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The US is too busy using TOR as a honeypot and offensive weapon to shut down access. TOR actually amplifies the asymmetry betweem the NSA and smaller actors: t
by SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
The US is too busy using TOR as a honeypot and offensive weapon to shut down access.
TOR actually amplifies the asymmetry betweem the NSA and smaller actors: the NSA by owning the whole network can easily break it, but it prevents smaller players from getting the same access.
Of course, the FBI seem to routinely compromise TOR sites they don't like.
- dleslie 10y agoUsually via traditional investigative means.
- mirimir 10y agoAnd then they exploit Firefox bugs to drop phone-home malware on users. But so far, it's only been Windows malware :) And it relies on bypassing Tor's socks proxy.
- rblatz 10y agoIf you truly wanted anonymity why wouldn't you buy a $35 raspberry pi and stuff it between your computer and the internet and route all traffic through it through tor? Too many zero days out there in browsers, flash, java, office not to mention configuration slip ups that could nullify your tor protection.
- kbart 10y ago"buy a $35 raspberry pi and stuff it between your computer and the internet and route all traffic through it through tor? Too many zero days out there in browsers, flash, java, office" How does Raspberry Pi help here? If it routes traffic at IP level, it will be transparent at an application level. Firewall/IDS won't help against zero days either.
- mavdi 10y agoIndeed. People are wrong with such confidence these days.
- mirimir 10y agoYes, that's a serious problem. But being wrong in parent's direction isn't so bad ;) Over-engineering and prudence is my mantra.
- makomk 10y agoIt's trivial to use iptables to block all traffic except to the SOCKS proxy port on Tor, or even forcibly redirect it all through Tor directly using the transparent proxying support.
- kbart 10y agoYou can do all that on a host PC as well. I still don't see what additional layer of security Raspberry Pi adds here. Or am I missing something?
- JupiterMoon 10y agoThe idea is that even if the host PC is pwned the Pi will still route the traffic from it via Tor.
- robjan 10y agoIf the host PC is pwned then it can still disclose useful information about itself (files, Geo locations, mac addresses) - it will just be routed over TOR.
- mirimir 10y agoTrue. So it must not contain anything that's associated with you, in any way. Buy with cash. No geolocation data. Dedicated LAN. No sneaker net sharing. Compartmentalization.
- Mchl 10y agoRaspberry's firmware is not Open Source, that's why. Might just as well full of vulnerabilities and/or backdoors.
- gambiting 10y agoBecause: 1) Pi only supports about 6MB/s on its ethernet port, meaning that you get 3MB/up and 3MB/down 2) TOR itself is just super slow, so why am I paying for a 350Mbps connection? 3) Most VPN services are fast enough for the above bandwidth, and offer sufficient security against state-based snooping.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoWeren't most of the services they took down because of the CMU deanonymizaton attack? They also claim Silk Road was classical hacking, but given what we know of parallel construction and their vagueness in describing their locating of the servers, we can't really know what happened there.