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Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor anonymous network

bbc.com

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

#81

Post by dmix »

eli wrote: post #80
dmix wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For ex: Hackathon's shouldn't primarily be about cash prizes. It defeats the purpose and ideology behind hacking culture.

Isn't that the parent comment's point? That it's such a relatively small amount of money that the only people who are into hacking stuff anyway would attempt it.

There shouldn't be any money at all in hackathons, it should be voluntary and tinkering/hacking on technololgy for fun or societal benefit. This is for a project with a well-defined goal defined by a large government that may be used against dissidents by a authoritarian state.

That doesn't quite fit into hacker culture at all.

If they aren't going to hire a well-paid hackers full-time like the NSA does to do the same thing, then at least make the prize significant similar to X-prize.

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

#82

Post by ForHackernews »

JasonIpswitch wrote: post #28
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.

Isn't there a third possibility that US security services are capable of breaking Tor, and want to popularize it in order to encourage Tor usage among potential targets?

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

#83

Post by cookiecaper »

noblethrasher wrote: post #25
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

"Securing government comms" can be misleading. Tor is not by itself a secure channel, but may be part of a secure channel if you're concerned that a local or semi-local adversary may intercept your communications. My understanding is that Tor was developed primarily to facilitate informants and dissidents in countries with restrictive internet access policies, like China, who would not take kindly to seeing communications between Chinese IPs and U.S. military IPs.

There is a very widespread and dangerous misconception that Tor is a one-stop shop for secure or anonymous communication. This is not true. You need to encrypt your messages separately. When outside the onion network, Tor actually exposes all content sent through it to a third-party, the exit node. This means using Tor may be more dangerous than not using Tor if you don't know what you're doing.

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

#84

Post by noblethrasher »

cookiecaper wrote: post #83
noblethrasher wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"Securing government comms" can be misleading. Tor is not by itself a secure channel, but may be part of a secure channel if you're concerned that a local or semi-local adversary may intercept your communications. My understanding is that Tor was developed primarily to facilitate informants and dissidents in countries with restrictive internet access policies, like China, who would not take kindly to seeing communica…

Very good point. In fact, I had to council one of my colleagues on this issue as she prepares for an overseas trip. She was asking about Tor, but I advised that our organization's VPN is the correct solution... especially since she wanted confidentiality rather than anonymity.

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

#85

Post by drzaiusapelord »

a-nikolaev wrote: post #71

Bear in mind that in Russia, many "offers" like this are not ment to be real competitions for accomplishing something (to crack Tor, to build a bridge, etc), but simply a way to appropriate state's money.

Right, someone's CS drop out cousin is getting this.

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

#86

Post by orbifold »

hackuser wrote: post #77
orbifold wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary intended purpose of the tor network was to provide cover for US agents. Many of the core developers of TOR have at various times either directly worked for US intelligence or have been funded by them. It was opened to the public and popularized, because an anomization network that is only used by spies is pointless. Most of the current exit nodes are currently located in the US, so there is no question th…

> The primary intended purpose of the tor network was to provide cover for US agents. Many of the core developers of TOR have at various times either directly worked for US intelligence or have been funded by them That's very interesting. Could you provide sources that back this up, especially the employment history of TOR developers?

See http://www.syverson.org/, he still works for the Navy. Dingledine worked briefly for the NSA, http://www.freehaven.net/~arma/cv.html.

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

#87

Post by wfn »

middleclick wrote: post #63
mnem wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not started by the US Navy but started by US Naval Research Labs instead? Is there any practical difference except where it appears on a military budget sheet? :) If you ignore some of the drama, Pando has a very long and fairly comprehensive look at its funding (at least, it seemed comprehensive to me, I am not a Tor expert) - http://pando.com/2014/07/16/tor-spooks/

The Pando article is FUD at its best. Yes, the government funds Tor. Pando thinks that all of the US government is akin to the NSA and wants to spy on people. This is not how it works. The government is not just one body and there are many parts of it that probably don't agree with what the NSA is doing. Yes Tor is funded by the US government. My question is, how does it matter? The protocol is open. The code is open…

> This is not how it works. The government is not just one body and there are many parts of it that probably don't agree with what the NSA is doing.

This, I think, is a very important point. It is beyond naive to assume that a large body of structures that together are called "the US government" is a homogeneous entity that can be ascribed goals as if it were a single agent.

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