[tor-talk] Did Australian Authorities hack (US) computers with Tor's help?

[tortalk at arcor.de]

Hi!

I found two articles which may have something in common. 1. Some Tor users (29.000) got deanonymized by authorities while up/downloading childporn. 2. Someone claims that "Tor suddenly dump over 30 megabloats of steaming faeces onto a file system on exit".
1. Is it just a question of time when other deanonymisations will come public?
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/australian-authorities-hacked-computers-in-the-us
"Australian Authorities Hacked Computers in the US
Written by Joseph Cox Contributor
August 15, 2016 // 10:10 AM EST
...
By the very virtue of the investigation, Australian authorities likely would not have known where the computer they wanted to hack was located; indeed, that was the exact problem that the Tor network presented.

    Whether the Australian authorities hacked computers in other countries remains unclear.

It is unclear on what authority Australian law enforcement obtained a warrant, or whether one was obtained at all to gather IP addresses from Piccolo and others in the US. Task Force Argos declined to answer any questions or comment for this story.
...
Whether using a hacking tool to grab the real IP address of a Tor user constitutes a search in a legal sense has recently become a contentious issue in the US. Several judges have said that suspects do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy around their IP address when using the Tor network, meaning that it is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, and a hack grabbing it would not require a warrant. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as some courts, have argued otherwise.
"
2. The author embedded a list of his findings in his article.
http://rixstep.com/2/2/20160817,00.shtml
"Tor 6.0.4
...
Why does Tor suddenly dump over 30 megabloats of steaming faeces onto a file system on exit?
...
Most of the junk left behind comes from an EFF extension, but this extension has been used all along, and it serves no purpose to copy the data out to yet another location. If this is caused by an error at EFF, why hasn't this been corrected?"


Aloha,
Toruser