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This is the most important and disturbing part in my view: > At the same time, MONKEYROCKET is also described in the documents as a “non-Western Internet anony
by apeace 9y ago
This is the most important and disturbing part in my view:
> At the same time, MONKEYROCKET is also described in the documents as a “non-Western Internet anonymization service” with a “significant user base” in Iran and China, with the program brought online in summer 2012. It is unclear what exactly this product was, but it would appear that it was promoted on the internet under false pretenses...
> The scope of the targeting would then expand beyond terrorists. Whatever this piece of software was, it functioned a privacy bait and switch, tricking Bitcoin users into using a tool they thought would provide anonymity online but was actually funneling data directly to the NSA.
One has to wonder what this tool was. Later in the article they speculate that it could be a VPN.
My advice if you want your traffic to be anonymous and private: use a VPN over Tor (not the other way around!). That way the VPN can't see who you are, and Tor exit nodes can't spy on your traffic either.
- DennisP 9y agoIt may also have been a Bitcoin mixing service.
- kardos 9y ago> That way the VPN can't see who you are So how do you get around the part where you pay for the VPN service and provide login credentials to use it?
- AgentME 9y agoWith a privacy-based cryptocurrency like Monero or Zcash, or Bitcoin anonymously purchased using a privacy-based cryptocurrency.
- fwdpropaganda 9y agoI remember there was a VPN (can't remember the name right now but I'm sure if you're interested you can find it easily) that accepted logins without e-mail, or any kind of ID, and accepted payments in cash in an envelope.
- _emacsomancer_ 9y agoMullvad does that.
- fwdpropaganda 9y agoYes! That's the name. I knew if I'd see it I'd remember it :-)
- willstrafach 9y agoProbably not the best idea if your VPN uses any sort of client software, seeing as it would be able to collect your "true" IP address if it were malicious.
- earenndil 9y agoYou shouldn't use any vpn-provider-provided client software anyway, you should use openvpn.
- willstrafach 9y agoThat also requires client side software though.
- earenndil 9y agoOpenvpn is unlikely to be malicious, and is opensource so you could theoretically audit it. And if you're _really_ paranoid, it's an open protocol, so you could write your own implementation. Although, then it's likely vulnerable -- there's a principle, I forget who from, which states that for any piece of software of sufficient complexity, if you wrote it yourself then you probably made a mistake and it's vulnerable; and if you didn't write it, then even if you read the entire source code very carefully, it's still possible, likely even, that they snuck in an exploit that you didn't notice.