4 ms·

I like the idea that some agents are regularly using Tor, whilst others are asking the Tor guy if he can track Tor users...

• morsch 14y ago
  I'm not sure quite what they're using it for, though. I suppose some sites block .gov IP ranges, but you'd think they could easily proxy via some innocuous host provided by a commercial provider.
  • derrida 14y ago
    Law enforcement have for decades been anonymous, wearing plain clothes & hiding behind false identities in efforts to catch criminals. Tor just gives them digital plain clothes. If they were going through an open HTTP proxy, that box better have a decently network facing attack surface (unlikely). Sure, it's the same deal with Tor, except you have to pwn about 2/3rd of the network (4000+ boxes) before you know about the equivalent of pwning 1 sole proxy. Keep in mind there is a good mix of software, a whole variety of kernels etc. If you have one of the less common architectures around, consider running a Tor node on it :-) Then we get a mix against random machine-code backdoors too.
    • dmix 14y ago
      Another good reason might be because there are a ton of illegal onion sites on Tor that they are investigating.
      • derrida 14y ago
        Sure, but that is a newer feature, and Roger Dingledine has been giving these talks to law enforcement for some years (the earliest I am aware of is 2008).
    • ChrisWoodall 14y ago
      >If they were going through an open HTTP proxy, that box better have a decently network facing attack surface (unlikely). Sure, it's the same deal with Tor, except you have to pwn about 2/3rd of the network (4000+ boxes) before you know about the equivalent of pwning 1 sole proxy. Can you go into more detail about what you are saying? I'm sure you could drop a- ADOBE, Active-X, Java, ect- 0-day on a page and pwn said box. You can also send payloads to/from TOR; although there are limited transfer protocols you can use. The whole point of TOR is to try to anonymize you. It's not going to save you from getting owned.
    • voltagex_ 14y ago
      I don't have the bandwidth available, but I'm willing to ship a Raspberry Pi to someone who does. Someone should start the TorPiDo project :P
      • derrida 14y ago
        Maybe that someone is you? Join the tor-talk list and just do it :-)
  • cjbprime 14y ago
    They're not using it to evade website blocks, they're using it to anonymize themselves and evade being identified as FBI agents.