5 ms·

isn't tor under the control of US intel agencies now? is there an alternative darknet?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
belorn 5y ago
Mesh networks that don't operate as an overlay network could in theory be pretty effective to avoid large-scale traffic correlation attacks. If we assume that the US has effective control over the whole backbone network, and enough control inside the network of most commercial available ISP's, then there isn't much mixing networks can do. An adversary can always observe, inject, throttle, speed up, block and otherwise disturb the network flow in order to determine who is talking to whom.
schleck8 5y ago
I hope not. Tor being used for whistleblowing and censorship circumvention is one thing, but the onion network is pure anarchy and probably the worst case scenario of what the internet could become. https://youtu.be/iItLpwkQMUQ&t=277 https://youtu.be/iItLpwkQMUQ&t=277
- ipaddr 5y ago
  It is useful as a free-for-all outside of censorship. You probably don't want an area free from censorship most people don't. I browse with safe images enabled when searching google images. Once in awhile I'll open it up and see a world that didn't exist before. I don't think that world should be removed even if I rarely visit.
wongarsu 5y ago
Tor never claimed resiliency against large-scale traffic correlation attacks. Anyone who can look at a sufficient portion of all internet traffic has a good chance of deanonymizing TOR users. The Snowden revelations could lead one to believe that the US is sniffing enough traffic to make this viable, but it's anyone's guess if they collect and synchronize enough data to make deanonymization of TOR users viable. I2P always looked more promising to me, and more open about its threat model [1] and potential mitigations. But it's not built for browsing the open internet, so it has a somewhat different niche. 1: https://geti2p.net/en/docs/how/threat-model https://geti2p.net/en/docs/how/threat-model
- darau1 5y ago
  I wish more people ran TOR nodes. I intend to run one when I can.
  - pph 5y ago
    To be fair it's not like you can run one from your home connection. I mean you could, but it wouldn't be a good idea, unfortunately.
    - haakon 5y ago
      I've been running a Tor relay from my home for a decade, at least. It's not an exit relay. Never had any issue.
    - wongarsu 5y ago
      Running an exit relay from home would be a very bad idea, and if your IP frequently changes you might not be picked as guard relay. But I don't see why you couldn't run a middle relay from home, as long as you don't have a traffic cap.
      - R0b0t1 5y ago
        You can run an exit relay from home, at least in the US. There are some ISPs (mostly on the East coast, afaict) that may not help you, but most of them seem to understand how the laws work. In other countries you may not have such luck.
    - 8bitbuddhist 5y ago
      Running an intermediate/middle node is generally safe. You want to avoid running an exit node.
      - kentiko 5y ago
        Running a middle node got my IP banned from some services, even services provided by my ISP.
kmeisthax 5y ago
Tor was originally written by US intel agencies specifically to provide cover for spies. The release of the software to the public was specifically to provide plausible deniability for those spies. So there's always going to be some level of control and knowledge the US has about the network. If your threat model is anything weaker than a hostile nation state then Tor is still probably good enough to use as a darknet. If you're doing anything illegal over Tor then you probably should be more worried about OPSEC failures or rubber-hose cryptanalysis.
- hereforphone 5y ago
  Are you sure it was supposed to provide "cover for spies"? AFAIK onion routing was an invention of the US Naval Research Laboratories and was public from the beginning. If you want "spies" to use it, you don't want them connecting to known gateways. High anonymity (simplex) is why number stations are still a thing.
  - rickdeveloper 5y ago
    > If you want "spies" to use it, you don't want them connecting to known gateways. The best place to hide a tree is in a forest. If you have both 'normal' users and spies connecting to this host, who will tell who's the spy?
  - 0xFFFFFFFFF 5y ago
    Do number stations still a thing? Here in Europe there are just some beacons that broadcast the same message daily but no other activity whatsoever.
    - hereforphone 5y ago
      They're still a thing as recently as a year or two ago when I looked into it. They're "perfect" in that the receiver can't be identified from the message or its channel (other than catching him with his radio), and that the message cannot be reversed (encoded w/ a one time pad). So they're hard to replace.
ravenstine 5y ago
In regards to your second question, yes, there is I2P. https://geti2p.net https://geti2p.net It's better than Tor in a few ways, in particular how it handles DDOS attacks. I2P is also more focused on facilitating hidden services (eepsites) than being a clearnet proxy. There's also Yggdrasil, although it doesn't seem particularly concerned about anonymity. https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/
- zikduruqe 5y ago
  https://letsdecentralize.org https://letsdecentralize.org Here are a few options.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  For i2p, is there something like tails? Like a hardened read-only OS built to avoid the usual client opsec failures?
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    To answer my own question: Kodachi linux seems to do this. https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxkodachi/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxkodachi/ Although it's not nearly as minimalistic as Tails.
jimbob45 5y ago
Not for us common folk, I don't think so. Sure, they can listen in on you all they want, but what good is any of that if they can't use it against you in a court of law?
- noman-land 5y ago
  Ever hear of parellel construction? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Mesh networks that don't operate as an overlay network could in theory be pretty effective to avoid large-scale traffic correlation attacks. If we assume that the US has effective control over the whole backbone network, and enough control inside the network of most commercial available ISP's, then there isn't much mixing networks can do. An adversary can always observe, inject, throttle, speed up, block and otherwise disturb the network flow in order to determine who is talking to whom.

schleck8 5y ago

I hope not. Tor being used for whistleblowing and censorship circumvention is one thing, but the onion network is pure anarchy and probably the worst case scenario of what the internet could become. https://youtu.be/iItLpwkQMUQ&t=277 https://youtu.be/iItLpwkQMUQ&t=277

ipaddr 5y ago
It is useful as a free-for-all outside of censorship. You probably don't want an area free from censorship most people don't. I browse with safe images enabled when searching google images. Once in awhile I'll open it up and see a world that didn't exist before. I don't think that world should be removed even if I rarely visit.

wongarsu 5y ago

Tor never claimed resiliency against large-scale traffic correlation attacks. Anyone who can look at a sufficient portion of all internet traffic has a good chance of deanonymizing TOR users. The Snowden revelations could lead one to believe that the US is sniffing enough traffic to make this viable, but it's anyone's guess if they collect and synchronize enough data to make deanonymization of TOR users viable. I2P always looked more promising to me, and more open about its threat model [1] and potential mitigations. But it's not built for browsing the open internet, so it has a somewhat different niche. 1: https://geti2p.net/en/docs/how/threat-model https://geti2p.net/en/docs/how/threat-model

darau1 5y ago
I wish more people ran TOR nodes. I intend to run one when I can.
- pph 5y ago
  To be fair it's not like you can run one from your home connection. I mean you could, but it wouldn't be a good idea, unfortunately.
  - haakon 5y ago
    I've been running a Tor relay from my home for a decade, at least. It's not an exit relay. Never had any issue.
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    Running an exit relay from home would be a very bad idea, and if your IP frequently changes you might not be picked as guard relay. But I don't see why you couldn't run a middle relay from home, as long as you don't have a traffic cap.
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      You can run an exit relay from home, at least in the US. There are some ISPs (mostly on the East coast, afaict) that may not help you, but most of them seem to understand how the laws work. In other countries you may not have such luck.
  - 8bitbuddhist 5y ago
    Running an intermediate/middle node is generally safe. You want to avoid running an exit node.
    - kentiko 5y ago
      Running a middle node got my IP banned from some services, even services provided by my ISP.

kmeisthax 5y ago

Tor was originally written by US intel agencies specifically to provide cover for spies. The release of the software to the public was specifically to provide plausible deniability for those spies. So there's always going to be some level of control and knowledge the US has about the network. If your threat model is anything weaker than a hostile nation state then Tor is still probably good enough to use as a darknet. If you're doing anything illegal over Tor then you probably should be more worried about OPSEC failures or rubber-hose cryptanalysis.

hereforphone 5y ago
Are you sure it was supposed to provide "cover for spies"? AFAIK onion routing was an invention of the US Naval Research Laboratories and was public from the beginning. If you want "spies" to use it, you don't want them connecting to known gateways. High anonymity (simplex) is why number stations are still a thing.
- rickdeveloper 5y ago
  > If you want "spies" to use it, you don't want them connecting to known gateways. The best place to hide a tree is in a forest. If you have both 'normal' users and spies connecting to this host, who will tell who's the spy?
- 0xFFFFFFFFF 5y ago
  Do number stations still a thing? Here in Europe there are just some beacons that broadcast the same message daily but no other activity whatsoever.
  - hereforphone 5y ago
    They're still a thing as recently as a year or two ago when I looked into it. They're "perfect" in that the receiver can't be identified from the message or its channel (other than catching him with his radio), and that the message cannot be reversed (encoded w/ a one time pad). So they're hard to replace.

ravenstine 5y ago

In regards to your second question, yes, there is I2P. https://geti2p.net https://geti2p.net It's better than Tor in a few ways, in particular how it handles DDOS attacks. I2P is also more focused on facilitating hidden services (eepsites) than being a clearnet proxy. There's also Yggdrasil, although it doesn't seem particularly concerned about anonymity. https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/

zikduruqe 5y ago
https://letsdecentralize.org https://letsdecentralize.org Here are a few options.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
For i2p, is there something like tails? Like a hardened read-only OS built to avoid the usual client opsec failures?
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  To answer my own question: Kodachi linux seems to do this. https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxkodachi/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxkodachi/ Although it's not nearly as minimalistic as Tails.

jimbob45 5y ago

Not for us common folk, I don't think so. Sure, they can listen in on you all they want, but what good is any of that if they can't use it against you in a court of law?

noman-land 5y ago
Ever hear of parellel construction? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction