

Tor is dead - andor
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andor
My take on improving the Google translation:

 _Because the Tor hidden services story is just making the rounds: Tor is
dead. Tor is based on the assumption that the opponent is not able to monitor
the entire Internet. Then, so the assumption, one can confuse the opponent by
passing traffic through a series of servers. To make the opponent unable to
follow it, at least one of these servers must be located in a country where
the internet is not totally surveilled.

This assumption is, in my opinion, careless up to reckless. That was fairly
obvious for a while. But as always: hope is the last to die. Now, in my
opinion, the time has come to officially declare this hope dead.

The only imaginable way to get anonymity on the internet is in non-real-time
services. But as soon as there is a predictable temporal correlation between
the different versions of the routed traffic, it is traceable to a total
surveillance system such as the NSA. You would have to ensure that the
forwarded traffic correlates neither in time nor in size. Or you would need
continuous cover traffic, indistinguishable from the forwarded messages. This,
of course, is idea of Tor, that all the other Tor users provide cover traffic
for me. Using Tor one can deceive admins of web forums, stalkers and the
police, but you cannot hide from the NSA this way.

By the way: I just read the definition of totalitarianism. Can any expert
please explain to me how to interpret the literature in such a way that the
U.S. does not fall under this definition?_

~~~
dictum
I do not know if there's a word for that (imperialism doesn't seem quite
right), but the US are _totalitarian_ in regards to other countries, and
they've been so for a long time. Now some of the tricks learned from speaking
softly and carrying a big stick are being used domestically.

~~~
syncerr
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_state](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_state)

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weavejester
Such an overly dramatic post. If the NSA can accurately monitor the bandwidth
of every device connected to Tor, then why did they go to the trouble of
injecting exploit into Freedom Hosting sites? And even if they do have that
capability, a protocol that masks bandwidth usage through junk data would be
an expensive, but effective counter to it.

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syncerr
Wouldn't users navigating to .onion sites within TOR be free from a GPA
(global passive adversary)?

Couldn't the TOR protocol model Perfect Dark?[1] Which uses a Mix Network.[2]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Dark_(P2P)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Dark_\(P2P\))

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mix_network](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mix_network)

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fosap
1) I don't see why. It's end to end encrypted, but still who visits what is
transparent.

2) Perfect Dark is not a general purpose net, but rather a file distribution
mechanism, for known hashes. Not for message exchange between peers like tor
or i2p.

Tor is a mix network aswell. But a low latency mix. The adversary is a way
stronger than assumed, it does not seem to be safe anymore. High latency mixes
(like remailers) are unaffected.

Also, Perfect Dark is 1) broken 2) closed source, so not trustworthy to begin
with.

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dankest
Please. It's far more likely an alternative related to Tor will arise than a
complete collapse of the undernet.

------
Theory5
Well, back to carrier pigeons...

~~~
eksith
Oddly, it may actually be several orders of magnitude faster for large files :

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers)

[http://hothardware.com/News/Homing-Pigeon-Faster-Than-
Intern...](http://hothardware.com/News/Homing-Pigeon-Faster-Than-Internet-in-
Data-Transfer/)

