4 ms·

This is among the most uninformed commentary regarding Tor that I have ever read. The author seems to understand nothing about the history of Tor, the usage of

by s_q_b 10y ago

This is among the most uninformed commentary regarding Tor that I have ever read. The author seems to understand nothing about the history of Tor, the usage of Tor, the technical design of Tor, Tor security research, encryption strategy, or the reception of Tor within the U.S. Government. I can't even take umbrage with anything that's written here, because the author's basic factual axioms are simply wrong. EDIT in Reply: I started fact checking, and I couldn't past the first two paragraphs. It is a work of fiction that, if it occasionally flirts with the truth, does so almost certainly by chance. Below is my rather unorganized beginning of a fact check: ------------------ I would like to fact check the entirety, but I'm running short on time, so I'll skip his tin-foil hat pre-ramble: >Tor became a prominent feature of political discourse around the world in 2013 when Edward Snowden popped up on the scene... False. Tor rose to prominence far prior to leaks, particularly with the Arab Spring and the Silk Road. The first appearance on the front page of the NYT was in 2009 [0] A year prior to the leaks, Foreign Policy named Dingledine et al. to its Top 100 Global Thinkers list.[1] Snowden's sticker didn't start start that fire, although it might have added some fuel. >I knew about some of the pit-falls and problems of Tor: I knew that if you signed into Google using Tor, it didn't really matter because Google still had all the information about your personal account. The same with Facebook. So Tor didn’t really solve the corporate side of surveillance. >I knew about some of the pit-falls and problems of Tor: I knew that if you signed into Google using Tor, it didn't really matter because Google still had all the information about your personal account. The same with Facebook. So Tor didn’t really solve the corporate side of surveillance. So now, I have to ask. Has this guy just found a way to make a living getting stoned and spouting faux-anarchist nonsense? Not signing into websites with your real name while on an anonymous service is the 1+1=2 of anonymity. So to remain anonymous, just... don't announce your name. That isn't a "pitfall." That's just common sense. Around the point at which he was inventing grand conspiracies, particularly through close and perfect action of a monolithic government, I couldn't take it seriously any longer. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/middleeast/23censor.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/middleeast/23censor.... [1]http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/the_fp_100_global_thinkers?page=0,48* http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/the_fp_100_...

meddlepal 10y ago
How so? Please explain.
- XaYdEk 10y ago
  If you use Tor the same way you have used a regular browser there could be an 'image' of your online habits to compare with (not applicable within the darknet). But if the user doesn't use it in the same way, the likely attack in most cases is traffic correlation. This works by having large visibility over entry nodes and visibilty over the final destination (ex: a website). Given enough activity and time you can by process of elimination deanonimize the user's ip.
invid_regent 10y ago
He says in the interview that a global adversary like the NSA just needs to cross index a unique characteristic about yourself to de-anonymize your identity, even if you're using TOR. This is a perfectly valid claim.
- Canada 10y ago
  The fact that onion routing cannot resist the global passive adversary is well documented and also publicly acknowledged by the Tor project itself. This article is garbage. It makes a ton of patently false claims and as well as completely unsupported claims, which are buried in irrelevant political opinion, and on top of that the opinion of the interviewee on Tor is of no consequence.

by s_q_b 10y ago

meddlepal 10y ago

How so? Please explain.

XaYdEk 10y ago
If you use Tor the same way you have used a regular browser there could be an 'image' of your online habits to compare with (not applicable within the darknet). But if the user doesn't use it in the same way, the likely attack in most cases is traffic correlation. This works by having large visibility over entry nodes and visibilty over the final destination (ex: a website). Given enough activity and time you can by process of elimination deanonimize the user's ip.

invid_regent 10y ago

He says in the interview that a global adversary like the NSA just needs to cross index a unique characteristic about yourself to de-anonymize your identity, even if you're using TOR. This is a perfectly valid claim.

Canada 10y ago
The fact that onion routing cannot resist the global passive adversary is well documented and also publicly acknowledged by the Tor project itself. This article is garbage. It makes a ton of patently false claims and as well as completely unsupported claims, which are buried in irrelevant political opinion, and on top of that the opinion of the interviewee on Tor is of no consequence.