
Almost everyone involved in developing Tor was funded by the US government - lmg643
http://pando.com/2014/07/16/tor-spooks/
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danso
There's a lot of tantalizing material to read, but when you're covering the
history of an entire project, even in a longform article, it's still possible
for an author to cherry pick enough "moments" to build a case that doesn't
match the hype of the headline/summary.

I don't know enough about Tor, I don't use it on a regular basis, don't even
know enough about the technical details to assume that there's automatically
more proof than hype about the implementation of its safeguards...but this
anecdote by the OP stood out to me:

> _Case-in-point: In December 2013, a 20-year-old Harvard panicked
> overachiever named Edlo Kim learned just how little protection Tor offered
> for would be terrorists. To avoid taking a final exam he wasn’t prepared
> for, Kim hit up on the idea of sending in a fake bomb threat. То cover his
> tracks, he used Tor, supposedly the best anonymity service the web had to
> offer. But it did little mask his identity from a determined Uncle Sam. A
> joint investigation, which involved the FBI, the Secret Service and local
> police, was able to track the fake bomb threat right back to Kim — in less
> than 24 hours._

This was a pretty interesting, and amusing incident...but to use it as
circumstantial evidence to how Tor might be out-and-out compromised? The
suspect used Tor on Harvard's network to cause an incident, in real-time, on
Harvard's campus...that's not the situation in which Tor would ever claim to
be the "best anonymity service the web had to offer"...and to conflate it as
some kind of evidence that Tor is compromised doesn't give me much faith that
the OP is accurately portraying the context for all the other facts.

To put it another way, it's no secret that the entire Internet basically owes
its birth, and perhaps its existence as we know it, due to the U.S. Defense
Department. Now imagine you had the task of explaining the Internet to someone
who had never used it and knew none of its details...how hard would it be to
describe a comprehensive history of the Internet, since the 1980s, that made
it sound like the Internet was most definitely intended since conception as a
vehicle for state surveillance?

(...ok, that it has nearly become so is besides the point, I'm referring to
intent from its humble origins)

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snowwrestler
Almost everyone involved in developing the Internet was funded by the U.S.
government.

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glbrew
The US Government, and even just the military, is an extraordinarily large and
heterogeneous organization. The State Department and Military services desire
network security and anonymity to protect free speech and democracy around the
world. Intelligence services (NSA, CIA) want the exact opposite, penetrable
and observable networks. Yes, believe it or not the entire US Government is
not perfectly coordinated in a giant conspiracy. Different groups within the
US Government have different goals.

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anigbrowl
Can't say I find this very surprising. For those who would like more details
on the flow of funds, 990finder.com will let you browse though nonprofit
organizations' historical tax filings, with only minor redactions (like the
personal contact details of signatories, which could otherwise be used for
nefarious purposes). You can learn all kinds of interesting things there.

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tabrischen
Some comments on the original article seems to place the blame of the de-
anonymizing on user errors.

As a crypto newbie, what is the 'correct' way of using Tor to minimize
security risks?

