7 ms·

Isn't tor and its protocol open source though? Can't anyone inspect the code that powers it, fork it, create their own network if they want to?

amadeuspagel 8y ago
For this to work, you'd convince millions of people to use your forked protocol. A network that only you and your friends use doesn't give you much anonymity.
uberswe 8y ago
Sure but it's a lot of code to go through and it's not the only problem. What if the majority of the nodes are from the NSA?
- cphoover 8y ago
  Is there any circumstantial or direct evidence to support that or is that just speculation? If confidence is decreased in the network (e.g. due to an intelligence leak) there is no reason a new network could not supplant it
- belorn 8y ago
  > What if the majority of the nodes are from the NSA? While nothing can prove definitively anything, we do have https://metrics.torproject.org/bubbles.html#country https://metrics.torproject.org/bubbles.html#country and the directory of relay nodes are in the open. One can simply pull the list and compare them to any geo-ip database.
  - jacobwg 8y ago
    I think this claim is about nodes controlled by the NSA, not about nodes housed inside the US. Presumably the NSA could be in control of servers hosted in other geographies.
walrus01 8y ago
The easiest way is to just run a fuckton of exit nodes, and do traffic analysis. With a $20 million annual budget to buy commercial hosting services/colo from ISPs worldwide I could easily have >50% of all high bandwidth exit nodes in existence. That's chump change for a national intelligence agency of a five eyes nation.
- TLAFanBoy 8y ago
  Consider that the Tor Foundation itself may have been started by NSA agents and collaborators. Tor was originally invented for the US Navy, after all. There's a foundation that provides legal representation to "average people" who want to run Tor exit nodes. I read a study of Tor exit nodes in Germany and they are all financed and legally represented by a foundation that, to my eyes at least, is obviously a CIA front. The CIA has been doing things like this since forever. Many of the "storied journalists" of the late 20th century were CIA propagandists. It would be trivially easy for the CIA to turn one of their own assets into a "privacy celebrity." They would go around giving conferences to "privacy advocates" and techies, spinning yarns about their "dedication to user privacy" and the average person would believe it. In fact, the CIA, in the 1950s, used a personality test heuristic that could identify narcissists and liars and would recruit these people to insert into various "movements." I actually do find it rather amusing when I read comments from seemingly well meaning techies praising some celebrity "privacy activist" that travels around the country giving TED talks and the like, promoting various privacy technology initiatives, never once even considering that it's quite likely that celebrity is working for the NSA and simply mouths all the "progressive" and "cyber-libertarian" talking points that sell the idea to idealists. Idealists are easily manipulated because they "want to believe." The Three Letter Agencies are "people hackers" more than "technology hackers" and the average techie-type doesn't have a clue. tl;dr the entire "electronic privacy movement" is likely astroturf run by the intelligence community.
  - mimixco 8y ago
    Very true. I'd recommend Yasha Levine's (the post author's) book Surveillance Valley for anyone interested in this topic. You'll notice any web posts about "how to get on the dark web" suggest Tor. Uh, huh.
mimixco 8y ago
It's by operating the exit nodes that they can see the traffic.

amadeuspagel 8y ago

For this to work, you'd convince millions of people to use your forked protocol. A network that only you and your friends use doesn't give you much anonymity.

uberswe 8y ago

Sure but it's a lot of code to go through and it's not the only problem. What if the majority of the nodes are from the NSA?

cphoover 8y ago
Is there any circumstantial or direct evidence to support that or is that just speculation? If confidence is decreased in the network (e.g. due to an intelligence leak) there is no reason a new network could not supplant it
belorn 8y ago
> What if the majority of the nodes are from the NSA? While nothing can prove definitively anything, we do have https://metrics.torproject.org/bubbles.html#country https://metrics.torproject.org/bubbles.html#country and the directory of relay nodes are in the open. One can simply pull the list and compare them to any geo-ip database.
- jacobwg 8y ago
  I think this claim is about nodes controlled by the NSA, not about nodes housed inside the US. Presumably the NSA could be in control of servers hosted in other geographies.

walrus01 8y ago

The easiest way is to just run a fuckton of exit nodes, and do traffic analysis. With a $20 million annual budget to buy commercial hosting services/colo from ISPs worldwide I could easily have >50% of all high bandwidth exit nodes in existence. That's chump change for a national intelligence agency of a five eyes nation.

TLAFanBoy 8y ago
Consider that the Tor Foundation itself may have been started by NSA agents and collaborators. Tor was originally invented for the US Navy, after all. There's a foundation that provides legal representation to "average people" who want to run Tor exit nodes. I read a study of Tor exit nodes in Germany and they are all financed and legally represented by a foundation that, to my eyes at least, is obviously a CIA front. The CIA has been doing things like this since forever. Many of the "storied journalists" of the late 20th century were CIA propagandists. It would be trivially easy for the CIA to turn one of their own assets into a "privacy celebrity." They would go around giving conferences to "privacy advocates" and techies, spinning yarns about their "dedication to user privacy" and the average person would believe it. In fact, the CIA, in the 1950s, used a personality test heuristic that could identify narcissists and liars and would recruit these people to insert into various "movements." I actually do find it rather amusing when I read comments from seemingly well meaning techies praising some celebrity "privacy activist" that travels around the country giving TED talks and the like, promoting various privacy technology initiatives, never once even considering that it's quite likely that celebrity is working for the NSA and simply mouths all the "progressive" and "cyber-libertarian" talking points that sell the idea to idealists. Idealists are easily manipulated because they "want to believe." The Three Letter Agencies are "people hackers" more than "technology hackers" and the average techie-type doesn't have a clue. tl;dr the entire "electronic privacy movement" is likely astroturf run by the intelligence community.
- mimixco 8y ago
  Very true. I'd recommend Yasha Levine's (the post author's) book Surveillance Valley for anyone interested in this topic. You'll notice any web posts about "how to get on the dark web" suggest Tor. Uh, huh.

mimixco 8y ago

It's by operating the exit nodes that they can see the traffic.