6 ms·

Its source code is available for audit and scrutiny, so yeah. If you're looking to spread FUD do that to the closed source stuff.

adamnemecek 13y ago
But that assumes that the feds don't have any aces hidden in their sleeves that you don't know about, like some backdoors or something.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
qq66 13y ago
Open source isn't a guarantee of safety for two reasons: 1) It's highly possible that there are federal government agencies with knowledge of encryption and security beyond the current state of the art in academia. There could be deliberate vulnerabilities that even the most highly regarded researchers/academics in the field could not detect. 2) Even if you trust the source, the source can be compromised elsewhere in the toolchain (the compiler could turn safe code into malicious code). Unless you trust every element of your toolchain, you trust nothing (from a mathematical sense -- of course it's much more complicated, and thus less likely, to compromise Tor through its own source code rather than gcc's source code).
- shawnz 13y ago
  > It's highly possible that there are federal government agencies with knowledge of encryption and security beyond the current state of the art in academia. There could be deliberate vulnerabilities that even the most highly regarded researchers/academics in the field could not detect. That's true, but Tor uses encryption that is common in many other products. Even if it were a privately owned product, it probably would have been implemented in a very similar way. > Even if you trust the source, the source can be compromised elsewhere in the toolchain (the compiler could turn safe code into malicious code). Unless you trust every element of your toolchain, you trust nothing (from a mathematical sense -- of course it's much more complicated, and thus less likely, to compromise Tor through its own source code rather than gcc's source code). OP is not talking about whether or not perfect security is possible. They are talking about the possibility of Tor specifically being backdoored, since it originated within and is funded by the U.S. government.
  - autoexec 13y ago
    I doubt tor is backdoored, but it has it's own security issues. I wouldn't doubt for a second that three letter agencies are running a huge amount of nodes on the tor network and doing everything they can to correlate traffic and associate connections to individuals. At the end of the day, you can't rely on tor alone to keep you safe or anonymous on the internet.
- anxiousest 13y ago
  I'm not suggesting it's impossible, I'm just saying that it's much more difficult to hide stuff in OSS thus less likely. It's the closed source stuff you ought to be more suspicious of.
- Jach 13y ago
  > the compiler could turn safe code into malicious code While I agree toolchain compromises are a concern, this particularly famous one of backdooring a compiler has a counter: http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/ http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/
deleted 13y ago
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bdcravens 13y ago
I originally had a snarky comment about not trusting nodes, then reread what you said as well as the article, and realized that's a different issue... the article is questioning trusting the Tor Project due to DoD funding; your response is you can trust the code they generate as it's open for review. So now I have completely different snarky response :-) How many users are downloading and compiling source? If you're running a binary you didn't compile, it's really no different than being closed source. (Unless you get the MD5 sig from an independent, trusted third party, and verify yourself)
- thex86 13y ago
  I am sorry, but this is just wrong. a). For all the bundles, they are signed by the Tor developer who packages them. The signatures are clearly visible with the downloads. b). Most importantly: Tor is moving towards deterministic builds: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/deterministic-builds-part-one-cyberwar-and-global-compromise https://blog.torproject.org/blog/deterministic-builds-part-o... Different people build the Tor Browser Bundles on Gitian (look it up), and they will have the same hashes. So unless ALL of these people are lying, if their hashes match, you can be convinced that it is the same binary as you would get by compiling it.
  - pshc 13y ago
    Re: Tor deterministic builds link That writeup is really fucking cool. You should submit it as its own story!
    - thex86 13y ago
      Thanks, just did!
- deleted 13y ago
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Michael_Murray 13y ago
This argument only works if you believe that there are enough people who understand the complexity and nuance within the system at a level sufficient to understand it. It goes back to the design of DES - the NSA influenced small design changes in the SBoxes that had implications that only they understood. This gave an advantage, even though the algorithms were completely "open source". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard#NSA.27s_involvement_in_the_design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard#NSA.27... In that case, they made the encryption STRONGER. But they certainly showed how that type of influence could happen. I don't happen to be enough of a conspiracy theorist to believe that they're messing with Tor - there are better ways, especially when a vast majority of the traffic isn't through Tor.

adamnemecek 13y ago

But that assumes that the feds don't have any aces hidden in their sleeves that you don't know about, like some backdoors or something.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

qq66 13y ago

Open source isn't a guarantee of safety for two reasons: 1) It's highly possible that there are federal government agencies with knowledge of encryption and security beyond the current state of the art in academia. There could be deliberate vulnerabilities that even the most highly regarded researchers/academics in the field could not detect. 2) Even if you trust the source, the source can be compromised elsewhere in the toolchain (the compiler could turn safe code into malicious code). Unless you trust every element of your toolchain, you trust nothing (from a mathematical sense -- of course it's much more complicated, and thus less likely, to compromise Tor through its own source code rather than gcc's source code).

shawnz 13y ago
> It's highly possible that there are federal government agencies with knowledge of encryption and security beyond the current state of the art in academia. There could be deliberate vulnerabilities that even the most highly regarded researchers/academics in the field could not detect. That's true, but Tor uses encryption that is common in many other products. Even if it were a privately owned product, it probably would have been implemented in a very similar way. > Even if you trust the source, the source can be compromised elsewhere in the toolchain (the compiler could turn safe code into malicious code). Unless you trust every element of your toolchain, you trust nothing (from a mathematical sense -- of course it's much more complicated, and thus less likely, to compromise Tor through its own source code rather than gcc's source code). OP is not talking about whether or not perfect security is possible. They are talking about the possibility of Tor specifically being backdoored, since it originated within and is funded by the U.S. government.
- autoexec 13y ago
  I doubt tor is backdoored, but it has it's own security issues. I wouldn't doubt for a second that three letter agencies are running a huge amount of nodes on the tor network and doing everything they can to correlate traffic and associate connections to individuals. At the end of the day, you can't rely on tor alone to keep you safe or anonymous on the internet.
anxiousest 13y ago
I'm not suggesting it's impossible, I'm just saying that it's much more difficult to hide stuff in OSS thus less likely. It's the closed source stuff you ought to be more suspicious of.
Jach 13y ago
> the compiler could turn safe code into malicious code While I agree toolchain compromises are a concern, this particularly famous one of backdooring a compiler has a counter: http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/ http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

bdcravens 13y ago

I originally had a snarky comment about not trusting nodes, then reread what you said as well as the article, and realized that's a different issue... the article is questioning trusting the Tor Project due to DoD funding; your response is you can trust the code they generate as it's open for review. So now I have completely different snarky response :-) How many users are downloading and compiling source? If you're running a binary you didn't compile, it's really no different than being closed source. (Unless you get the MD5 sig from an independent, trusted third party, and verify yourself)

thex86 13y ago
I am sorry, but this is just wrong. a). For all the bundles, they are signed by the Tor developer who packages them. The signatures are clearly visible with the downloads. b). Most importantly: Tor is moving towards deterministic builds: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/deterministic-builds-part-one-cyberwar-and-global-compromise https://blog.torproject.org/blog/deterministic-builds-part-o... Different people build the Tor Browser Bundles on Gitian (look it up), and they will have the same hashes. So unless ALL of these people are lying, if their hashes match, you can be convinced that it is the same binary as you would get by compiling it.
- pshc 13y ago
  Re: Tor deterministic builds link That writeup is really fucking cool. You should submit it as its own story!
  - thex86 13y ago
    Thanks, just did!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

Michael_Murray 13y ago

This argument only works if you believe that there are enough people who understand the complexity and nuance within the system at a level sufficient to understand it. It goes back to the design of DES - the NSA influenced small design changes in the SBoxes that had implications that only they understood. This gave an advantage, even though the algorithms were completely "open source". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard#NSA.27s_involvement_in_the_design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard#NSA.27... In that case, they made the encryption STRONGER. But they certainly showed how that type of influence could happen. I don't happen to be enough of a conspiracy theorist to believe that they're messing with Tor - there are better ways, especially when a vast majority of the traffic isn't through Tor.