6 ms·

What makes you believe that?

zwnow 1y ago
Read some story about some authority having set up tons of servers within the tor network to bust some criminal activity effectively making it not anonymous anymore. Was a while back on HN
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  The feds and other equivalent agencies in other countries have been running exit nodes for years, but its still better than most solutions even if not perfect. Anyone who has gotten caught though likely wasn't because of any flaws in Tor (or said exit nodes) but because of other lapses in OpSec. That being said, yes, feds can de-anonymize traffic, probably reliably at this point. There are only about 7-8000 active nodes, most in data centers. The less nodes you hop through, the more likely that traffic can be traced back to the entry point (guard node), and combined with timing can be reasonably traced back to the user. Tor works best with many, many nodes, and a minimum of three. There's not as many nodes as there needs to be so quite often it's only 3 you are going through (guard node/entry point, middle node, exit node) Plus browsing habits can also be revealing. Just because someone is using Tor doesn't mean they also have disabled javascript, blocked cookies, aren't logging into accounts, etc.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    > Anyone who has gotten caught though likely wasn't because of any flaws in Tor (or said exit nodes) but because of other lapses in OpSec. There have been some cases where some consider the "other lapses in OpSec" to be parallel construction to disguise a Tor vulnerability/breach, and others where the government has declined to prosecute because they'd have to reveal how they know. If Tor were compromised, we'd likely not know. It's highly likely that it's fine for "normal people" things.
    - ls612 1y ago
      At least back in the Snowden days it was very unreliable for the US to deanonymize Tor traffic based on those documents.
      - lenerdenator 1y ago
        That was over a decade ago. They've almost certainly progressed since. ... now my back hurts and I want the damn kids off my lawn.
        ls612 1y ago
        I mean if anything it’s harder today in many ways for the government than it was during the Snowden days, because that prompted tech people to take internet security seriously. Look at the cost trends for 0days over the past ten years.
  - openasocket 1y ago
    Does controlling exit nodes necessarily help with deanonimizing? You would need control of the internal nodes for classic de-anonymization, or monitoring of both the exit nodes and the originating network for timing attacks. Also, exit nodes aren’t involved in hidden services. That 7-8000 figure you quoted: is that just exit nodes, or all nodes? My understanding was there aren’t a ton of exit nodes because anyone operating an exit node is liable to get harassed by people impacted by any malicious traffic originating from Tor. But that isn’t really an issue for internal nodes, and so there are more of them
    - thewebguyd 1y ago
      Controlling an exit node alone doesn't help, but controlling both entry and exit nodes does. The tor project has network stats on their website: https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html Looks like about 8,000 relays, inclusive of entry and exit nodes. Looks like about 2,500 exit nodes, and ~5,000 guard nodes. With that few I'd say it's reasonable to assume that a large number of both entry and exit are controlled by government agencies, at least enough to reliable to conduct timing attacks against a specific target they are interested in.
    - gausswho 1y ago
      Am also interested in the current understanding of culpability in the US for operating an exit node.
      - thewebguyd 1y ago
        > Am also interested in the current understanding of culpability in the US for operating an exit node. It's a little ambiguous. Section 230 (which continues to be under attack) provides some legal immunity, along with the DMCA is a safe harbor against copyright infringement claims for the Tor relay operator. Running a middle relay is generally fine and safe. But, running an exit relay is risky. Even if you can't be held legally liable for the traffic coming from the exit, you could still get raided, and it has happened before where exit node operators have been raided after the traffic coming out of it was attributed to the node owner. That being said, it's legal to run an exit node (for now). The problem is more so dealing with the inevitable law enforcement subpoenas or seizures, and having the money and resources to prove you are innocent.
  - costco 1y ago
    This page on the mailing list has links to cases of people who were caught because of an unknown flaw in Tor: https://archive.torproject.org/websites/lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024-September/021859.html https://archive.torproject.org/websites/lists.torproject.org... I can't find a link, but I think people have done simulations and the privacy benefits of more hops are not as great as one might think. If you control the guard and exit, then traffic confirmation is relatively easy by just looking at timing and volume of traffic no matter how many hops are in between.
- 8kingDreux8 1y ago
  I believe this is the thread you're talking about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41584428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41584428
  - 8organicbits 1y ago
    The article talks about a user who was using very old software, which seems like a pretty straightforward mistake. There's a bunch of speculation in the comments about other things, but I don't really see sources cited, so it's hard to tell what informs those opinions.
- chews 1y ago
  It was always that way, Ross Ulbrect was connected to his dark website by tracing via exit nodes. Tor was always a government tool.
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    > Ross Ulbrect was connected to his dark website by tracing via exit nodes Ulbricht wasn't caught because of flaws in Tor, but he made other mistakes. He posted stuff on LinkedIn alluding to his activities, he used a real photo on his fake IDs to rent servers, he used his real name, posting a question on stack over flow about running a Tor service, he posted his personal gmail, looked for couriers on Google+, and lastly paid an undercover cop for a hit. As for getting his location, once the feds gained acccess to silk road, they matched up activity logs, his posting habits were consistent with being in the pacific time zone, and they matched up his user name between his posts on silk road as altoid and he reused the same screenname, associated with his gmail address and full name, on other websites. A series of stupid opsec mistakes got him caught, not Tor.
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      All of this should serve as a reminder that if .gov really, really wants you, they've got you. Unless, of course, they want everybody, which even they don't have the resources to handle.
      - mburns 1y ago
        It should (also) serve as a reminder that OpSec is important.
        throwaway290 1y ago
        Maybe a reminder to also not sell heavy drugs to children or to order murder for hire?
        cluckindan 1y ago
Ray20 1y ago
The observable world around us. In a world where Tor is not a honeypot of some three letter agency, there are implementations of projects like Jim Bell's Assassination Politics. In a world where Tor is not a honeypot its use would be banned, much like the use of Tornado Cash was banned and shut down until the secret services took control of it. And we obviously don't live in such world.
- 8organicbits 1y ago
  > its use would be banned There are many places in the world where direct access to Tor is blocked. There are many countries where use of a VPN is illegal, VPNs are required to log by law, etc. I disagree with this premise.
  - trod1234 1y ago
    Those countries seek destructive control of all within its sphere of influence. There are generally two types of countries, those that seek agency, independence, and freedom of rational thought and action; which requires privacy, and there are those that seek ultimate control, imposing dependence, coercion and corruption of reason; from the top down. The cultures that seek total control generally fall under totalism and are parasitic in nature. The ones that seek agency, freedom, and independence, Protean.
  - nickslaughter02 1y ago
    EU countries will soon join the club. "VPN services may soon become a new target of EU lawmakers after being deemed a "key challenge"" https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-services-may-soon-become-a-new-target-of-eu-lawmakers-after-being-deemed-a-key-challenge https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-servi...
  - kelipso 1y ago
    Probably because those governments don’t control the honeypot.

Read some story about some authority having set up tons of servers within the tor network to bust some criminal activity effectively making it not anonymous anymore. Was a while back on HN

thewebguyd 1y ago
The feds and other equivalent agencies in other countries have been running exit nodes for years, but its still better than most solutions even if not perfect. Anyone who has gotten caught though likely wasn't because of any flaws in Tor (or said exit nodes) but because of other lapses in OpSec. That being said, yes, feds can de-anonymize traffic, probably reliably at this point. There are only about 7-8000 active nodes, most in data centers. The less nodes you hop through, the more likely that traffic can be traced back to the entry point (guard node), and combined with timing can be reasonably traced back to the user. Tor works best with many, many nodes, and a minimum of three. There's not as many nodes as there needs to be so quite often it's only 3 you are going through (guard node/entry point, middle node, exit node) Plus browsing habits can also be revealing. Just because someone is using Tor doesn't mean they also have disabled javascript, blocked cookies, aren't logging into accounts, etc.
- bombcar 1y ago
  > Anyone who has gotten caught though likely wasn't because of any flaws in Tor (or said exit nodes) but because of other lapses in OpSec. There have been some cases where some consider the "other lapses in OpSec" to be parallel construction to disguise a Tor vulnerability/breach, and others where the government has declined to prosecute because they'd have to reveal how they know. If Tor were compromised, we'd likely not know. It's highly likely that it's fine for "normal people" things.
  - ls612 1y ago
    At least back in the Snowden days it was very unreliable for the US to deanonymize Tor traffic based on those documents.
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      That was over a decade ago. They've almost certainly progressed since. ... now my back hurts and I want the damn kids off my lawn.
      - ls612 1y ago
        I mean if anything it’s harder today in many ways for the government than it was during the Snowden days, because that prompted tech people to take internet security seriously. Look at the cost trends for 0days over the past ten years.
- openasocket 1y ago
  Does controlling exit nodes necessarily help with deanonimizing? You would need control of the internal nodes for classic de-anonymization, or monitoring of both the exit nodes and the originating network for timing attacks. Also, exit nodes aren’t involved in hidden services. That 7-8000 figure you quoted: is that just exit nodes, or all nodes? My understanding was there aren’t a ton of exit nodes because anyone operating an exit node is liable to get harassed by people impacted by any malicious traffic originating from Tor. But that isn’t really an issue for internal nodes, and so there are more of them
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    Controlling an exit node alone doesn't help, but controlling both entry and exit nodes does. The tor project has network stats on their website: https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html Looks like about 8,000 relays, inclusive of entry and exit nodes. Looks like about 2,500 exit nodes, and ~5,000 guard nodes. With that few I'd say it's reasonable to assume that a large number of both entry and exit are controlled by government agencies, at least enough to reliable to conduct timing attacks against a specific target they are interested in.
  - gausswho 1y ago
    Am also interested in the current understanding of culpability in the US for operating an exit node.
    - thewebguyd 1y ago
      > Am also interested in the current understanding of culpability in the US for operating an exit node. It's a little ambiguous. Section 230 (which continues to be under attack) provides some legal immunity, along with the DMCA is a safe harbor against copyright infringement claims for the Tor relay operator. Running a middle relay is generally fine and safe. But, running an exit relay is risky. Even if you can't be held legally liable for the traffic coming from the exit, you could still get raided, and it has happened before where exit node operators have been raided after the traffic coming out of it was attributed to the node owner. That being said, it's legal to run an exit node (for now). The problem is more so dealing with the inevitable law enforcement subpoenas or seizures, and having the money and resources to prove you are innocent.
- costco 1y ago
  This page on the mailing list has links to cases of people who were caught because of an unknown flaw in Tor: https://archive.torproject.org/websites/lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024-September/021859.html https://archive.torproject.org/websites/lists.torproject.org... I can't find a link, but I think people have done simulations and the privacy benefits of more hops are not as great as one might think. If you control the guard and exit, then traffic confirmation is relatively easy by just looking at timing and volume of traffic no matter how many hops are in between.
8kingDreux8 1y ago
I believe this is the thread you're talking about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41584428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41584428
- 8organicbits 1y ago
  The article talks about a user who was using very old software, which seems like a pretty straightforward mistake. There's a bunch of speculation in the comments about other things, but I don't really see sources cited, so it's hard to tell what informs those opinions.
chews 1y ago
It was always that way, Ross Ulbrect was connected to his dark website by tracing via exit nodes. Tor was always a government tool.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  > Ross Ulbrect was connected to his dark website by tracing via exit nodes Ulbricht wasn't caught because of flaws in Tor, but he made other mistakes. He posted stuff on LinkedIn alluding to his activities, he used a real photo on his fake IDs to rent servers, he used his real name, posting a question on stack over flow about running a Tor service, he posted his personal gmail, looked for couriers on Google+, and lastly paid an undercover cop for a hit. As for getting his location, once the feds gained acccess to silk road, they matched up activity logs, his posting habits were consistent with being in the pacific time zone, and they matched up his user name between his posts on silk road as altoid and he reused the same screenname, associated with his gmail address and full name, on other websites. A series of stupid opsec mistakes got him caught, not Tor.
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    All of this should serve as a reminder that if .gov really, really wants you, they've got you. Unless, of course, they want everybody, which even they don't have the resources to handle.
    - mburns 1y ago
      It should (also) serve as a reminder that OpSec is important.
      - throwaway290 1y ago
        Maybe a reminder to also not sell heavy drugs to children or to order murder for hire?
        cluckindan 1y ago

Ray20 1y ago

The observable world around us. In a world where Tor is not a honeypot of some three letter agency, there are implementations of projects like Jim Bell's Assassination Politics. In a world where Tor is not a honeypot its use would be banned, much like the use of Tornado Cash was banned and shut down until the secret services took control of it. And we obviously don't live in such world.

8organicbits 1y ago
> its use would be banned There are many places in the world where direct access to Tor is blocked. There are many countries where use of a VPN is illegal, VPNs are required to log by law, etc. I disagree with this premise.
- trod1234 1y ago
  Those countries seek destructive control of all within its sphere of influence. There are generally two types of countries, those that seek agency, independence, and freedom of rational thought and action; which requires privacy, and there are those that seek ultimate control, imposing dependence, coercion and corruption of reason; from the top down. The cultures that seek total control generally fall under totalism and are parasitic in nature. The ones that seek agency, freedom, and independence, Protean.
- nickslaughter02 1y ago
  EU countries will soon join the club. "VPN services may soon become a new target of EU lawmakers after being deemed a "key challenge"" https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-services-may-soon-become-a-new-target-of-eu-lawmakers-after-being-deemed-a-key-challenge https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-servi...
- kelipso 1y ago
  Probably because those governments don’t control the honeypot.