Tor says it’s "still safe" amid reports of police deanonymizing users
Tor says it’s "still safe" amid reports of police deanonymizing users
This attack has been known for years now. And tor is simply not able to defend against it without a complete redesign.
The potential for timing attacks has been known since the beginning of Tor. In other words, more than a decade. But that doesn't mean you can't defend against it. One way to defend against it is by having more nodes. Another way is to write clients that take into account the potential for timing attacks. Both of these were specifically mentioned in the article.
Based on what was in the article and what's in the history books, I'm not sure how to interpret your comment in a constructive way. Is there anything more specific you meant, that isn't contradicted by what's in the article?
Yes, sorry i worded it incorrectly you can try to make it harder but timing attacks are still possible.
Nope, just a summary that this is just old news. There is nothing new in the article.
Redesign being I2P
Nope, I2P is still vulnerable to timing attacks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic_routing
The TOR network itself is safe - at least assuming the TLAs don't control at least half of the nodes, which is far from impossible. But let's assume...
The weak point comes from the browser: that's how the fuzz deanonymizes users. The only safe browser to use on TOR is the TOR browser, and that's the problem: it disables so many unsafe functionalities that it's essentially unusable on a lot of websites. So people use regular browsers over TOR, the browser leaks identifying data and that's how they get caught.
My understanding is that Tor Browser works fine, there's just some dumb website owners that block Tor traffic by IP address.
And ... guess what ... www.bleepingcomputer.com, the source of the story, is one of those.
I mean, the advice I've heard for one who's threat model is "the feds are actively trying to identify me" is to have a dedicated burner computer that you do all of your illegal activities on and no other activities. Then of course on top of that avoid saving secrets onto the device and type them in manually every time (ephemeral distros like Tails are good for that)
As I read, they used timing analysis which should be preventable by using an anonymous VPN to connect to tor and streaming something over the VPN connection at the same time. Some of them support multi-hop, like mullvad, which will further complicate the timing analysis because of the aggregated traffic.
How do you get an anonymous VPN? I see mullvad has a pay in cash option. Is that how?
First, randomize your mac, shutdown anything that can "dial home" (updates, sync, logged in apps, etc) then connect to internet then anonymous VPN, then connect to the tor network, use an anonymized browser with NO java enabled, never download anything -copy paste text, and screen cap images-, if your network drops the popo's are trying to do a "reconnect" attack to see if they can get an unprotected connection to the material you were looking at. Use a livedisk on USB and you likely won't get bios level attacks, as live disks make it harder to access your bios. Source: a boring ass individual that just wants the gov off their jock strap, suck it Joe my FBI agent, you know what you did.
This looks like it was a timing analysis attack. Basically, they’re trying to figure out which user did something specific. They match the timing of the event with the traffic from the user, and now they know which user did the thing.
It can be fuzzed by streaming something at the same time, because now your traffic is way harder to time analyze when you have a semi-constant stream of data running. But streaming something over Tor is an exercise in patience, (and it’s not something the typical user will just always have running in the background) so timing analysis attacks are gaining popularity.
a boring ass individual that just wants the gov off their jock strap, suck it Joe my FBI agent, you know what you did.
I also prefer my feds to earn their keep, I pay them good money for it.
If I understand correctly, stream isolation will route different connections through different circuits. If you're doing two different things of a sensitive nature, open different browsers and applications, use random user-induced delays in your actions/responses and PGP-encrypt everything. And listen to what the TOR project says about the mitigations. I have some reading to do myself I guess
I have considered Tor safe for illicit activities for at least half a decade. Luckily, there's no need for me to be on there. But this is bad news for people living in places where speech is heavily regulated plus journalists and would-be whistle-blowers.
What else you going to use?
I wish more people would try out I2P as a result. AFAIK, garlic routing makes this kind of attack impossible.
What are you going to use instead?
Tor is the best tool you just need to know how to use it
I think the only still secure network is i2p. In there you don't have the exit node