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Ulbricht was grossly incompetent, they didn't need a special attack on Tor to unmask someone who asks questions about connecting to Tor from a public StackOverf

Ulbricht was grossly incompetent, they didn't need a special attack on Tor to unmask someone who asks questions about connecting to Tor from a public StackOverflow account in their real name.

bin0 7y ago
He really did that? Jeez, you're right. Still, such attacks have doubtless been used before. Even if they haven't broken the core protocol, I'd assume they've got a few zero-days sitting around.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  We do know that the US government used a Flash applet to deanonymise a lot of Tor Browser users. It was revealed in some lawsuit I think.
- somethingnot 7y ago
  He did a lot of stupid stuff. Like logging into SilkRoad from a public library. FBI agents were at the next table.
  - dontbenebby 7y ago
    He logged in in public a lot. They were able to correlate him opening laptop/joining wifi with their suspect account signing into Silk Road.
- stordoff 7y ago
  Freedom Hosting is a good example of using alternative attacks to sidestep Tor: > News reports linked a Firefox browser vulnerability to a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operation targeting Freedom Hosting's owner, Eric Eoin Marques. In August 2013, it was discovered that the Firefox browsers in many older versions of the Tor Browser Bundle were vulnerable to a JavaScript attack, as NoScript was not enabled by default. This attack was being exploited to send users' MAC and IP addresses and Windows computer names to the attackers. The FBI acknowledged they were responsible for the attack in a September 12, 2013 court filing in Dublin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Hosting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Hosting
dontbenebby 7y ago
I agree on the competency assessment, butI think the issue was plugging the service using his gmail IIRC. (Not just that he posted about Tor). IIRC they were able to track down the first mention of the site and it was from an account tied to Ross. Plenty of noncriminals are Tor users and post about Tor - myself included.

Ulbricht was grossly incompetent, they didn't need a special attack on Tor to unmask someone who asks questions about connecting to Tor from a public StackOverflow account in their real name.

bin0 7y ago

He really did that? Jeez, you're right. Still, such attacks have doubtless been used before. Even if they haven't broken the core protocol, I'd assume they've got a few zero-days sitting around.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
We do know that the US government used a Flash applet to deanonymise a lot of Tor Browser users. It was revealed in some lawsuit I think.
somethingnot 7y ago
He did a lot of stupid stuff. Like logging into SilkRoad from a public library. FBI agents were at the next table.
- dontbenebby 7y ago
  He logged in in public a lot. They were able to correlate him opening laptop/joining wifi with their suspect account signing into Silk Road.
stordoff 7y ago
Freedom Hosting is a good example of using alternative attacks to sidestep Tor: > News reports linked a Firefox browser vulnerability to a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operation targeting Freedom Hosting's owner, Eric Eoin Marques. In August 2013, it was discovered that the Firefox browsers in many older versions of the Tor Browser Bundle were vulnerable to a JavaScript attack, as NoScript was not enabled by default. This attack was being exploited to send users' MAC and IP addresses and Windows computer names to the attackers. The FBI acknowledged they were responsible for the attack in a September 12, 2013 court filing in Dublin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Hosting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Hosting

dontbenebby 7y ago

I agree on the competency assessment, butI think the issue was plugging the service using his gmail IIRC. (Not just that he posted about Tor). IIRC they were able to track down the first mention of the site and it was from an account tied to Ross. Plenty of noncriminals are Tor users and post about Tor - myself included.