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Could these be attempts at data mining for unmasking Tor users?
by fefe23 3y ago
Could these be attempts at data mining for unmasking Tor users?
- wood_spirit 3y agoBack in 2017 the German BND was revealed to have a history with that: https://netzpolitik.org/2017/secret-documents-reveal-german-foreign-spy-agency-bnd-attacks-the-anonymity-network-tor-and-advises-not-to-use-it/ https://netzpolitik.org/2017/secret-documents-reveal-german-...
- ChuckNorris89 3y agoI would be shocked if any intelligence service in the world wouldn't have their hands in that, even in the most respected democracies. Infiltrating "underground" networks and communities, and breaking encryption, is literally their job. Especially now that there's a war on our borders, the spooks have a plethora of reasons to use to justify their invasiveness. We just need to make sure to keep them accountable, which is the tricky part, as their work is always classified and our human and privacy rights often clash with their jobs, so unless any whistleblower comes through we might never know the extent of their rule breaking.
- Grimburger 3y agoSeems most likely, either by academics or government. Not really the most subtle way about it though and likely to face some response. I'd assume both have the capability to run a fairly accurate simulated network without anyone noticing so it's a bit strange.
- Blahah 3y agoI doubt it's either of those - it would be extremely unethical and illegal for academics to do, and governments don't need to take this approach because they have a bunch of systemic attacks that are less obvious. Perhaps someone with a botnet looking to sell unmasking, which has been popping up as a service recently. Or trying to use it against a specific DWM or vendor.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago> it would be extremely unethical and illegal for academics to do Nothing illegal about it.
- carstenhag 3y agoHugely depends on the country. Don't assume the law you know, to apply here
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoCan you give just one example of a country with a law making it illegal for academics conducting research to attempt to demask tor users?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deely3 3y agoEU? Basically researchers tries to get PII from people connected to Tor without consent of these people.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoThat's an interesting argument. Not sure it would hold up. I don't think an IP alone counts as PII, since the ISP would have to be queried to actually get any contact info.
- thissitesucks__ 3y ago[dead]
- addandsubtract 3y agoIP addresses are PII under GDPR.
- reaperman 3y agoCould it be someone using Hetzner?
- treprinum 3y agoWould regularly changing circuits/identities mitigate this? E.g., pressing ctrl/cmd + shift + L every few minutes?
- topynate 3y agoIt's not clear to me how you'd do that with clients, rather than relays.
- hattmall 3y agoDDOS a hidden service and track the request spike through your exit nodes. I think this is how the original silk road was investigated.
- thissitesucks__ 3y agoSilk Road was a hidden service so exit nodes were not involved (they would use rendezvous points). If my recollection from American Kingpin is correct, Silk Road was caught because it leaked its IP address in error messages, and Ulbricht posted questions about bitcoin on Stack Overflow using the same name as the bitcointalk post announcing Silk Road. Its clearnet IP was visible for almost the entire lifespan of the site, I believe.
- frankfrankfrank 3y ago[dead]
- yunohn 3y agoIt’s quite an interesting spike, though I doubt that such an operation would be so obviously.