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Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

theguardian.com

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Re: Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

#61

Post by sitkack »

pyre wrote: post #57
sitkack wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The malware would have to escape the virtual machine. The VM needs to be firewalled off from the host and NOT have the host guest tools installed.

Ok. So what you're talking about is a VM that is only able to route to the internet via Tor, so it would be impossible for it to make a non-Tor connection (thereby compromising anonymity). - If the host guest tools are installed on the guest host, then it would be possible for the malware to install them itself. - If the host guest tools can't be enabled/disabled on a per-VM basis, then that could be an issue, as you…

I meant specifically that the VM should have low privs when it comes to the host, it shouldn't be able to port scan, map drives, the host MAC can be found via ARP. Just thinking about what happens when the NSA p0wns the OS running the Tor browser.

   (vm-tor-net
     (vm-tor-browser))
Even if the gui VM that is used for running Tor has been compromised it should still be impossible to determine where the Tor client node is running. That is goal right?

Re: Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

#62

Post by steveklabnik »

spindritf wrote: post #16

So how does Tails[1] stack up? It seems to thwart most of those attacks. It block non-anonymized traffic and makes permanent changes difficult. OTOH, privilege escalation bugs happen frequently on Linux. https://tails.boum.org/

According to the article,

> "Tails... adds severe misery to CNE equation."

Re: Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

#63

Post by wizardishungry »

pyre wrote: post #57
sitkack wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The malware would have to escape the virtual machine. The VM needs to be firewalled off from the host and NOT have the host guest tools installed.

Ok. So what you're talking about is a VM that is only able to route to the internet via Tor, so it would be impossible for it to make a non-Tor connection (thereby compromising anonymity). - If the host guest tools are installed on the guest host, then it would be possible for the malware to install them itself. - If the host guest tools can't be enabled/disabled on a per-VM basis, then that could be an issue, as you…

Here's an openbsd VM with tor and a bunch of web browsers preinstalled. There's packet filter rules so even if the vagrant user gets owned, it cannot transmit traffic on the outboard network interface. https://github.com/WIZARDISHUNGRY/openbsd-hiddenfortress

Re: Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

#65

Post by [deleted] »

chakalakasp wrote: post #48
kilroy123 wrote: post #25

Sounds like, if you're going to do something very sensitive on tor, you need to: - always have an update to date version of tor bundle! - compile the bundle yourself from source - run it virtually, and always roll back to a clean snapshot (before installing it tor) when done - if possible use from a network that is not your own (open wifi, public wifi, etc.) - spoof your mac address - do not run JS, Java applets, etc…

If you are doing something that would make the NSA interested in you (and I would highly highly discourage that), you'd need to focus more on tradecraft. Get the laptop from a source that can't be traced to you, like a thrift store in a city where you don't live or normally frequent. Disguise yourself, pay in cash, and either make sure there are no security cameras or wait a good year before you do whatever you are g…

[deleted]

Re: Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

#66

Post by JabavuAdams »

llamataboot wrote: post #33
option_greek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What chance does a ragtag team of people from various backgrounds working part time on a open source project have against a determined enemy with billions in funding and hordes of PHDs working full time with single goal of violating privacy of netizens.

A better chance than one would think from that phrasing, as there are a lot of highly motivated and intelligent people working on privacy tech.

It doesn't matter. Protecting privacy is too big a goal.

In the end, why does the NSA do what it does? To get specific, actionable intelligence. Everyone in the world's privacy is just collateral damage.

But, turn that around. Protecting your privacy (never mind anyone else's) is too big a goal. It's too easily breached. Instead, think of what specific information you feel you need to keep private, and how you might do that.

Of course, the goal of keeping specific, actionable information secret leads to the question of why you'd want to do that. A general desire for privacy doesn't mark you as one of the "bad guys". Having something specific to hide leads to questions of why? To what end? Should we be worried?

Re: Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

#68

Post by chakalakasp »

blake8086 wrote: post #55
chakalakasp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are doing something that would make the NSA interested in you (and I would highly highly discourage that), you'd need to focus more on tradecraft. Get the laptop from a source that can't be traced to you, like a thrift store in a city where you don't live or normally frequent. Disguise yourself, pay in cash, and either make sure there are no security cameras or wait a good year before you do whatever you are g…

This is such random advice. What threats are you defending against here? "Wear gloves": Why? Are you thinking someone will pierce the veil of all these other precautions but then be stymied when they find a smashed laptop with no fingerprints on it ? "Sir, we followed him for a year, watched him buy a laptop and use it in a park, but when we recovered the laptop from the dumpster, there were no fingerprints on it!" "…

They find your smashed lappy in the dumpster. "Oh, look, his fingerprints are all over it". There is no national DNA database outside of the penal system (yet) so your dandruff won't do you in. But a print will, if you've ever done something that got you into NCIC.

The idea is not to foil people who suspect you, it's to to keep them from suspecting you in the first place. If you are a NSA targeted suspect and you did something naughty, you've already lost the game.

Re: Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

#69

Post by chakalakasp »

harshreality wrote: post #60
chakalakasp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are doing something that would make the NSA interested in you (and I would highly highly discourage that), you'd need to focus more on tradecraft. Get the laptop from a source that can't be traced to you, like a thrift store in a city where you don't live or normally frequent. Disguise yourself, pay in cash, and either make sure there are no security cameras or wait a good year before you do whatever you are g…

That isn't sufficient. The NSA might be able to query their databases for anyone who recently visited the city where the wifi involved is located, and you might match that if there were license plate scanners on the way, even if you paid for gas in cash. If that information isn't collected by the NSA today, it probably will be tomorrow. The NSA might be able to query their databases for anyone who "went off the grid"…

I think that what you are saying is true, but there is always a level of risk. It's more about mitigating it than eliminating it - you can't really do that.

Again, this is all hypothetical, don't go and do anything naughty.

Re: Attacking Tor: How the NSA targets users' online anonymity

#70

Post by anologwintermut »

shawn-furyan wrote: post #37

One heartening aspect of the Snowden revelations as a whole is that they have pretty much just confirmed that the things we thought were strong (public crypto research, tor) are in fact strong and the things that we thought were iffy are in fact iffy(Certificate Authorities, Unvetted Crypto, Cloud Services, The Wires, Implementations). This bodes well for the prospect of navigating out of this whole mess successfully…

Prior to this one should not have (and arguably should sill not) assumed Tor is safe against the NSA.

Tor was explicitly not designed to protect against a global passive adversary. That's the price it pays for low latency. With the amount of network data the NSA has, they probably constitute such an adversary.

It is actually rather surprising that Tor gives them this much trouble.

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