HighLevelInsider

While calling names might work on a few low-intelligence members of the community, the rest of us can see this is leaked directly from a Top Secret presentation by the NSA. Whenever I see low-effort shilling, I immediately give much greater weight to the idea being attacked.

FacelessOne

Tor is government malware, if you think it's not because of illegal activity you've gotten away with on it, well that's kinda the point, the NSA couldn't give two fucks what you fap about, as long as they can sit on the trove of data generated a special niche of power is granted to them by users willingly installing malware.

HighLevelInsider

Either you're lying, or you didn't read the Top Secret NSA presentation talking about how much they hate it. Either way, you need to stop spreading inaccurate information like this.

metawizard

TOR was created by the government. It functions on a handful of entrance and exit nodes with a lot of bouncing around different nodes in between. If you control an exit node, you can see the traffic moving through it. Control enough exit nodes, and you have a good chance of intercepting something interesting.

There have been times in the past where the usual 4-5k nodes jumps by 10k+. If a single entity controls those 10k nodes, then they can now monitor 2/3 of the total traffic on the network, and it's not hard to do. You could do it with just a few high end servers. I could probably spend $3,000 and monitor 2/3 of the traffic for a month or two. It's not a secure network. Do not treat it as such. If you really must use it, use end to end encryption and a vpn as well.

HighLevelInsider

You seem to think that controlling an exit node is the same as having a tap on the whole network, and you think most of the exit nodes are controlled. Neither of these are true.

metawizard

Then you've misunderstood me. You can monitor traffic going through your specific exit node, one user's traffic. If you control more than one exit node, you can see more than one user's traffic. This assumes that the traffic is not encrypted. If you control 99% of all exit nodes, then you can see the traffic going to and from those exit nodes, again, assuming that the traffic is not encrypted. If you use end to end encryption, then the data is gibberish, but you can see where the traffic is heading from your exit node to wherever and then whatever is sent back to the user through your exit node.

Say, you use jewgle on tor without encryption, and you search for amputee midget porn. Anyone running the tor node can see that the user hidden behind the tor network is searching for amputee midget porn on google. If they encrypt the traffic, then whoever runs the node only sees that you are sending packets to google and receiving packets in response, but they can't read what those packets represent or where they are going.

Now let's say you log in to a service through tor, let's just say it's jewmail. Someone running a tor exit node can run a program that will sniff packets for usernames and passwords to popular services like paypal and in this case, jewmail. That person now has your jewmail username and password, and they're probably going to run a script that will attempt to log in to all of those other major services with that username and password. This isn't an uncommon practice for malicious users running tor exit nodes. I hope that was a little more clear.

RoundWheel

Even the TOR developers openly admit it was never designed to thwart the likes of the NSA. Use of TOR likely has complicate things for the NSA. In some cases may even limit visibility. But overall, TOR is not a significant barrier to the NSA given the level of resources they have to throw at it.

TOR was designed to help the likes of those in the Middle East, NK, even China. But companies like Cisco have specific products which they now sell to these countries to help even them combat and defeat the use of TOR.

HighLevelInsider

Use of TOR likely has complicate things for the NSA. In some cases may even limit visibility. But overall, TOR is not a significant barrier to the NSA given the level of resources they have to throw at it.

The reason I provided the link is for you to stop relying on hunches like this, and actually learn the specifics of what TOR will, and will not do.

RoundWheel

No hunches. My info comes directly from the developers. If you need information and it differs from what I'm saying, you probably shouldn't listen to you.

HighLevelInsider

No hunches

Yet you also said:

Use of TOR likely has complicate things for the NSA. In some cases may even limit visibility

"Likely "may"

RoundWheel

Because the TOR developers don't have eyes inside of the NSA. If they did, they sure as hell wouldn't say. As such, it's educated speculation based on published NSA capabilities and resources. I also have critical security infrastructure software running inside many three letter agencies (in a past job). It's not like I'm talking out my ass.

If you know anyone speaking in absolutes, they either work for the NSA and are in violation of the law and their contract, or they are liars.

Take your pick.

HighLevelInsider

There's an NSA internal document that was linked so you can read what they actually do.

Amadameus

While it can't be taken at face value, some of it is certainly good to know.

HighLevelInsider

While it can't be taken at face value

Highly classified internal documents are one of the few things that generally should be taken at face value.

Amadameus

If you believe those are actual documents, sure - but from an agency known to release false information to their enemies?

Any time we 'discover' their limitations we should consider the possibility that it is a limited hangout and they are trying to downplay their actual capabilities.