6 ms·

75% [0] of all Tor nodes are hosted within 14 Eyes [1] countries, so it would actually be quite trivial for the NSA to de-anonymize a Tor user. It baffles me t

75% [0] of all Tor nodes are hosted within 14 Eyes [1] countries, so it would actually be quite trivial for the NSA to de-anonymize a Tor user. It baffles me that Tor Browser doesn't provide an easy way to blacklist relays in those countries. [0] Here, you can do the math yourself: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#aggregate/all https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#aggregate/all [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Fourteen_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Fourteen_Eyes > Edit: For all the cynics and doomsayers here, consider this: Tor has been around for a long time, but there has never been an uptick in arrests that could be correlated to cracking the core anonymity service. If you look closely at the actual high profile cases where people got busted despite using tor, these people always made other mistakes that led authorities to them. Maybe someone, somewhere, has decided that allowing petty criminals to get away with their crimes is worth maintaining the illusion that Tor is truly private. It's also worth noting that it's significantly easier to find the mistakes someone has made that could lead to their identity if you already know their identity.

DabbyDabberson 2y ago
Its important to realize that TOR is primarily funded and controlled by the US Navy. The US benefits from the TOR being private. It provides a channel for operatives to exfiltrate data out of non-NATO countries very easily.
- try_the_bass 2y ago
  > The US benefits from the TOR being private. Slight correction: The US benefits from TOR being private to _everyone but the US_
  - wheelerwj 2y ago
    I’m glad I didn’t have to scroll too far to see your comment. In fact, A major power wins by creating a mote just big enough that only they can cross.
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      everybody does such shenanigans, bro. you don't have to be a major power to do such stunts. everybody and their uncle are already doing it. look into your life to see the truth of this.
- firen777 2y ago
  > It provides a channel for operatives to exfiltrate data out of non-NATO countries very easily. I'm not convinced this is the case. For example China's gfw has been very effective at blocking TOR traffic, and any TOR connection in other countries is like announcing to the government that you are suspicious.
  - literallycancer 2y ago
    How do they see TOR traffic in a TLS tunnel?
    - GuB-42 2y ago
      If you can find TOR nodes, so can the Chinese government. They can then just block these addresses. Furthermore, the great firewall is quite advanced, they use machine learning techniques to detect patterns, so even if it is TLS on port 443, they may be able to detect it after they have gathered enough traffic. There are workarounds of course, but it is not as simple as just using a TLS tunnel.
  - snowwrestler 2y ago
    It’s a little silly to say “for example” and then intentionally pick what is widely known as the most sophisticated and pervasive system for controlling Internet traffic ever created. The parent said “non-NATO countries”… there are 162 of those that are not China. (It’s also a little silly to specify “non-NATO” since U.S. intelligence services have to exfiltrate data from NATO countries too…) To get data out of China, the U.S. undoubtedly has special systems, which are worth the special investment because it’s China.
    - rvba 2y ago
      If weight it by population and importance then China is probably in the top though. I bet western spies spend more time on China than some micro island in the middle of the ocean. Same for Chinese spies probably focus on USA first. Also realistically probably everyone spies everyone and they spy on those micro islands too. But priorities are clear...
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  I dont see how TOR is better than just spinning up a server on the public cloud for each asset. Since each asset would have a different IP they couldnt use one assets knowledge to catch the others. Non-NATO countries tend to monitor internet traffic and so would know if you access TOR.
  - DrillShopper 2y ago
    Servers in the public cloud are a lot easier to do traffic analysis on.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - HDThoreaun 2y ago
      Each server is only used by a single operative though, how do you even find which IP to analyze? The story with Tor and espionage is that if an asset connected to cia website the gov which monitors internet access would know they went to the site. Even if its not a public site they just need to have one operative defect and tell them the site and they can catch all the other operatives who use it. But if everyone connects to a different IP I dont see how traffic analysis helps you discover you is connecting with the cia.
      - immibis 2y ago
        Then you know every time that IP was accessed, the same operative was there.
      - DrillShopper 2y ago
        > But if everyone connects to a different IP I dont see how traffic analysis helps you discover you is connecting with the cia. I assume that they're connecting multiple times with the CIA - it's not just a one and done drop. That's trivial to look at - if you see someone connecting repeatedly to an IP address that doesn't associate with any known website/service and you see them do it consistently then that's suspicious. Maybe if the IP addresses rotated it wouldn't be as noticeable, but if you're going over the clearnet then you can't disguise the IP address you're connecting to (short of proxies but then you're giving up the IP address of the proxies).
- godelski 2y ago
  > the US Navy Tor was made for spies. But you know what's really bad for spies? If accessing a certain IP/protocol/behavior reliably reveal your spy status. For Tor to be effective for hiding spies it has to be used by the public. Even if it's only nefarious actors (say spies + drug dealers + terrorists) it adds noise that the adversary needs to sort through. What I fucking hate about many of these conspiracies is how silly it is once you ever work with or for any government entities. You can't get two police agencies in neighboring cities to communicate with one another. The bureaucrats are fucking slow as shit and egotistical as fuck. It's important to remember that the government and even a single agency (like the NSA) is just as chaotic, disconnected, and full of competing entities as any big tech company has (if not worse). Yeah, most of the NSA is focused offense, but there's groups working on defense. Those groups are 100% at odds. This is true for the 18 intelligence agencies. They have different objectives and many times they are at odds with one another and you bet each one wants to be getting credit for anything. The US involvement should warrant suspicion and with any technology like Tor you should always be paranoid. But it's not proof. Because guess what, the US wants people in other countries to use high levels of encryption to hide from their authoritarian governments while the US can promote democracy movements and help put a friendly leader into a position of power. AT THE SAME TIME they also want to spy on their own people (and there are plenty of people in the gov that don't want this). Inconsistency is the default because it's a bunch of different people with different objectives. So the US gov both wants Tor to be secure and broken at the same time.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    > It's important to remember that the government and even a single agency (like the NSA) is just as chaotic, disconnected, and full of competing entities as any big tech company has (if not worse). And yet even as early as 2003 they were taking a copy of every single bit that ran over the AT&T backbone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A). It's amazing how effective these "chaotic, disconnected, and full of competing entities" can be. We're entirely dependent on whistleblowers willing to risk their lives and freedom to learn about what they're doing to us.
    - 2y ago
- majorchord 2y ago
  You know what else was funded by the US government? Computers, the Internet and GPS. Also Signal (via OTF funded by Congress).
ClumsyPilot 2y ago
> petty criminals to get away with their crimes Like human rights activists, journalists and dissidents in totalitarian countries.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
alphan0n 2y ago
This entirely ignores the fact that traffic to and from onion sites never leaves the Tor network, never utilizes an exit node. It doesn’t matter if a bad actor has control of every exit node if your communications are within the network unless the underlying encryption protocols have been compromised.
- dunghill 2y ago
  But not all traffic goes to onion sites.
  - alphan0n 2y ago
    Right, you shouldn't expect traffic that goes outside the onion network to be secure and anonymous. That's the entire point of onion sites.
amy-petrik-214 2y ago
TOR as it exists now is a honeypot simple as. Same as that documentary called "Benedict Cumberbniamnatch's Great Work" where they cracked the radio signals of the Frenchmen but they had to let the submarine sink so that they knew that the other guy doesn't know that they knew. NSA uses ROT which is TOR-inspired but takes the techniques and incognito aspects 7 or 8 steps ahead.
- Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
  What? Tor is a honeypot? I don't think so. What do you instead expect me to use instead of tor?
  - hkt 2y ago
    I2P, possibly
- widforss 2y ago
  You do know Hitler was the German Reichskanzler, not French?
  - hnbad 2y ago
    I'm assuming the "documentary" was the movie The Imitation Game staring Benedict Cumberbatch. If that's an intentional mistake, I'd guess by "French" they meant Austrian (as Hitler was born in Austria).
keepamovin 2y ago
The original purpose of TOR was to provide agents and handlers with a means of secure communication, allowing them to organize subversive or espionage activities. It was created by the Department of Defense to propagate their interests and spread democracy around the world using these secure capabilities. Given this context, it's not unreasonable to assume that TOR is still being used in a similar manner today. Because of its origins, access to the identities of users on the TOR network—even if they could be de-anonymized—would likely be extremely restricted, compartmentalized, and classified. This would make it much more difficult for such information to be used in law enforcement proceedings. Perhaps that, rather than a technical limitation, is the reason most high-profile arrests related to TOR involve criminals making some other mistake, rather than the security of the network itself being compromised. Additionally, it’s interesting to speculate that some of the secure private defense and intelligence networks—parallel or classified world internets—could themselves be implemented as possibly enhanced forms of TOR. It would make sense that nation-states, through shell companies and other disguises, might run and control many seemingly innocuous machines acting as secure relays in these parallel networks. While I have no data to back this up, it seems logical, given that TOR was originally created by the DoD and then open-sourced. Why wouldn’t they keep something that works, build on it, and enhance it as a means to secure their own global communications?
- headsupernova 2y ago
  Ah yes, 'spread democracy around the world'
  - keepamovin 2y ago
    I appreciate your appreciation of that statement. Thank you. :)
- Xelbair 2y ago
  >spread democracy i have to say that i love that phrase, it is peak propaganda that just works.
  - 2y ago
inquirerGeneral 2y ago
[dead]
majorchord 2y ago
> Maybe someone, somewhere, has decided that allowing petty criminals to get away with their crimes is worth maintaining the illusion that Tor is truly private. This is what I believe. If they do have a way to track people, it wouldn't be worth blowing their cover for small stuff that wasn't a ridiculously huge national security threat that they could afford to throw away 20+ years of work for. In fact there have been court cases that were thrown out because the government refused to reveal how their information was obtained... I think that usually means they're hiding it on purpose for a bigger cause. I also wouldn't be surprised if multiple SSL CAs are secretly compromised for the same reason.

DabbyDabberson 2y ago

Its important to realize that TOR is primarily funded and controlled by the US Navy. The US benefits from the TOR being private. It provides a channel for operatives to exfiltrate data out of non-NATO countries very easily.

try_the_bass 2y ago
> The US benefits from the TOR being private. Slight correction: The US benefits from TOR being private to _everyone but the US_
- wheelerwj 2y ago
  I’m glad I didn’t have to scroll too far to see your comment. In fact, A major power wins by creating a mote just big enough that only they can cross.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    everybody does such shenanigans, bro. you don't have to be a major power to do such stunts. everybody and their uncle are already doing it. look into your life to see the truth of this.
firen777 2y ago
> It provides a channel for operatives to exfiltrate data out of non-NATO countries very easily. I'm not convinced this is the case. For example China's gfw has been very effective at blocking TOR traffic, and any TOR connection in other countries is like announcing to the government that you are suspicious.
- literallycancer 2y ago
  How do they see TOR traffic in a TLS tunnel?
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    If you can find TOR nodes, so can the Chinese government. They can then just block these addresses. Furthermore, the great firewall is quite advanced, they use machine learning techniques to detect patterns, so even if it is TLS on port 443, they may be able to detect it after they have gathered enough traffic. There are workarounds of course, but it is not as simple as just using a TLS tunnel.
- snowwrestler 2y ago
  It’s a little silly to say “for example” and then intentionally pick what is widely known as the most sophisticated and pervasive system for controlling Internet traffic ever created. The parent said “non-NATO countries”… there are 162 of those that are not China. (It’s also a little silly to specify “non-NATO” since U.S. intelligence services have to exfiltrate data from NATO countries too…) To get data out of China, the U.S. undoubtedly has special systems, which are worth the special investment because it’s China.
  - rvba 2y ago
    If weight it by population and importance then China is probably in the top though. I bet western spies spend more time on China than some micro island in the middle of the ocean. Same for Chinese spies probably focus on USA first. Also realistically probably everyone spies everyone and they spy on those micro islands too. But priorities are clear...
HDThoreaun 2y ago
I dont see how TOR is better than just spinning up a server on the public cloud for each asset. Since each asset would have a different IP they couldnt use one assets knowledge to catch the others. Non-NATO countries tend to monitor internet traffic and so would know if you access TOR.
- DrillShopper 2y ago
  Servers in the public cloud are a lot easier to do traffic analysis on.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    Each server is only used by a single operative though, how do you even find which IP to analyze? The story with Tor and espionage is that if an asset connected to cia website the gov which monitors internet access would know they went to the site. Even if its not a public site they just need to have one operative defect and tell them the site and they can catch all the other operatives who use it. But if everyone connects to a different IP I dont see how traffic analysis helps you discover you is connecting with the cia.
    - immibis 2y ago
      Then you know every time that IP was accessed, the same operative was there.
    - DrillShopper 2y ago
      > But if everyone connects to a different IP I dont see how traffic analysis helps you discover you is connecting with the cia. I assume that they're connecting multiple times with the CIA - it's not just a one and done drop. That's trivial to look at - if you see someone connecting repeatedly to an IP address that doesn't associate with any known website/service and you see them do it consistently then that's suspicious. Maybe if the IP addresses rotated it wouldn't be as noticeable, but if you're going over the clearnet then you can't disguise the IP address you're connecting to (short of proxies but then you're giving up the IP address of the proxies).
godelski 2y ago
> the US Navy Tor was made for spies. But you know what's really bad for spies? If accessing a certain IP/protocol/behavior reliably reveal your spy status. For Tor to be effective for hiding spies it has to be used by the public. Even if it's only nefarious actors (say spies + drug dealers + terrorists) it adds noise that the adversary needs to sort through. What I fucking hate about many of these conspiracies is how silly it is once you ever work with or for any government entities. You can't get two police agencies in neighboring cities to communicate with one another. The bureaucrats are fucking slow as shit and egotistical as fuck. It's important to remember that the government and even a single agency (like the NSA) is just as chaotic, disconnected, and full of competing entities as any big tech company has (if not worse). Yeah, most of the NSA is focused offense, but there's groups working on defense. Those groups are 100% at odds. This is true for the 18 intelligence agencies. They have different objectives and many times they are at odds with one another and you bet each one wants to be getting credit for anything. The US involvement should warrant suspicion and with any technology like Tor you should always be paranoid. But it's not proof. Because guess what, the US wants people in other countries to use high levels of encryption to hide from their authoritarian governments while the US can promote democracy movements and help put a friendly leader into a position of power. AT THE SAME TIME they also want to spy on their own people (and there are plenty of people in the gov that don't want this). Inconsistency is the default because it's a bunch of different people with different objectives. So the US gov both wants Tor to be secure and broken at the same time.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > It's important to remember that the government and even a single agency (like the NSA) is just as chaotic, disconnected, and full of competing entities as any big tech company has (if not worse). And yet even as early as 2003 they were taking a copy of every single bit that ran over the AT&T backbone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A). It's amazing how effective these "chaotic, disconnected, and full of competing entities" can be. We're entirely dependent on whistleblowers willing to risk their lives and freedom to learn about what they're doing to us.
  - 2y ago
majorchord 2y ago
You know what else was funded by the US government? Computers, the Internet and GPS. Also Signal (via OTF funded by Congress).

ClumsyPilot 2y ago

> petty criminals to get away with their crimes Like human rights activists, journalists and dissidents in totalitarian countries.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

alphan0n 2y ago

This entirely ignores the fact that traffic to and from onion sites never leaves the Tor network, never utilizes an exit node. It doesn’t matter if a bad actor has control of every exit node if your communications are within the network unless the underlying encryption protocols have been compromised.

dunghill 2y ago
But not all traffic goes to onion sites.
- alphan0n 2y ago
  Right, you shouldn't expect traffic that goes outside the onion network to be secure and anonymous. That's the entire point of onion sites.

amy-petrik-214 2y ago

TOR as it exists now is a honeypot simple as. Same as that documentary called "Benedict Cumberbniamnatch's Great Work" where they cracked the radio signals of the Frenchmen but they had to let the submarine sink so that they knew that the other guy doesn't know that they knew. NSA uses ROT which is TOR-inspired but takes the techniques and incognito aspects 7 or 8 steps ahead.

Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
What? Tor is a honeypot? I don't think so. What do you instead expect me to use instead of tor?
- hkt 2y ago
  I2P, possibly
widforss 2y ago
You do know Hitler was the German Reichskanzler, not French?
- hnbad 2y ago
  I'm assuming the "documentary" was the movie The Imitation Game staring Benedict Cumberbatch. If that's an intentional mistake, I'd guess by "French" they meant Austrian (as Hitler was born in Austria).

keepamovin 2y ago

The original purpose of TOR was to provide agents and handlers with a means of secure communication, allowing them to organize subversive or espionage activities. It was created by the Department of Defense to propagate their interests and spread democracy around the world using these secure capabilities. Given this context, it's not unreasonable to assume that TOR is still being used in a similar manner today. Because of its origins, access to the identities of users on the TOR network—even if they could be de-anonymized—would likely be extremely restricted, compartmentalized, and classified. This would make it much more difficult for such information to be used in law enforcement proceedings. Perhaps that, rather than a technical limitation, is the reason most high-profile arrests related to TOR involve criminals making some other mistake, rather than the security of the network itself being compromised. Additionally, it’s interesting to speculate that some of the secure private defense and intelligence networks—parallel or classified world internets—could themselves be implemented as possibly enhanced forms of TOR. It would make sense that nation-states, through shell companies and other disguises, might run and control many seemingly innocuous machines acting as secure relays in these parallel networks. While I have no data to back this up, it seems logical, given that TOR was originally created by the DoD and then open-sourced. Why wouldn’t they keep something that works, build on it, and enhance it as a means to secure their own global communications?

headsupernova 2y ago
Ah yes, 'spread democracy around the world'
- keepamovin 2y ago
  I appreciate your appreciation of that statement. Thank you. :)
Xelbair 2y ago
>spread democracy i have to say that i love that phrase, it is peak propaganda that just works.
- 2y ago

inquirerGeneral 2y ago

[dead]

majorchord 2y ago

> Maybe someone, somewhere, has decided that allowing petty criminals to get away with their crimes is worth maintaining the illusion that Tor is truly private. This is what I believe. If they do have a way to track people, it wouldn't be worth blowing their cover for small stuff that wasn't a ridiculously huge national security threat that they could afford to throw away 20+ years of work for. In fact there have been court cases that were thrown out because the government refused to reveal how their information was obtained... I think that usually means they're hiding it on purpose for a bigger cause. I also wouldn't be surprised if multiple SSL CAs are secretly compromised for the same reason.