[tor-talk] Tor and HTTPS graphic

[Maxim Kammerer]

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 20:57, grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Going with the USA idea: what if the FBI, in the
> normal course of business, calls up all their local cable/dsl/fiber/cell
> providers and has a few lines run to each office and outhouse
> nationwide.

I think that it is important to differentiate national security and
law enforcement here. It is unlikely that agencies like the FBI and
its worldwide counterparts can break Tor anonymity. For instance,
public in USA is particularly hysterical about issues such as
pedophilia, yet FBI is apparently unable to locate members of
pedophile networks who use Tor — see http://dee.su/uploads/baal.html.
National security agencies, on the other hand, have to think about the
“big picture”, and would not put their methods of work in danger of
disclosure by running software that they don't trust (Tor) in
locations that they don't completely control (geographically variated
commercial data centers), or indulge in otherwise risky behavior
(routing tricks and the like, which can be discovered by regular
employees).

> There is this thread for starters:
>  http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jun-2009/msg00253.html

Although I doubt that US agencies had anything to do with that relays
number spike, it could be a simple attempt to aid opposition in Iran
(i.e., not to introduce rogue nodes that leak information for later
analysis).

-- 
Maxim Kammerer
Liberté Linux (discussion / support: http://dee.su/liberte-contribute)