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1984 wasn't supposed to be a manual god damn it! (This is how the main character was caught. He believed in a 'alternative' system. Much like how we like to pre

1984 wasn't supposed to be a manual god damn it! (This is how the main character was caught. He believed in a 'alternative' system. Much like how we like to pretend TOR is untouchable)

VMG 13y ago
this has nothing to do with 1984 -- DPR was very sloppy, this is an indication that TOR works. I'm betting a dozen entrepreneurs are looking at this right now thinking "I can do this better" and are designing their systems as this is happening.
- butler14 13y ago
  exactly what i was thinking, the amount of work involved despite some pretty horrendous slip-ups, implies TOR + basic common sense can be a pretty powerful thing
  - debaserab2 13y ago
    In principle I agree with what you're saying, but I think it's harder than you realize to maintain basic common sense all the time. People do irrational things, all the time. Even the normal ones.
    - XorNot 13y ago
      Also anyone talking about it here on HackerNews is already failing at it.
      - makomk 13y ago
        Meh. The FBI and DEA can investigate my Silk Road seller account all they want and they won't find anything interesting.
    - stmartin 13y ago
      He can hide behind his libertarian agenda all he wants, but instinctively he knew what he was doing was wrong at multiple levels, legally and above all, morally. Otherwise he wouldn't be operating on Tor..... or hiding anything.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  That's what they want you to think, so they can snare you in their FBI ran honeypot... All joking aside, I hope you're right, and that the next few SR alternative sites figure out how to get it right, and that Tor itself isn't fundamentally broken by the FBI.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - bigiain 13y ago
    Agreed - I'd like to think both this, and the Lavabit being coerced to hand over private SSL keys news elsewhere today - indicates that TOR and SSL are still "as secure as needed" against even targeted FBI attacks. Unfortunately that all now needs to be viewed with the suspicion of "parallel reconstruction" - I'm somewhat less convinced that if the NSA targeted someone specific that SSL and TOR would resist their efforts (and that for something like Silk Road, that the NSA wouldn't happily break and read everything DPR did over his SSL secured TOR connections, and "share" just the right tidbits with the FBI for them to go and create a plausible explanation involving google searches and old forum posts). Welcome to the post Snowden era - where we know that our governments not only don't have our best interests in mind, but have sophisticated programs in place to lie to us about how they arrive at the evidence they present (in those annoying occasions where they have to use courts who aren't just rubber-stamping everything they're told too). (Edit: on reflection, it's kinda sad that this might well have been good detective work by diligent, talented, and persistent FBI investigators doing exactly what he taxpayer employs them to do - but that effort is now permanently under the dark cloud of suspicion of unconstitutional dragnet surveillance and morally corrupt processes like "parallel reconstruction".)
  - VMG 13y ago
    The question is - what was the service provided by Silk Road at the end of the day, and what can be decentralized? The trust and review system, the search engine and the communication platform can all run independently and don't need to happen on the same platform. The web interface can be provided by an open-source turn-key package, so the next DPRs only need to figure out the hosting.
- deathhand 13y ago
  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/tor-attacks-nsa-users-online-anonymity http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/tor-attacks-nsa...
ramchip 13y ago
> Much like how we like to pretend TOR is untouchable Who are you talking about? Everywhere I look people are saying tor is certainly broken, the NSA is watching us, etc.

1984 wasn't supposed to be a manual god damn it! (This is how the main character was caught. He believed in a 'alternative' system. Much like how we like to pretend TOR is untouchable)

VMG 13y ago

this has nothing to do with 1984 -- DPR was very sloppy, this is an indication that TOR works. I'm betting a dozen entrepreneurs are looking at this right now thinking "I can do this better" and are designing their systems as this is happening.

butler14 13y ago
exactly what i was thinking, the amount of work involved despite some pretty horrendous slip-ups, implies TOR + basic common sense can be a pretty powerful thing
- debaserab2 13y ago
  In principle I agree with what you're saying, but I think it's harder than you realize to maintain basic common sense all the time. People do irrational things, all the time. Even the normal ones.
  - XorNot 13y ago
    Also anyone talking about it here on HackerNews is already failing at it.
    - makomk 13y ago
      Meh. The FBI and DEA can investigate my Silk Road seller account all they want and they won't find anything interesting.
  - stmartin 13y ago
    He can hide behind his libertarian agenda all he wants, but instinctively he knew what he was doing was wrong at multiple levels, legally and above all, morally. Otherwise he wouldn't be operating on Tor..... or hiding anything.
mindcrime 13y ago
That's what they want you to think, so they can snare you in their FBI ran honeypot... All joking aside, I hope you're right, and that the next few SR alternative sites figure out how to get it right, and that Tor itself isn't fundamentally broken by the FBI.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- bigiain 13y ago
  Agreed - I'd like to think both this, and the Lavabit being coerced to hand over private SSL keys news elsewhere today - indicates that TOR and SSL are still "as secure as needed" against even targeted FBI attacks. Unfortunately that all now needs to be viewed with the suspicion of "parallel reconstruction" - I'm somewhat less convinced that if the NSA targeted someone specific that SSL and TOR would resist their efforts (and that for something like Silk Road, that the NSA wouldn't happily break and read everything DPR did over his SSL secured TOR connections, and "share" just the right tidbits with the FBI for them to go and create a plausible explanation involving google searches and old forum posts). Welcome to the post Snowden era - where we know that our governments not only don't have our best interests in mind, but have sophisticated programs in place to lie to us about how they arrive at the evidence they present (in those annoying occasions where they have to use courts who aren't just rubber-stamping everything they're told too). (Edit: on reflection, it's kinda sad that this might well have been good detective work by diligent, talented, and persistent FBI investigators doing exactly what he taxpayer employs them to do - but that effort is now permanently under the dark cloud of suspicion of unconstitutional dragnet surveillance and morally corrupt processes like "parallel reconstruction".)
- VMG 13y ago
  The question is - what was the service provided by Silk Road at the end of the day, and what can be decentralized? The trust and review system, the search engine and the communication platform can all run independently and don't need to happen on the same platform. The web interface can be provided by an open-source turn-key package, so the next DPRs only need to figure out the hosting.
deathhand 13y ago
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/tor-attacks-nsa-users-online-anonymity http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/tor-attacks-nsa...

ramchip 13y ago

> Much like how we like to pretend TOR is untouchable Who are you talking about? Everywhere I look people are saying tor is certainly broken, the NSA is watching us, etc.