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Prior to this one should not have (and arguably should sill not) assumed Tor is safe against the NSA. Tor was explicitly not designed to protect against a glo

Prior to this one should not have (and arguably should sill not) assumed Tor is safe against the NSA. Tor was explicitly not designed to protect against a global passive adversary. That's the price it pays for low latency. With the amount of network data the NSA has, they probably constitute such an adversary. It is actually rather surprising that Tor gives them this much trouble.

jlgreco 13y ago
> It is actually rather surprising that Tor gives them this much trouble. I am not really convinced that what we have seen demonstrates conclusively that it does. There is the possibility that we are looking at parallel construction, or that these attacks are genuine but they are sitting on more dramatic capabilities for targets they think are worth it (perhaps because the Chinese continuing to trust and use Tor is a better situation for the NSA to be in than the Chinese doing everything the old fashioned way with microfilm and dead-drops). The best way to go forward is to continue to assume that Tor does not present any significant difficulty to the NSA.
shawn-furyan 13y ago
It's a question of opportunity cost. The NSA has extensive resources, but it's unlikely that they can employ overwhelming resources (such as would be theoretically necessary to break tor) for every situation where overwhelming resources specifically directed are a theoretical weakness. At the moment, implementations are a much easier target, and so I don't necessarily think that it's surprising that they do have trouble with strong but imperfect systems like tor. Perhaps once all implementation issues are removed from the security equation (I'll hold my breath while I wait...) it will be necessary to think up better systems. But right now, what's hard for us is hard for the NSA, and so that should be the guiding principle for strengthening current systems and developing new ones. I find that an empowering idea.
- taftster 13y ago
  Yes - exactly. Opportunity cost is something that is not discussed enough. Conceivably, any "target" is vulnerable to every communication at the right price point. From technology solutions (provided by NSA), to in-field solutions (provided by CIA), we shouldn't believe that we can be totally "safe" from unwanted eavesdroppers. It's not "if" Tor (and friends) are vulnerable. We should assume and operate like they are, but with some level of acceptable tradeoff. It's like a safe or ATM - neither of these guarantees perfect security; they just provide enough security for the expected loss of their contents. The problem - it's just very hard to evaluate the opportunity cost, since we don't really know how wide-spread or "easy" it is for privacy to be breeched. These types of revelations help establish the "market price" for which we can use as a basis for evaluating our options for communications (including traditional man-to-man transport). I personally don't have any communication which I consider privileged enough to warrant the extra hassle of running Tor, etc. I consider a TLS connection with my bank secure enough for my concerns and I don't have the desire to pull otherwise questionable content from any type of onion router. Therefore, I enter the market with a different expectation of features and cost I'm willing to pay.

jlgreco 13y ago

> It is actually rather surprising that Tor gives them this much trouble. I am not really convinced that what we have seen demonstrates conclusively that it does. There is the possibility that we are looking at parallel construction, or that these attacks are genuine but they are sitting on more dramatic capabilities for targets they think are worth it (perhaps because the Chinese continuing to trust and use Tor is a better situation for the NSA to be in than the Chinese doing everything the old fashioned way with microfilm and dead-drops). The best way to go forward is to continue to assume that Tor does not present any significant difficulty to the NSA.

shawn-furyan 13y ago

It's a question of opportunity cost. The NSA has extensive resources, but it's unlikely that they can employ overwhelming resources (such as would be theoretically necessary to break tor) for every situation where overwhelming resources specifically directed are a theoretical weakness. At the moment, implementations are a much easier target, and so I don't necessarily think that it's surprising that they do have trouble with strong but imperfect systems like tor. Perhaps once all implementation issues are removed from the security equation (I'll hold my breath while I wait...) it will be necessary to think up better systems. But right now, what's hard for us is hard for the NSA, and so that should be the guiding principle for strengthening current systems and developing new ones. I find that an empowering idea.

taftster 13y ago
Yes - exactly. Opportunity cost is something that is not discussed enough. Conceivably, any "target" is vulnerable to every communication at the right price point. From technology solutions (provided by NSA), to in-field solutions (provided by CIA), we shouldn't believe that we can be totally "safe" from unwanted eavesdroppers. It's not "if" Tor (and friends) are vulnerable. We should assume and operate like they are, but with some level of acceptable tradeoff. It's like a safe or ATM - neither of these guarantees perfect security; they just provide enough security for the expected loss of their contents. The problem - it's just very hard to evaluate the opportunity cost, since we don't really know how wide-spread or "easy" it is for privacy to be breeched. These types of revelations help establish the "market price" for which we can use as a basis for evaluating our options for communications (including traditional man-to-man transport). I personally don't have any communication which I consider privileged enough to warrant the extra hassle of running Tor, etc. I consider a TLS connection with my bank secure enough for my concerns and I don't have the desire to pull otherwise questionable content from any type of onion router. Therefore, I enter the market with a different expectation of features and cost I'm willing to pay.