4 ms·

Now the other end of that tunnel still uniquely identifies you. It helps in some adversary models, but not many or all. I work for the Navy. The Naval Research

Now the other end of that tunnel still uniquely identifies you. It helps in some adversary models, but not many or all. I work for the Navy. The Naval Research Lab where Tor and onion routing was started. I wrote a FAQ to respond to these concerns on Reddit here[0]. AMA if you want. [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/kdjrxa/tor_was_started_and_funded_by_us_navy_how_can_you/gfxd72i/ https://old.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/kdjrxa/tor_was_star...

cabirum 4y ago
Thanks for an interesting read! Now, time for a thought experiment. Imagine Tor was instead developed by Russian researchers working for Russian ministry of defense at the time. Would you use it to visit rt.com blocked in your country?
- system33- 4y ago
  Sure. The funding was secured to protect $military comms. Allegedly the $military actively uses it, so it better be actually secure, especially when malicious foreign enemy actors have had two decades to study it. Academics have studied it to death, and some of their discovered attacks have actually resulted in transitioned improvements. I myself have the benefit of (1) being extremely familiar with how it works on the lowest level and what its weaknesses are, and (2) not considering myself a target worth my $govt's close monitoring.
  - cabirum 4y ago
    Your point makes sense. My distrust comes from the fact that $militaries keep separate versions for toys they export/publish vs toys they use. See: M1 Abrams export variants, cryptography export laws (limited key lengths; restrictions mostly lifted), etc.
    - vbezhenar 4y ago
      Tor is open source and protocol is open. You can hardly make different versions of it. I can't imagine that at least. The point of Tor is that US spy can send his traffic to whitehose.gov from Moscow and his bytes will not be different from bytes of thousands of drug addicts looking for some marihuana on dark web. FBI won't be able to tell a difference. That's the whole point of Tor. It makes no sense to maintain two versions of tor networks or something like that.

cabirum 4y ago

Thanks for an interesting read! Now, time for a thought experiment. Imagine Tor was instead developed by Russian researchers working for Russian ministry of defense at the time. Would you use it to visit rt.com blocked in your country?

system33- 4y ago
Sure. The funding was secured to protect $military comms. Allegedly the $military actively uses it, so it better be actually secure, especially when malicious foreign enemy actors have had two decades to study it. Academics have studied it to death, and some of their discovered attacks have actually resulted in transitioned improvements. I myself have the benefit of (1) being extremely familiar with how it works on the lowest level and what its weaknesses are, and (2) not considering myself a target worth my $govt's close monitoring.
- cabirum 4y ago
  Your point makes sense. My distrust comes from the fact that $militaries keep separate versions for toys they export/publish vs toys they use. See: M1 Abrams export variants, cryptography export laws (limited key lengths; restrictions mostly lifted), etc.
  - vbezhenar 4y ago
    Tor is open source and protocol is open. You can hardly make different versions of it. I can't imagine that at least. The point of Tor is that US spy can send his traffic to whitehose.gov from Moscow and his bytes will not be different from bytes of thousands of drug addicts looking for some marihuana on dark web. FBI won't be able to tell a difference. That's the whole point of Tor. It makes no sense to maintain two versions of tor networks or something like that.