Russia Posts $110,000 Bounty For Cracking Tor's Privacy 98
hypnosec writes: The government of Russia has announced a ~$110,000 bounty to anyone who develops technology to identify users of Tor, an anonymising network capable of encrypting user data and hiding the identity of its users. The public description (in Russian) of the project has been removed now and it only reads "cipher 'TOR' (Navy)." The ministry said it is looking for experts and researchers to "study the possibility of obtaining technical information about users and users' equipment on the Tor anonymous network."
Where's Snowden the second? (Score:1)
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Chump change for these guys. The NSA spend more with Narus and Verint.
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Just get a low level tech to release some NSA docs to the Russians, instant $110k!
Actually, the NSA attempted this, and didn't have consistent success. At least, not according to what Snowden revealed.
Transparency FTW! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Transparency FTW! (Score:5, Insightful)
And they say Russia is too secretive. This is the pinnacle of transparency!
It frightens me that this is both funny and insightful at the same time.
Re:Transparency FTW! (Score:5, Interesting)
Transparency? Oh Ye of Little Cynicism.
They've already cracked TOR. This is the FSB attempting to convince Russia's dissidents that TOR is secure.
Yay interwebs.
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this level of paranoia is delightful... and i don't doubt it for a second. dear lord, orwell was a time-wizard wasn't he?
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Well... Citation needed.
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I keep reading this, over and over. It's not true. Research encryption and you'll find you cannot just "crack" it, unless the algorithm is particularly predictable (almost no chance of that, billions/trillions of dollars and people's lives have depended on it, and much of it was made by the US Government).
Essentially encryption produces a random set of characters, where if brute-forced, would just result in a large set of various sets of random characters. Encryptions have been broken, but we've evolved bey
TOR is a US-backed project (Score:5, Informative)
Remember, TOR was made by the US Navy specifically to anonymize the traffic of government spies. The public release of the project and transfer to EFF and later parties was specifically to provide cover for said spies. The current developers even consult with the NSA regarding it's security, and the NSA itself has tools to deanonymize it to a certain extent. (It probably relies on the fact that they run a large amount of exit nodes.)
Russia doesn't want to decrypt your packets. They want to decrypt the CIA/NSA/FBI traffic you're relaying around.
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Remember, TOR was made by the US Navy specifically to anonymize the traffic of government spies.
No, TOR was a project about creating the ability for people in repressive countries to be able to access the Internet in ways that their government was either blocking, or whose access could endanger the user since it was not in line with the government's decrees and/or filters.
The public release of the project and transfer to EFF and later parties was specifically to provide cover for said spies.
Ah, the standard conspiracy theorists' "that's what they want you to think, but really ..." (fill in with unlikely or unsub
Re:TOR is a US-backed project (Score:5, Informative)
No, TOR was a project about creating the ability for people in repressive countries to be able to access the Internet in ways that their government was either blocking, or whose access could endanger the user since it was not in line with the government's decrees and/or filters.
No, you're wrong and OP is right:
http://cryptome.org/0003/tor-spy.htm
Creators of TOR:
David M. Goldschlag
Michael G. Reed
Paul F. Syverson
Naval Research Laboratory
More:
http://www.onion-router.net/Publications/IH-1996.pdf
http://www.isoc.org/inet97/proceedings/F7/F7_1.HTM
http://www.onion-router.net/
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It doesn't matter what the original purpose was. As long as it can be repurposed and it isn't backdoored and broken. Unfortunately, it looks like the protocol is weaker than expected, given the Carnegie Mellon mess. And of course there's issues with using JavaScript (which would allow canvas-based tracking among others). And it's easy to tell whether some IP is connected to the TOR network (and a VPN is a band-aid to that problem, and potentially broken given some of the language related to NSA's XKeyscore)
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No, TOR was a project about creating the ability for people in repressive countries to be able to access the Internet in ways that their government was either blocking, or whose access could endanger the user since it was not in line with the government's decrees and/or filters.
No, you're wrong and OP is right:
http://cryptome.org/0003/tor-spy.htm
You DO noticed that the "rebuttal" is the typical deflection you see from politicians and large companies after getting caught doing something naughty, right? "Hey, you lied and cheated!" "No, what I did was about ...." (a long answer that never denied the lying and cheating part)
"No, TOR was a project about ..." noticed that the rebuttal did NOT mention who created TOR? The entire first sentence NEVER contradicted OP's point even though it started with a "No" -- "TOR was made by the US Navy specifically
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Read the origin papers the grants and funding:
http://www.onion-router.net/Sp... [onion-router.net]
https://www.torproject.org/abo... [torproject.org]
"It was originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind, for the primary purpose of protecting government communications."
The origins are Office of Naval Research and DARPA. Have a read of http://www.onion-router.net/Pu... [onion-router.net] AC.
ie bi-directional gov/spy communication that would hide the source and destination from ano
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Russia doesn't want to decrypt your packets.
Correct.
They want to decrypt the CIA/NSA/FBI traffic you're relaying around.
Incorrect. They want to be able to detect who is showing up some TOR activity and tag them as "suspicious citizens". Later on, they could try to infect target computers with their malware, the lot for which is posted somewhere nearby (it is nicknamed Chameleon-2).
Silly commies... (Score:2)
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Based on the NSA's spying behaviour and the number of federally sanctioned assassinations (by drone or otherwise), I could've sworn the commies lead the US into darkness, not the other way around.
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Isn't this a good thing? (Score:1)
If it's crackable, we should hope it comes to light. Although, I'm guessing the Russians would keep it a secret.
Soooo .. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm supposed to give an oppressive government details on how to crack a piece of software, and they'll give me (pinky to mouth) $100,000?
This is the same government that plays around with nuclear tipped umbrellas isn't it? That likes to shoot down civilian planes? If so what guarantees do I have that 1) I'll get the money, or 2) that I'll live to tell the tale?
Re:Soooo .. (Score:5, Insightful)
the Russians who are opening up this request for a solution to the marketplace
or the Americans, who have a State agency (albeit staffed by contractors) which builds tools like this behind closed doors
I must have overlooked the fact that this is opposite century or something....
-I'm just sayin'
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What you overlooked is that Russia also has state agencies* that build tools like this behind closed doors.
* Very likely NOT staffed by contractors
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You really should do a little more research about what Russia does around all of it's borders and how shitty life is for everyone who ain't Russian.
Not just Ukraine or Georgia. Keep going around the border.
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Americans never lose, they just run out of time.
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Might as well give it a rest. Everyone knows that every country in the world except for the US and possibly Israel are a bunch of meek pacifists who would never engage in state violence of any type under any circumstances and even to suggest such a thing is now a despicable war crime. Although I have to say with all the peace, love, and understanding being spread around the world today I am pretty happy the US massively overspends on the military because were really going to need it in the not so distant fu
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Europe will need it, and won't have it.
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The Russians didn't shoot down that plane. Ukrainian separatists did, using missiles they got from the Russians.
And it's not like the US hasn't accidentally shot down civilian aircraft before, if you remember that Iranian plane [wikipedia.org] the USS Vincennes shot down.
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When the Iranian jet was shot down the naval task group had declared a 100 mile restricted airspace zone over the naval group which was in international waters at the time. Even today that is SOP whenever a carrier or other naval assets are in international waters. They establish and enforce the no-fly zone in the air and on the surface. Prior to the Iranian plane being shot down Iranian military jets had attempted to violate the restricted airspace several times a day over the previous 7 days. When the co
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1. Find bug in Tor.
2. Give exploit to Russia and get money.
3. Give bug description to Tor developers so they can fix it.
4. Profit and have clear conscience!
(You better watch out for people with ricin umbrellas afterward though.)
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$110,000 (Score:2)
I think the Russia Mafia would pay 10 times that at least
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Russians are really cheap bastards. I suppose it is out of necessity.
$110,000 is probably 1 night of gay hookers and blow for Putin.
my invention (Score:2)
The awesomeness of a Gestapo like state structure, and a zeal to ask all inhabitants
the following question: "Are you a tor user".
USA beat them to it (Score:2)
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You need trust that the exit nodes are fast, well funded and NGO like. You need national level mastery of all packet traffic in and out of every tame provider.
Think of the cost of setting and funding per month a really good set of TOR servers/nodes.
You would really want the commanding height of the fastest say top 5 exit relays, then a larger pool of a good few 10's of other relays.
This would herd and make clear most traffic in a larger nation.
To cover this project set up a
Catch up at the back (Score:2)
TOR's already broken!
This [theregister.co.uk], from last week:
Black Hat anti-Tor talk smashed by lawyers' wrecking ball
Boring Carnegie-Mellon University lawyers have scuppered one of the most hotly anticipated talks at the Black Hat conference – which would have explained how $3,000 of kit could unmask Tor hidden services and user IP addresses.
cheapskates (Score:1)
In Soviet Russia... (Score:2)