FBI paid $1 mil for unmasking tor users

http://thehackernews.com/2015/11/fbi-tor-unmask.html

The Carnegie Mellon talk detailed a new way to "de-anonymize hundreds of thousands of Tor [users] and thousands of Hidden Services [underground sites] within a couple of months" using just $3,000 of hardware.


Comments


[20 Points] gushplurple:

This was patched over a year ago... The article is just about the recent court release making it pretty clear how they caught the SR people.


[15 Points] psychedelic100:

Could have gone to charity, there are millions of people suffering around the world and they waste money on controlling people who know what there doing. Pathetic selfish bastards.


[15 Points] Vendor_Hiniguel:

I'm paying nearly three million for a team of experts to track down the MEM and Abraxas admins. They won't get away, we're already 80% of the way there.


[3 Points] atlanta41:

If TOR is cracked why are all ya'll sitting around on it like doofuses?


[3 Points] oorbi:

whatever I'm behind 7 proxies anyway


[1 Points] atlanta41:

Has tor been upgraded to prevent this technique ?


[1 Points] donteventrustmymom:

So .... if you are using tails on your home wifi, then you are screwed?

Also then, this statement from tails.boum.org is utter bullshit?

"Some users have requested support for VPNs in Tails to "improve" Tor's anonymity. You know, more hops must be better, right?. That's just incorrect -- if anything VPNs make the situation worse since they basically introduce either a permanent entry guard (if the VPN is set up before Tor) or a permanent exit node (if the VPN is accessed through Tor).

Similarly, we don't want to support VPNs as a replacement for Tor since that provides terrible anonymity and hence isn't compatible with Tails' goal"

If you were on a good VPN that you set up so it s not tied to you in RL, then your entry node and/or exit node should be obscured as it would relate to your home IP geolocation, should it not? Tails advising against running a VPN in front of Tor always bothered me, especially after this article has come to light.

Seems that a burner laptop -> Linux -> VPN -> Tor is the best solution, and don't go on the darknet from your home IP in any circumstance. Tails advice has led us all straight into this dragnet. Kinda makes you go HMMMMMMM


[-1 Points] GreenSnapper2120:

I happen to know first hand about Carnegie Mellon University n they have super top secret shit going on there. Like NSA security guards posted up n shit like that. They have certain spots that u need high level security clearances just to get in. N I'm just speculating but I'm pretty sure if they are saying they can do this shit with 3 grand in software, they did it a long time ago. The government does shit n comes out with crazy shit n the mainstream community doesn't hear about it for years. If any1 is stupid enough to think that they are going to tell us in advance when they are going to do something of this magnitude, then u are a idiot. N are just a uniformed zombie. N u are 1 of the millions of people that the Government loves. They hate people who don't conform to them n believe the bull shit that they tell people. They are scared of the informed people.