Comment by autoexec

Comment by autoexec 15 hours ago

> Perhaps that, rather than a technical limitation, is the reason most high-profile arrests related to TOR involve criminals making some other mistake, rather than the security of the network itself being compromised.

I have no doubt that the government doesn't want to demonstrate how weak Tor is to the public, but it's also got to be dead simple to find those kinds of "other mistakes" they can use when they've identified the person they're looking for and can monitor whatever they do.

keepamovin 15 hours ago

What you’re claiming is not necessarily correct, but it’s an avenue of interesting speculation. Nevertheless, let’s clarify a few of your possible misunderstandings or points of confusion:

I’m not saying TOR is weak, nor that the reason for its concealment is to project a false sense of government strength.

What I am saying—and what you seem to have misunderstood—is that the TOR network is most likely used, precisely because of its strength, for highly sensitive clandestine operations. This results in blanket classification of all involved identities, making them inaccessible to law enforcement. Law enforcement likely understands this, which is why they don’t pursue it—knowing it’s a dead end. Instead, they rely on side-channel effects or mistakes made by criminals.

To my mind, this explains the public information we see.

Now that I’ve clarified, what do you think?

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sangnoir 13 hours ago

> What I am saying—and what you seem to have misunderstood—is that the TOR network is most likely used, precisely because of its strength, for highly sensitive clandestine operations.
Tor seems to be a poster child of the "Nobody But Us"[1] principle the NSA likes so much: it's strong when used by American spooks, but weak when used against them. If a country developed body armor that's impervious to all rounds except their own special alloy rounds, their use and promotion of that armor is not evidence of its utter robustness.
I don't doubt a lot of darknet busts involve a lot of parallel construction - the intelligence community doesn't have to give detailed logs; summaries are enough (IP addresses, dates and times). This is before considering that the FBI is involved in both (counter) intelligence and law environment.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOBUS

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- keepamovin 3 hours ago
  
  I guess i don't necessarily disagree with your NOBUS assessment of TOR strength, it's hard to say without confirmed facts tho. Funny I always think of crypto algorithms as the examples of NOBUS: the NIST ones, etc. Again, no confirmed facts but that would be a source and method you really wouldn't want to confirm and burn.
  What do you mean by parallel constructions? Is that where LE discovers evidence through extralegal means, then needs to rebuild the narrative through a legally valid chain? Could be, but then again there's probably a lot of TOR identities that are completely out of reach for LE, leaving them with only legal construction. Wouldn't you say?
  I sometimes wonder about something, too: you know those "small" cases with huge human cost, like missing child, or murder in a backwoods area? I always imagine that classified capabilities could be used to solve them. The fact they are not, is painful, and I think must be "moral trauma" for LE/IC people involved. Even more so that they can't talk to anyone about it except their organizational therapists if then.
  
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