for it

As I understand it, part of the risk is proving that you didn't perform the illegal act, and that an investigation itself can be damaging (loss of equipment/public reporting that you are being investigated for being involved in illegal behaviour). If you maintain a strict separation between your traffic/equipment and the exit node, this may be less of a risk, but is subject to the laws of your jurisdiction. > In the…

> that an investigation itself can be damaging

This is the main part. It's extrajudicial punishment.

TONS of governments engage in this behavior. This is why MJ as illegal for so long. It allowed the US to imprison 1M more minorities since the 80s.

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#64

Post by closeparen » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

onetimemanytime wrote: post #15

Santosh83 wrote: post #11

Nobody with an ounce of intelligence can believe for one moment that the most powerful intelligence agencies in the most powerful country of the world will stand idly by and watch a protocol/network be completely opaque for them. Whether there is evidence or not (in such cases there may never be enough evidence), it is safe to assume that many if not most Tor exit nodes are govt run (various govts), and one or more o…

How do various embassies contact the mothership? I heard that a lot of them use TOR, and for smaller countries it makes sense. Big countries I suppose have their brew (which is not necessarily safer.)

Dedicated fibre, terrestrial radio, commercial and military satellite links. [0] Crypto algorithms implemented in hardware, keys managed by the signals intelligence agency.

The Department of Defense is probably one the largest and most sophisticated telecoms in the world. Cannot have dependencies on local infrastructure in countries you are bombing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Information_System_Net...

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#65

Post by burtonator » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

I wish there was some sort of secure protocol to allow tor clients to create their own exit nodes using cloud services. I just don't see how it would really be possible reliably.

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#66

Post by eswat » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:36 PM UTC

bin0 wrote: post #6

As much as I hate to say this, we all knew it was happening, right? I'm still ninety percent sure they had to scramble to justify a non-tor-breaking reason they got Ulbricht. I don't know why people are still encouraging others to use it alone. You should also be using some kind of encryption of the content itself. Their goal is to figure out who you are and what you're saying; deny them either piece, and they're foi…

From the news reports I’ve read, including Ulbricht's, it's enough for law enforcement to just find out who you are.

They can then set up a sting operation where the target inadvertently leaves their laptop exposed with the keys to the castle available while being arrested.

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#67

Post by closeparen » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

Santosh83 wrote: post #16

onetimemanytime wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do various embassies contact the mothership? I heard that a lot of them use TOR, and for smaller countries it makes sense. Big countries I suppose have their brew (which is not necessarily safer.)

I'd be surprised if the big countries used plain Tor for their vital communication. They would be having their own secret networks or tunnel through Tor. Small countries have probably simply given up hiding their intelligence from the big ones at this point and are simply interested in ensuring their immediate rivals are kept out, which Tor can probably do.

For official operations, they would not be using the internet in any way, but their own parallel enterprise networks. Tor could be useful for covert operatives, and for generally weakening the grip of governments where we are inducing "popular" uprisings.

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#68

Post by stordoff » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

bin0 wrote: post #12

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ulbricht was grossly incompetent, they didn't need a special attack on Tor to unmask someone who asks questions about connecting to Tor from a public StackOverflow account in their real name.

He really did that? Jeez, you're right. Still, such attacks have doubtless been used before. Even if they haven't broken the core protocol, I'd assume they've got a few zero-days sitting around.

Freedom Hosting is a good example of using alternative attacks to sidestep Tor:

> News reports linked a Firefox browser vulnerability to a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operation targeting Freedom Hosting's owner, Eric Eoin Marques. In August 2013, it was discovered that the Firefox browsers in many older versions of the Tor Browser Bundle were vulnerable to a JavaScript attack, as NoScript was not enabled by default. This attack was being exploited to send users' MAC and IP addresses and Windows computer names to the attackers. The FBI acknowledged they were responsible for the attack in a September 12, 2013 court filing in Dublin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Hosting

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#69

Post by dontbenebby » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #62

dontbenebby wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not a single intelligence agency or diplomatic service will rely on ToR for security that’s madness... For the most part any country which can perform intelligence collection out of its embassy will have sufficient budget and and technical capacity to develop their own secure means of phoning home. The CIA has it's own onion service: ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onion Tor was developed by…

HTTPS with SNI leaks what one visits, and if an adversary controls enough of the network they could also use timing attacks.

Yes but why would you use a single hop VPN instead of Tor? Wouldn't both leak that?

(Also it's my understanding Tor uses the exit node's DNS server)

Re: Hackers breach FSB contractor, expose Tor deanonymization project

#70

Post by creato » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

Santosh83 wrote: post #11

Nobody with an ounce of intelligence can believe for one moment that the most powerful intelligence agencies in the most powerful country of the world will stand idly by and watch a protocol/network be completely opaque for them. Whether there is evidence or not (in such cases there may never be enough evidence), it is safe to assume that many if not most Tor exit nodes are govt run (various govts), and one or more o…

I was pretty confused, because the title mentions "FSB", but all of this discussion in this thread is about the US. I literally assumed that FSB must be an acronym for some US intelligence agency I don't know of. Then I went and read the article, and it really is about the Russian FSB.