Anonymous Web-host shut down, owner arrested; Tor users compromised by Javascript exploit

First off, that really sucks for anyone who left Java activated. It does specifically outline that doing so will make the machine vulnerable. Java is butt, it has screwed up this damn site with its weird ads as well. ##snipped## Some have said how slow browsing with Tor is, but I have found it speeds up my visits to many sites. ##SNIPPED##

And the second and MAIN point I would like to make, In YO FACE to all the fools hailing bitcoin as some kind of renaissance and future of currency. I cannot for the life of me ever understand why anyone would have put in any faith in a virtual currency that had no kind of stability to begin with. Might as well buy World of Warcraft money or any other currency from a video game.

reply to post by Philippines


The best way I've found to describe TOR and encrypted proxy networks like that, is this. If you've seen Babylon 5 the TV show or another space show with Hyperspace depicted, it's an easy visualization.

You can see someone enter. You can see someone exit. There is virtually no way possible to connect the enter to the exit and know who is who on their way out. You're clean out the other end with no back trail. That's if you use TOR to surf the open net. Within the network itself? It's all 'hyperspace'. No trail in. No trail out and no connecting lines, inside. All encrypted. You've seen the hacker movies that show a signal bouncing through 10 different nations before arriving? That, literally, is the topography of the TOR network and how it functions. It's also why it takes seconds to half a minute or more to load one basic page from a site.

Unless the browser itself is compromised ...as has happened, by the sound of it, then the ISP can watch your computer enter and that's all they ever see but encrypted gibberish the whole time. TOR is what kept some Iranian and other nation's activists alive during their uprisings, for instance. So, people literally bet their lives on the security.

I see what is going on, it's time to round-up any freedom fighters before # hits the fan.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I think that someone in the N.S.A. somehow made a deal with or infiltrated the TOR browser a long time ago, that is what I was reading from some Snowden documents. In fact, people using TOR were tagged to have their records kept for longer periods of time.

The same thing happened with Skype - Skype had a secret deal with the federal government to give them a back-door into all of their communications.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Philippines

 

The best way I've found to describe TOR and encrypted proxy networks like that, is this. If you've seen Babylon 5 the TV show or another space show with Hyperspace depicted, it's an easy visualization.

You can see someone enter. You can see someone exit. There is virtually no way possible to connect the enter to the exit and know who is who on their way out. You're clean out the other end with no back trail. That's if you use TOR to surf the open net. Within the network itself? It's all 'hyperspace'. No trail in. No trail out and no connecting lines, inside. All encrypted. You've seen the hacker movies that show a signal bouncing through 10 different nations before arriving? That, literally, is the topography of the TOR network and how it functions. It's also why it takes seconds to half a minute or more to load one basic page from a site.

Unless the browser itself is compromised ...as has happened, by the sound of it, then the ISP can watch your computer enter and that's all they ever see but encrypted gibberish the whole time. TOR is what kept some Iranian and other nation's activists alive during their uprisings, for instance. So, people literally bet their lives on the security.

I understand, but your activity is still recorded.. The alphabet agencies are just going to have a harder time figuring out exactly who you are through whatever tunneling setup you use, but if you're going to HTTP/HTTPS webservers your activity is recorded, along with TOR exit node router logs, and who knows how many agency spy servers listening in along the way.

This case sounds similar to someone leaving their wifi router open and unprotected, allowing anyone to use their connection -- and in some cases paying the consequences for that.

Yeah wow, scripts are allowed globally by default now.... TOR seems to have been infiltrated, whoever released at least the latest browser was either a moron, was forced to release it that way, something. Go into noscript options and turn that off. Also, my whole net connection slowed to a standstill as soon as I finished connecting to the TOR network. Something is up for sure. Been a few months since I needed to use TOR.

reply to post by darkbake

I think that someone in the N.S.A. somehow made a deal with or infiltrated the TOR browser a long time ago, that is what I was reading from some Snowden documents. In fact, people using TOR were tagged to have their records kept for longer periods of time.

That strikes me as very possible. Wikileaks, for example, had a TOR version and it's safe to say Wikileaks was kinda tame down there. I'll assume it past tense or soon will be on the others. I'm not going back into there to check. I'm glad I was so light in where I went there as it was.

I'd almost set up a political site down there following the elections too. I'd very very seriously considered it. Just for some privacy among friends to chat without concern. I just didn't get a good feeling about going that direction. As it happens, I'm very glad I never did. This host the thread is about was the one I had looked at using, too.

reply to post by DYepes

And the second and MAIN point I would like to make, In YO FACE to all the fools hailing bitcoin as some kind of renaissance and future of currency. I cannot for the life of me ever understand why anyone would have put in any faith in a virtual currency that had no kind of stability to begin with.

Well I just checked the price and it's still sitting at $106 and shows no signs of dropping. I'm sure this will probably have a little bit of an impact on the price, but I see no reason why it would have a large impact. Bitcoin doesn't need TOR to work, and we've had much worse things happen before (for example when Mt. Gox was hacked). Even if all the blackmarket TOR websites which use bitcoin were taken down in this crackdown (they weren't) I doubt it would have much impact on the price of bitcoin.

Not to mention there would probably be a new blackmarket website put up within days of the others being taken down. The amount of ignorance in this thread is astonishing really, all they've actually done here is taken down one hidden service web host, and while that host may have hosted a lot of hidden onion websites it wont destroy the onion network. I think the fact they got TORmail is the worste thing, I just wonder how well the emails were encrypted or if they were encrypted at all.

LOL TOR is a joke,nothing but a Pedo hangout.Sure it had it's uses many moons ago as a secure communication platform for political dissidents,reporters in foreign lands and what have you.

I find it amusing that people are using a system created by the NRL,and assuming it to be secure,rest assured that there are back doors in TOR that allow DPI even of encrypted headers.

Don't get me started on Exit Nodes.

There are more secure ways to connect,albeit some of these ways would now be considered illegal and that in-itself makes my point,anything that actually works would be outlawed

There is a reason they are trying to close ALL Internet Cafes.

Isn't it nice how they wrapped this up in a nice CP bust package to validate shredding the right to anonymity? One thing is crystal clear, and should be shouted from the rooftops in rage:

The last refuge of the internet for those who NEED to stay anonymous to protect their lives isn't just vulnerable now, it's completely transparent. If the FBI can rip the layers and layers of anonymity off users just like that, what does that say for the safety of whistleblowers and activists? It says they're effed. If they can track down a TOR-dwelling CP creep, they can definitely track Joe Everybody's damning government information drop right back to Joe Everybody.

This is a wake-up call. There is no safe place left on the 'net for those who need it, surface or otherwise.

Originally posted by VoidHawk
I tried tor a while back as a way of getting around the "This video is blocked to your country" message on some youtube vids.

Me thinks I'll be doing some serious scanning of my drives.


ETA: Just read it again, de-anonymize, Nothing for me to worry about.

edit on 4-8-2013 by VoidHawk because: (no reason given)

Use Savefrom.net Helper to download those YT vids blocked in your country it sometimes works

Originally posted by Hefficide
Where people run into trouble is when they use TOR and start Googling "Hidden Wiki".

I just had to google that to find out what it was. Checked out the wikipedia page for it. Apparently anonymous doesn't like child porn.

Obviously, the surveillance program is all about absolute surveillance internet-wise. The war is being waged upon anonymity, also to open all traffic up, encrypted or otherwise, to prying eyes. Mostly for criminal activity, but also, for general surveillance.

I bought my first bitcoin, last week, looks like that was a waste of money and time. 65 quid down the drain.

Should I delete the tor browser from my computer?

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

Whoa.... This is a shock. Freedom Hosting, eh? They estimate only half of the Onion world? I'm going to guess it's considerably higher than 50% by this. WOW.... I'll bet the FBI got logs and data that shocked even those guys into cold silence. I can only imagine ...as they started matching IP's to hosts and specific origins ...just what they found.

How many out of Government agencies? Which ones...? How many in other walks of life no one would ever guess in a million years?? This also goes WAY beyond kiddie porn. There are serious and REAL weapons smuggling outlets down there. Basically the Black Market in every form, for every thing and in every way one can imagine. Any THING one can imagine being possible to sell, short of nuclear material (and that's probably there too..but not at the TOR level of things)

I have a feeling there are people all over the world sweating bullets tonight on this news and looking for ways to dig holes and pull them in over top of themselves. TOR was considered safe...so I have no doubt everyone with warped interests that discovered it? Ran wild in it. If the FBI doesn't play hyper-politics about who they go after? This could be the biggest thing since the 80's for major scandals to HIGH levels of power, in all directions.

That's my take.

While I'm semi ok with illegal things being taken down (I'm not ok with the tactics, because they can also be applied to innocent people and they likely were... I have no issue with the result itself, though the ends don't justify the means) I think there's a lot of good information in onion world. I happen to think people have a duty to be well read in an era where books are limitless and forums exist for every topic. Some of the stuff people have that duty to read in my opinion only exists down there.

Originally posted by OpenEars123
I use tor to download movie and tv show torrents hoping that my ISP wouldn't track it. Does this mean I should stop now?

Even though downloading movies is wrong I know, it's just for me to watch and I never upload - I don't want to be framed for sick porn!

You may have well as used regular internet, downloading from torrents on tor does nothing to hide you.

Now I am not very computer savy, but I do know one thing. When you buy a prepaid portable hotspot and load gigabytes on to it, you can still browse anonymously. It does not matter if all the activity was recorded, there was no name, address, or social security to tie it too. Anonymity is not dead.

And why are yall complaining about leaving tor behind, its primary purpose it to keep you safe from these damn commercial advertisements as far as I am concerned. I get problems with wired.com ads as well. Pisses me off to no end. Just like skipping commercials with Netflix vs cable, I get to skip the garbage ads on most sites by using the browser bundle.

So if the gov wants to know im on ATS, let them. I am more concerned for these marketing companies building a profile on me and whoring it out to the highest bidder like.

If he was actively involved in the distribution of child pornography he got what was coming to him. If he wasnt you could charge the ISPs by the same token.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


Wood... There is no need to delete TOR because of this. It is at least as secure as or more secure than any other web browser you use and there are valid reasons to want to have the option of using it available. The downfall is those who use it without understanding it and then assume that it guarantees total anonymity. There is no such thing as total anonymity on the Internet for the average person. While it can be achieved, it takes more than just a downloaded program or piggybacking a WiFi signal to achieve.

I wrote a thread recently that deals with the notion of digital fingerprints and lets you find out what yours looks like - for those who are interested.

To the person asking about their ISP and downloading... your ISP can tell how much bandwidth you've used and that you used TOR for that bandwidth. Most ISP's don't make much of a noise about things like this... but some have been known to cancel accounts or throttle bandwidth usage in response.

ETA: Oh, and your ISP will gladly turn over everything they have in their records should an alphabet agency ask.

I use a seedbox for downloading movies and TV shows,from there if your feeling particularly paranoid you can use a multi proxie.For example lets say you connect via 3 proxies YOU(?)PROXY1(UK)PROXY2(CAN)PROXY3(CONGO)DESTINATION(GER) they would need to trace each one individually gain access to the server to get the NAT Table and move onto the next proxie,and that's just not going to happen.