Academic Research, Tor De-anonymization, and the Case Against Brian Farrell

Interesting news from Joseph Cox at Motherboard:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/court-docs-show-a-university-helped-fbi-bust-silk-road-2-child-porn-suspects


Comments


[12 Points] gwern:

Tor Project specifically accuses CMU of running it: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/did-fbi-pay-university-attack-tor-users / http://www.wired.com/2015/11/tor-says-feds-paid-carnegie-mellon-1m-to-help-unmask-users/ They, at least, have no doubt that it was the Blackhat attack.


[9 Points] Wanted_drugs_2day:

At least we know the real extent of how effective operation onymois was

This information led to the location of the Silk Road 2.0 servers, Larson wrote, which led to the identification of "at least another seventeen black markets on TOR." That refers to Operation Onymous, a multi-agency effort that eventually led to the shuttering of several dark web sites, including Silk Road 2.0"

So they only got the other sites because they were indeed on the same server.

Also since the technique seemed to be effective they will likely focus on adding more nodes they control over time to monitor quietly.

How do we combat this if they control guard nodes and "exit" nodes?


[9 Points] xSwrvs:

"vulnerabilities in the Tor software" Almost word for word why agora went down isn't it?


[5 Points] ciphersexual:

Can anyone explain why this attack de-anonymized the people that it did? Of all the Tor users in the world to fish, why did Clu turn up in the net?


[1 Points] drimilr:

Every time I see Brian Farrell's name, all I can think is Perry Ferrell and "Been Caught Stealing"

I'm old


[-4 Points] aUSERindeed111:

Fuck CP. Piggy backing on legit motions being filed. fucking pedophiles. Kill'em all.