4 ms·

I thought it was well established that timing attacks could identify the user? My understanding is that if you remain on the network, domains ending with .onion

by KGIII 9y ago

I thought it was well established that timing attacks could identify the user? My understanding is that if you remain on the network, domains ending with .onion, you're still able to remain anonymous.

ZirconCode 9y ago
I haven't seen much discussion in defending against timing attacks, is it really that difficult? If we introduced long delays and artificial data sizes shouldn't it be possible? A constant stream not withstanding. Of course it makes things clumsier, but that's always the price.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I'm not sure how effective that would be. They see you go in and they see you go out. If they can use the process of elimination, if nothing else, you can be unmasked. Those types of things would probably only make it more difficult, but not impossible. If you're going to do illegal things, or want anonymity, remain on the network - domains ending with .onion. The regular web is inherently not anonymous.
hackermailman 9y ago
The gist of the longer translated article is BND believes the majority of Tor relays are run by spy agencies, aka a global adversary that can watch most of the traffic. So you connect to the NSA run bridge that routes you to the GCHQ/NSA/CSIS/ASIO run farm of internal relays.
- KGIII 9y ago
  If I understand correctly, and I may not, that still only matters if you're leaving the network. If you use Tor to browse the regular web, a country-level adversary can unmask you. If you remain on the network, and don't do silly things like use scripting, you should be okay. Should be...
  - gpm 9y ago
    If they control all the nodes from your computer to the secret service you are connecting to, they can trivially deanonymize you. Staying in the network doesn't protect you. Also the case if they are missing a few nodes in the middle, as long as they control the entrance, exit, and never miss two in a row.
- kpcyrd 9y ago
  > So you connect to the NSA run bridge that routes you to the GCHQ/NSA/CSIS/ASIO run farm of internal relays. This isn't possible. Your tor daemon fetches the consensus from a directory server and picks the relays and exits itself. The directory server can't tamper with that consensus because its signed by the directory authorities, a small set of servers that are necessary because of this attack.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    You are right in principle but if the vast majority of the nodes are run by adversaries then to all intents and purposes it might as well be true because that directory of relays and exits contains such a large percentage of adversaries your chances of hitting one of the 'good guys' are nil.
    - hackermailman 9y ago
      Part of their reasoning for this warning is BND claims vast majority of relays are in 5 Eyes Alliance countries, and BND claims they told the 5 Eyes Alliance a few years ago they should just run relays themselves until the odds are favored a Tor user ends up using spy agency relays.
      - yborg 9y ago
        I've always assumed that once Tor was sufficiently popular that the majority of nodes would end up being attackers. NSA gets whatever money it wants, there must be entire server farms running Tor nodes for them. What has always surprised me is that someone hasn't tried to install Tor nodes into compromised IoT devices, etc. If a virus is installing millions of nodes in the wild, that might be enough to keep the network majority non-attacker. As it stands, NSA or China, or whoever just ends up buying the whole network.
        kuschku 9y ago
        You just need to take Raspberry Pi Zero’s, install TOR nodes on them, and drop them anywhere with free WiFi and a working charger – so you can hide them in streetlights near starbucks, etc. That would be enough to get thousands of nodes. (And probably a bit less illegal, although still not legal)
matt4077 9y ago
I may be wrong (and invite correction if so), but I believe .onion addresses do not guarantee anonymity. Servers on the tor network aren't some magical machines. They sit in the same datacenter as any other server, and all their traffic reaches them via the internet. Controlling the nodes connected to them should give you a pretty good idea of at least the magnitude of traffic they're seeing. And even without running any nodes, attacking blocks of IPs suspected to include the service while measuring any potential impact on its latency allows you find their public IP (given enough resources and/or time). Then, there's the attack of try

by KGIII 9y ago

ZirconCode 9y ago

I haven't seen much discussion in defending against timing attacks, is it really that difficult? If we introduced long delays and artificial data sizes shouldn't it be possible? A constant stream not withstanding. Of course it makes things clumsier, but that's always the price.

KGIII 9y ago
I'm not sure how effective that would be. They see you go in and they see you go out. If they can use the process of elimination, if nothing else, you can be unmasked. Those types of things would probably only make it more difficult, but not impossible. If you're going to do illegal things, or want anonymity, remain on the network - domains ending with .onion. The regular web is inherently not anonymous.

hackermailman 9y ago

The gist of the longer translated article is BND believes the majority of Tor relays are run by spy agencies, aka a global adversary that can watch most of the traffic. So you connect to the NSA run bridge that routes you to the GCHQ/NSA/CSIS/ASIO run farm of internal relays.

KGIII 9y ago
If I understand correctly, and I may not, that still only matters if you're leaving the network. If you use Tor to browse the regular web, a country-level adversary can unmask you. If you remain on the network, and don't do silly things like use scripting, you should be okay. Should be...
- gpm 9y ago
  If they control all the nodes from your computer to the secret service you are connecting to, they can trivially deanonymize you. Staying in the network doesn't protect you. Also the case if they are missing a few nodes in the middle, as long as they control the entrance, exit, and never miss two in a row.
kpcyrd 9y ago
> So you connect to the NSA run bridge that routes you to the GCHQ/NSA/CSIS/ASIO run farm of internal relays. This isn't possible. Your tor daemon fetches the consensus from a directory server and picks the relays and exits itself. The directory server can't tamper with that consensus because its signed by the directory authorities, a small set of servers that are necessary because of this attack.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  You are right in principle but if the vast majority of the nodes are run by adversaries then to all intents and purposes it might as well be true because that directory of relays and exits contains such a large percentage of adversaries your chances of hitting one of the 'good guys' are nil.
  - hackermailman 9y ago
    Part of their reasoning for this warning is BND claims vast majority of relays are in 5 Eyes Alliance countries, and BND claims they told the 5 Eyes Alliance a few years ago they should just run relays themselves until the odds are favored a Tor user ends up using spy agency relays.
    - yborg 9y ago
      I've always assumed that once Tor was sufficiently popular that the majority of nodes would end up being attackers. NSA gets whatever money it wants, there must be entire server farms running Tor nodes for them. What has always surprised me is that someone hasn't tried to install Tor nodes into compromised IoT devices, etc. If a virus is installing millions of nodes in the wild, that might be enough to keep the network majority non-attacker. As it stands, NSA or China, or whoever just ends up buying the whole network.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        You just need to take Raspberry Pi Zero’s, install TOR nodes on them, and drop them anywhere with free WiFi and a working charger – so you can hide them in streetlights near starbucks, etc. That would be enough to get thousands of nodes. (And probably a bit less illegal, although still not legal)

matt4077 9y ago

I may be wrong (and invite correction if so), but I believe .onion addresses do not guarantee anonymity. Servers on the tor network aren't some magical machines. They sit in the same datacenter as any other server, and all their traffic reaches them via the internet. Controlling the nodes connected to them should give you a pretty good idea of at least the magnitude of traffic they're seeing. And even without running any nodes, attacking blocks of IPs suspected to include the service while measuring any potential impact on its latency allows you find their public IP (given enough resources and/or time). Then, there's the attack of try