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The FBI Identified a Tor User

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Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#61

Post by DougN7 »

xnorswap wrote: post #43
optimalsolver wrote: post #41

I keep saying this, but the inescapable fact about Tor is that its traffic patterns make you stand out prominently. Just the fact you’re using it automatically makes you interesting and worthy of a closer look. All well and good if you’re just maintaining a cookie recipe site on the dark web, but it’s rarely ever that, is it?

Is your intention in repeating that to keep Tor usage below the critical threshold where that remains true?

Realistically, what would need to happen for it to not be the case? How many millions or billions of people would have to use it before the government would give up and stop looking at you if you use it?

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#64

Post by jwilk »

archontes wrote: post #46
DoItToMe81 wrote: post #22

I wouldn't get so excited about this. There have been tons of javascript exploits to leak IP addresses in the past, it's more likely that than the FBI running thousands of servers.

Doesn't the tor browser disable javascript entirely?

https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-34/

> We configure NoScript to allow JavaScript by default in Tor Browser because many websites will not work with JavaScript disabled. Most users would give up on Tor entirely if we disabled JavaScript by default because it would cause so many problems for them.

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#65

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

causi wrote: post #26

I will never understand people who do illegal things over their own IP. Is it really that hard to find an open access point? Way back in the day when I torrented all my content I used a long-range wifi antenna connected to a public AP and a dedicated PC with a scrubbed drive that never connected to my home network.

Your strategy might be safer but it also shows criminal intent.

Also- the secret about torrents is that nobody really gives a shit. They're more worried about pedos and terrorists.

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#66

Post by wrycoder »

xnorswap wrote: post #43
optimalsolver wrote: post #41

I keep saying this, but the inescapable fact about Tor is that its traffic patterns make you stand out prominently. Just the fact you’re using it automatically makes you interesting and worthy of a closer look. All well and good if you’re just maintaining a cookie recipe site on the dark web, but it’s rarely ever that, is it?

Is your intention in repeating that to keep Tor usage below the critical threshold where that remains true?

Yeah, I think the FSF/EFF suggestion is for people to use TOR as much as possible. But that’s completely impractical day to day from my POV.

I recollect a case a few years ago, where they tracked a guy down on a campus through traffic analysis in a fairly quiet environment Torwise, and both endpoints were on the campus.

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#67

Post by zrwalt »

paulluuk wrote: post #30
kmeisthax wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not be surprised given that Tor was specifically created to anonymize the traffic of US spies. It was released to the public to give plausible deniability to the spies. A new protocol that ONLY spies used would be obvious to track down, no matter how much encryption it had. But if everyone is using it for different purposes then you have to actually have to break the encryption to know if someone's using Tor…

After reading Edward Snowden's autobiography (Permanent Record, great read), I feel like Tor, end-to-end encryption and similar solutions/products are basically a dagger through the heart of intelligence services. As such, I find it hard to believe that they knowingly gave the public such tools. And if they did, it sure as hell backfired on them.

Why? Snowden said they do traffic anaylsis on everyone, including phone calls. They find you via other means if you are not extremely careful like Snowden himself.

Discussion about these issues has been stifled since critics like Assange and Applebaum have been smeared (but not prosecuted) with sex charges and Greenwald is being depicted as a conspiracy theorist.

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#68

Post by closewith »

Miner49er wrote: post #28
Tepix wrote: post #12

It could also be that they had backdoored his PC earlier, right?

Could be a lot of things. Could be the FBI runs the site and specifically targeted him. Or they run the site and it has some sort of browser exploit. I'm guessing the first though. That they set up the site specifically to target him. The rest of the investigation involves them running eBay accounts to sell him weapons and such. Seems like the whole investigation was borderline entrapment to be able to arrest him on…

It's not close to entrapment, unless the FBI coerced the accused.

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#69

Post by nostrademons »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #52
Ajedi32 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even something way simpler, like the FBI secretly compromising the user's PC with malware prior to the arrest. Without more detail it's impossible to know whether this is even news.

Out of curiosity, will we get more detail? Presumably the FBI would need to reveal to somebody how they obtained this information in order for it to be admissible as evidence ("he did this, trust us" probably won't fly in court), but is there a legal means by which they could do that without revealing their exact methods to the general public? (I don't actually know what the law says on this subject.)

Parallel construction. They use their real methods to identify the user, then once they know the user, specifically target them with simpler known methods to build evidence for the case. In the court filing, they present evidence that they've gained through known methods which don't work all that well unless you already have a suspect, but they actually caught the suspect using methods that are not public (and won't become so, unless there's an internal leak at the FBI).

Re: The FBI Identified a Tor User

#70

Post by noptd »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #65
causi wrote: post #26

I will never understand people who do illegal things over their own IP. Is it really that hard to find an open access point? Way back in the day when I torrented all my content I used a long-range wifi antenna connected to a public AP and a dedicated PC with a scrubbed drive that never connected to my home network.

Your strategy might be safer but it also shows criminal intent. Also- the secret about torrents is that nobody really gives a shit. They're more worried about pedos and terrorists.

>it also shows criminal intent.

Hard disagree, unless you have some citations to back this up.

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