Dark web doesn't exist, says Tor's Dingledine. And folks use network for privacy, not crime A Tor Project grandee sought to correct some misconceptions about the anonymizing network during a presentation at the DEF CON hacking convention in Las Vegas on Friday. Roger Dingledine, one of the three founders of the Tor Project, castigated journos for mischaracterizing the pro-privacy system as a bolthole exclusively used …
No, I think he's just outlining a fairly obvious point and correcting a myth about the reach of intelligence agencies.. There is far to much hyperbole about their true capabilities ((from press exaggerating and sensationalising it).
I still remember a tale from my youth in the 90's, stating they ran vast underground data centers that could monitor millions of phone calls per-second and listen for certain keywords (which is b*llocks, as we all know voice recognition is barely tolerable now, but it was really sh*t back them)..
Your sources are wrong. The data centre runs on electrons entangled with electrons in a black hole which has infalling matter from a close-orbiting star. Let's stick to real, sober science rather than out of the tree ideas like extracting zero point energy from the vacuum.
Well here's what we do know... The 5-Eyes repeatedly lie about the scope of monitoring against 'own' Citizens / Whistleblowers / Protestors / Activists / Investigative-Journalists etc... So you don't have to be ISIS to be a person-of-interest... Look at how Trump wanted to 'out' his Twitter critics...
that could monitor millions of phone calls per-second ?
It is more than that now. They use machines that run on Gallium Arsenide or even Graphene. These can run something like teraherzt frequencies. Also all data that originates from above the 49 parallel runs below it and then back above to avoid a little legal limitation on what is allowed to be mirrored.
They do monitor at least tens of thousands, and that is fact. I know it firsthand, and tbat is not a us capability, but another country.
These people have all their interactions with technology recorded, also tbe mobile phones a
that are near them, mails, calls, game chats, payments, car movement, mobile pbone movement... so a network is built an ppl get points (terrorist , political views, etc) people adjacent to them.in the network also get points. This is standard, not science fiction.
Now, tbe problem is you cannot follow everyone everywhere, still not enough procssing power, bjt we are slowly getting there.
as we all know voice recognition is barely tolerable now
I'm sorry; I didn't get that. Please say the reason for your call. You can say things like, "I have a question about my bill," or "I need technical support."
"AGENT"
I'm sorry; I didn't get that. Please say the reason for your call. You can say things like, "I have a question about my bill," or "I need technical support."
"OPERATOR"
I'm sorry; I didn't get that. Please say the reason for your call. You can say things like, "I have a question about my bill," or "I need technical support."
"@#$% YOU!!!"
I'm sorry; I didn't get that. I'll connect you with an agent. All agents are currently busy. Please try your call again at another time. Good-bye.
{click}
He was contracted to help develop the network by The United States Naval Research Laboratory, who among other things specialise in tactical electronic warfare.
The only reason us plebs get to have a go on it, is because they need a forest of users to hide the trees that are busily doing the governments work of undermining nation states around the world.
To think information gathering agencies haven't got a means of analysing their own network is asking too much.
Of course, now that several of the big illegal operators have perished and their user base been either arrested or awoken from their ignorance with a fright, the forest is thinning out a bit, hence a need to reassure everyone it's safe to go back into the water.
Now he may genuinely believe every word he says, but what's the betting there are elements of the network he knows nothing about, as his security clearance isn't Satanic Monster level
The dark web seems to have taken a mythic status with the regular, clueless, meda. When it comes to most technical or IT issues they tend to parrot the juiciest press release as fact with no research. It is not that the dark web exists, but its size and extent. Also, how much 'dark activity' is done more openly on something like eBay or Craigslist (I know against the TOS).
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Also worth mentioning that in one of the few smart UK gov reports it was pointed out that the police and similar also depend on Tor, etc, to investigate crime. Pretty hard to use a known police IP address in that line of work to any success, and pretty dangerous to use your home machine...
I've not looked at Tor dark web, but I have on Freenet, and this is what I found:
- Activists.
- Religious end-times paranoia.
- People making fun of religion.
- Tons of porn.
- Piracy.
- Sites advocating for recreational drug use, sometimes with not-entirely-trustworthy instructions.
the vast majority of folks on the network are using it to anonymously browse public websites for completely legit purposes
Not the impression I get. I've correlated a number of website logs I have access to (Joomla and Wordpress) and there are a lot of breach attempts from IP addresses flagged as Tor gateways.
The reason we eventually started filtering out Tor was simple: the number of legitimate website views from Tor was zero. Yes, 0. None.
"so insignificant, it can be discounted... only three per cent of Tor users connect to hidden services"
"Only three percent of drivers mow pedestrians down on the pavement while laughing maniacally."
"Only three percent of plane flights result in crashes."
"Only three percent of the population are serial killer."
Three percent can be a pretty significant proportion in many contexts. Given millions of users, even if you assume most of those three percent are still not malicious, that leaves you with at least tens of thousands of drug dealers, pedophiles, and so on, using the service specifically for criminal purposes. We can argue about whether the legitimate uses justify the service despite the potential for misuse, but it's incredibly dishonest to claim the issue doesn't exist at all simply because the majority of users aren't criminals.
Watt ?
Feynman, statistics can be turned anyway you want ... BUT, the press is claiming TOR is mainly used by crims, that is what the fellow tried to address ... it clearly is not. He probably went too far in the other direction, negating, he scores a few points, though. The press need to get their act together ... which, for those old enough to remember the hacker/cracker mixup is akin to wishful thinking ... besides, "criminal TOR" sells more than "paranoiac TOR"!
"that leaves you with at least tens of thousands of drug dealers, pedophiles, and so on, using the service specifically for criminal purposes"
As they also use cars, roads, postal services, PCs, KY jelly, bread, etc. Same argument for security testing tools: some are used by hackers for criminal ends, others by site admins to check their own defences.
Dingledine quoted [intentionally released] top-secret Five Eyes documents that were backhandedly complimentary about the service. Tor was “the king of high security low latency internet anonymity,” GCHQ said. “There are no other contenders for the throne.”
Wanted to use the black hawk icon, for once ...
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