That TOR Exploit Wasn't the NSA After All

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Finally, a case where it turns out the NSA wasn't really spying on you. ;)

The plot has either thickened or thinned back out in the quest to discover who's been hacking into the anonymous TOR network through a security vulnerability in Firefox. After claiming on Monday that it was the NSA, a team of security researchers now admit that they were, in fact, probably totally wrong.
Click to expand...
 
Now that is certainly confidence in the current conclusion: "probably totally wrong." :)
 
People really think what they do online is significant enough to attract alphabet soup agency attention and are sadly mistaken about how little they mean to anyone but themselves. Also, more reasons not to trust Firefox and security researchers when they say dumb things like, "It was the NSA! Rabble, rabble!" or "You should install antivirus software, use a firewall, and encrypt or backup important files." Psha...dumb-face-heads. :(
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
People really think what they do online is significant enough to attract alphabet soup agency attention and are sadly mistaken about how little they mean to anyone but themselves. Also, more reasons not to trust Firefox and security researchers when they say dumb things like, "It was the NSA! Rabble, rabble!" or "You should install antivirus software, use a firewall, and encrypt or backup important files." Psha...dumb-face-heads. :(
Click to expand...

Well considering that TOR is primarily a gateway for some seriously illicit and wrong bullshit, then it's a wonder that the paranoia brigade comes out in full force.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
People really think what they do online is significant enough to attract alphabet soup agency attention and are sadly mistaken about how little they mean to anyone but themselves. Also, more reasons not to trust Firefox and security researchers when they say dumb things like, "It was the NSA! Rabble, rabble!" or "You should install antivirus software, use a firewall, and encrypt or backup important files." Psha...dumb-face-heads. :(
Click to expand...

Funny, I thought my purchase of 10,000 kilos of heroine would be somewhat important, and that's why I used TOR to secure my transaction.

note: this is sarcasm, do not track me NSA, I did not really do this. Yes, I felt compelled to type this out because I don't believe the people at the NSA are competent enough to detect sarcasm. These are government employees after all.
 
Mistake #1
Funny, I thought my purchase of 10,000 kilos of heroine would be somewhat important, and that's why I used TOR to secure my transaction.
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Mistake #2
note: this is sarcasm, do not track me NSA, I did not really do this.
Click to expand...
The NSA won't track you for this, tour not a foreign terrorist.
It's the DEA that is all in your shit.

Mistake #2
Yes, I felt compelled to type this out because I don't believe the people at the NSA are competent enough to detect sarcasm. These are government employees after all.
Click to expand...
You are mistaken, they are very competent, they just have no sense of humor which is another reason the DEA is all in your shit.

:D
 
TOR would be pretty cool if the speeds weren't 2 bytes an hour.
 
a team of security researchers now admit that they were, in fact, probably totally wrong.
Click to expand...

They weren't wrong, someone paid them and their families a "visit". I better go, someone is knocking on the door....
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
People really think what they do online is significant enough to attract alphabet soup agency attention and are sadly mistaken about how little they mean to anyone but themselves. Also, more reasons not to trust Firefox and security researchers when they say dumb things like, "It was the NSA! Rabble, rabble!" or "You should install antivirus software, use a firewall, and encrypt or backup important files." Psha...dumb-face-heads. :(
Click to expand...

It's not whether you are actually doing something illegal or not. It's that the government shouldn't be spying on it's citizenry without some serious justification.
 
Megalith said:
TOR would be pretty cool if the speeds weren't 2 bytes an hour.
Click to expand...

this so much this. BTW, why aren't speeds skyrocketing along with EVERY OTHER technological advance in computing? Why isn't AT LEAST fiber on every corner.
 
It's that the government shouldn't be spying on it's citizenry without some serious justification.
Click to expand...

It's not spying if you are yelling it out loud at the top of your voice, with a megaphone, into a microphone, that's connected to the world's most powerful speakers, attached to a dirigible, and translated into 34 different languages .........

What you do online isn't private, it never was. After all the things that have happened on the internet over the last couple of decades, how in hell can you think that you have any real expectation of privacy.

You can wish it. But you wish in one hand and shit in the other, only one of your hands is going to be full.
 
lcpiper said:
It's not spying if you are yelling it out loud at the top of your voice, with a megaphone, into a microphone, that's connected to the world's most powerful speakers, attached to a dirigible, and translated into 34 different languages .........
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wow, could you draw us a picture of that?
 
this so much this. BTW, why aren't speeds skyrocketing along with EVERY OTHER technological advance in computing? Why isn't AT LEAST fiber on every corner.
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TOR isn't slow because of the physical medium, it's slow because it's purposely routed through network connects that make it difficult to trace or capture contiguous packets.

I type a short message, the message is comprised of 120 packets. The packets are broken up and sent off through different network paths. In the end they all arrive at the same destination but how do I collect them all if I try to capture them from a spot somewhere in the middle?
 
lcpiper said:
It's not spying if you are yelling it out loud at the top of your voice, with a megaphone, into a microphone, that's connected to the world's most powerful speakers, attached to a dirigible, and translated into 34 different languages .........
Click to expand...

Um i don't yell into my cellphone when i make a call. So I'm not following you there. Your cellphone calls are routed through the same digital lines as any other call you make. The expectation of privacy does not go away because you make a cell phone call.
 
kac77 said:
Um i don't yell into my cellphone when i make a call. So I'm not following you there. Your cellphone calls are routed through the same digital lines as any other call you make. The expectation of privacy does not go away because you make a cell phone call.
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I don't think he was talking about cell phones. I think he was trying to parallel that what you do on the net isn't private at all. Perhaps it's more like people think that the little status they just posted on facebook is nothing, but the amount of "insignificant" posts, likes, and comments they make every day adds up into a very detailed picture of an individual.

Information is now the world's biggest commodity; even the tiniest bit of information has great value. Don't think that your privacy is actually private when you do your personal business on the world's largest stage. What happens on the internet, stays on the internet.
 
lcpiper said:
It's not spying if you are yelling it out loud at the top of your voice, with a megaphone, into a microphone, that's connected to the world's most powerful speakers, attached to a dirigible, and translated into 34 different languages .........

What you do online isn't private, it never was. After all the things that have happened on the internet over the last couple of decades, how in hell can you think that you have any real expectation of privacy.

You can wish it. But you wish in one hand and shit in the other, only one of your hands is going to be full.
Click to expand...

That argument only applies to the public actions you can perform on the internet, like posting on this forum. The fact that someone is using TOR or any other method to communicate privately invalidates it.

e-mail is a perfect example... It pretty much is just like regular post, you get mail from friends, advertisers, wrong recipients, etc. I expect my letter sent by post to be private and I believe even the Government requires a warrant to open mail. If I expect a letter to be private, email should be too. Yet the NSA is reportedly copying email too.

I expect all targeting communications to be private, because every-other form of targeted communication has protections why should IM/email etc not just because its on the internet?
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
People really think what they do online is significant enough to attract alphabet soup agency attention and are sadly mistaken about how little they mean to anyone but themselves. Also, more reasons not to trust Firefox and security researchers when they say dumb things like, "It was the NSA! Rabble, rabble!" or "You should install antivirus software, use a firewall, and encrypt or backup important files." Psha...dumb-face-heads. :(
Click to expand...

So why shouldn't you trust Firefox? They fixed the issue several versions ago, it's TOR who decided to use a ESR release and not to have a decent update system to advise people when a new version is available. Even then the users are also at fault for not following good practices like turning off javascript and plugins that makes it a lot easier to determine who's coming out of an exit node. They just don't really grasp that it just makes it harder to determine who you are, not that it completely anonymised you.
 
Ryokurin said:
So why shouldn't you trust Firefox? They fixed the issue several versions ago, it's TOR who decided to use a ESR release and not to have a decent update system to advise people when a new version is available. Even then the users are also at fault for not following good practices like turning off javascript and plugins that makes it a lot easier to determine who's coming out of an exit node. They just don't really grasp that it just makes it harder to determine who you are, not that it completely anonymised you.
Click to expand...

Firefox was programmed by microscopic demons who, in 1477, came to an agreement with the Sri Lankan sugarcane cartels to build a web browser that not only used an appealing animal mascot for those that were into bestiality, but also to dupe the anti-establishment Neolithic Republic of Texarkana Wine Cooler and Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation into downloading what was obviously malware. The whole project fell apart when the house the demons were renting in Belize was raided by Orange Walk police trying to arrest John McAfee for killing puppies. The 5.25 inch floppy diskette containing the source code was acquired by the Gucci-Oracle alliance during a staged coup in Sri Lanka, but nothing further was done with it and it was forgotten for over two centuries under a pile of unpaid employee travel reimbursement requests in accounts payable. Unfortunately, in 1686, Google stole the source code while Larry Page was in disguise as Larry Ellison in order to obtain key technologies related to his new SmartGucci touch-driven series of outerwear which couldn't be exported outside Finland because they used revolutionary Caesar cipher mechanisms to store user data and were totally unbreakable at the time. Because Page was a former Gucci employee, he also was intent on getting revenge on the accounting department for failing to cover hotel costs when he was at a Microsoft Developer's Convention two years prior. Mr. Page took a chance, once he got access to Gucci's inner sanctum, to also steal and then resell Firefox source code he accidentally discovered to the Steve Jobs Foundation for Unemployed Rodents. An unnamed employee then lost the floppy outside a nightclub in a phone booth. It was discovered by Masashi Miyamoto three decades later when he was riffing through the booth's phonebook looking for a local cab company that could take him and his at the time best friend Billy Mays back to the London flat they shared. Billy Mays mistook it for Masashi Miyamoto's secret diary and, after a falling out between the two over whether or not the US should get Final Fantasy 4, uploaded the source code to his MySpace page where it went viral because it made frequent references to Twizzlers and sock puppets. It was finally was compiled by Godzilla who was looking a 3D printed Mothra template so the movie series could go on since Japan was running out of giant moth actors willing to accept payment in the form of Beanie Babies and OJ Simpson Pogs. The rest of FireFox's history is more well-known and you can read all about it in this week's posting on the blog I pretend to write.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Firefox was programmed by microscopic demons who, in 1477, came to an agreement with the Sri Lankan sugarcane cartels to build a web browser that not only used an appealing animal mascot for those that were into bestiality, but also to dupe the anti-establishment Neolithic Republic of Texarkana Wine Cooler and Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation into downloading what was obviously malware. The whole project fell apart when the house the demons were renting in Belize was raided by Orange Walk police trying to arrest John McAfee for killing puppies. The 5.25 inch floppy diskette containing the source code was acquired by the Gucci-Oracle alliance during a staged coup in Sri Lanka, but nothing further was done with it and it was forgotten for over two centuries under a pile of unpaid employee travel reimbursement requests in accounts payable. Unfortunately, in 1686, Google stole the source code while Larry Page was in disguise as Larry Ellison in order to obtain key technologies related to his new SmartGucci touch-driven series of outerwear which couldn't be exported outside Finland because they used revolutionary Caesar cipher mechanisms to store user data and were totally unbreakable at the time. Because Page was a former Gucci employee, he also was intent on getting revenge on the accounting department for failing to cover hotel costs when he was at a Microsoft Developer's Convention two years prior. Mr. Page took a chance, once he got access to Gucci's inner sanctum, to also steal and then resell Firefox source code he accidentally discovered to the Steve Jobs Foundation for Unemployed Rodents. An unnamed employee then lost the floppy outside a nightclub in a phone booth. It was discovered by Masashi Miyamoto three decades later when he was riffing through the booth's phonebook looking for a local cab company that could take him and his at the time best friend Billy Mays back to the London flat they shared. Billy Mays mistook it for Masashi Miyamoto's secret diary and, after a falling out between the two over whether or not the US should get Final Fantasy 4, uploaded the source code to his MySpace page where it went viral because it made frequent references to Twizzlers and sock puppets. It was finally was compiled by Godzilla who was looking a 3D printed Mothra template so the movie series could go on since Japan was running out of giant moth actors willing to accept payment in the form of Beanie Babies and OJ Simpson Pogs. The rest of FireFox's history is more well-known and you can read all about it in this week's posting on the blog I pretend to write.
Click to expand...

That was beautiful. Can I put it in my sig?


Jhwc8NL.jpg
 
He totally left out the part about the Rasputinist mafia

WHAT IS HE TRYING TO HIDE!?!?
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Firefox was programmed by microscopic demons who, in 1477, came to an agreement with the Sri Lankan sugarcane cartels to build a web browser that not only used an appealing animal mascot for those that were into bestiality, but also to dupe the anti-establishment Neolithic Republic of Texarkana Wine Cooler and Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation into downloading what was obviously malware. The whole project fell apart when the house the demons were renting in Belize was raided by Orange Walk police trying to arrest John McAfee for killing puppies. The 5.25 inch floppy diskette containing the source code was acquired by the Gucci-Oracle alliance during a staged coup in Sri Lanka, but nothing further was done with it and it was forgotten for over two centuries under a pile of unpaid employee travel reimbursement requests in accounts payable. Unfortunately, in 1686, Google stole the source code while Larry Page was in disguise as Larry Ellison in order to obtain key technologies related to his new SmartGucci touch-driven series of outerwear which couldn't be exported outside Finland because they used revolutionary Caesar cipher mechanisms to store user data and were totally unbreakable at the time. Because Page was a former Gucci employee, he also was intent on getting revenge on the accounting department for failing to cover hotel costs when he was at a Microsoft Developer's Convention two years prior. Mr. Page took a chance, once he got access to Gucci's inner sanctum, to also steal and then resell Firefox source code he accidentally discovered to the Steve Jobs Foundation for Unemployed Rodents. An unnamed employee then lost the floppy outside a nightclub in a phone booth. It was discovered by Masashi Miyamoto three decades later when he was riffing through the booth's phonebook looking for a local cab company that could take him and his at the time best friend Billy Mays back to the London flat they shared. Billy Mays mistook it for Masashi Miyamoto's secret diary and, after a falling out between the two over whether or not the US should get Final Fantasy 4, uploaded the source code to his MySpace page where it went viral because it made frequent references to Twizzlers and sock puppets. It was finally was compiled by Godzilla who was looking a 3D printed Mothra template so the movie series could go on since Japan was running out of giant moth actors willing to accept payment in the form of Beanie Babies and OJ Simpson Pogs. The rest of FireFox's history is more well-known and you can read all about it in this week's posting on the blog I pretend to write.
Click to expand...

Pics or it didn't happen.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Firefox was programmed by microscopic demons who, in 1477, came to an agreement with the Sri Lankan sugarcane cartels to build a web browser that not only used an appealing animal mascot for those that were into bestiality, but also to dupe the anti-establishment Neolithic Republic of Texarkana Wine Cooler and Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation into downloading what was obviously malware. The whole project fell apart when the house the demons were renting in Belize was raided by Orange Walk police trying to arrest John McAfee for killing puppies. The 5.25 inch floppy diskette containing the source code was acquired by the Gucci-Oracle alliance during a staged coup in Sri Lanka, but nothing further was done with it and it was forgotten for over two centuries under a pile of unpaid employee travel reimbursement requests in accounts payable. Unfortunately, in 1686, Google stole the source code while Larry Page was in disguise as Larry Ellison in order to obtain key technologies related to his new SmartGucci touch-driven series of outerwear which couldn't be exported outside Finland because they used revolutionary Caesar cipher mechanisms to store user data and were totally unbreakable at the time. Because Page was a former Gucci employee, he also was intent on getting revenge on the accounting department for failing to cover hotel costs when he was at a Microsoft Developer's Convention two years prior. Mr. Page took a chance, once he got access to Gucci's inner sanctum, to also steal and then resell Firefox source code he accidentally discovered to the Steve Jobs Foundation for Unemployed Rodents. An unnamed employee then lost the floppy outside a nightclub in a phone booth. It was discovered by Masashi Miyamoto three decades later when he was riffing through the booth's phonebook looking for a local cab company that could take him and his at the time best friend Billy Mays back to the London flat they shared. Billy Mays mistook it for Masashi Miyamoto's secret diary and, after a falling out between the two over whether or not the US should get Final Fantasy 4, uploaded the source code to his MySpace page where it went viral because it made frequent references to Twizzlers and sock puppets. It was finally was compiled by Godzilla who was looking a 3D printed Mothra template so the movie series could go on since Japan was running out of giant moth actors willing to accept payment in the form of Beanie Babies and OJ Simpson Pogs. The rest of FireFox's history is more well-known and you can read all about it in this week's posting on the blog I pretend to write.
Click to expand...

Sounds plausible.
 
So either this was the last stock photo of the NSA building, or they didn't bother checking out the cars in the parking lot, bloody hell those are some old clunkers.
 
Yes I am talking more about the internet then I am about cell phones.

And you can wish it were private, you can expect it to be private, you can even jump up and down and demand that it be private.

But even if you are sending an email to your buddy Bob, the actual reality is that you're communications are about as private as opening up your window and yelling it across town "Bob, this is for you man, wana go eat at lunch?".

Come on dudes, if the NSA can intercept it you think maybe someone else can too?
What about the FBI, think they have the resources?
What about your local PD?
England has a similar program, can they grab your stuff?
Iran maybe? What'do ya think, some Mullah has your MAC?
Hey, the Chinese love this shit, I wonder if they have your shit too.

It's not even a question to wonder if your internet comms are being intercepted.

The question is "Will someone decide it's worth their time to exploit your comms for their purposes?"
 
Idiocracy, yessss, that's what it's called.

Let's all sit around and make up a bunch of rules, ok. That will surely fix everything.

Joe: Hey there NSA, you can't collect my email.
NSA: OooKaaa, if you insist, I'll stop right away.
Chinese CyberSecurity Team in Madrid using the cover of a Global IT Staffing Company: Cool, All the more for us.

Your privacy on the internet is an illusion that others want you to believe in because otherwise all business on the internet would cease. It's a game of rules, laws, court actions, threats, and it all depends on maintaining the illusion that it's not as vulnerable as it really is.

It's 1/3 cover your ass.
It's 1/3 I'll get you for what you did.
And it's 1/3 Wild Wild West.
 
lcpiper said:
Yes I am talking more about the internet then I am about cell phones.

And you can wish it were private, you can expect it to be private, you can even jump up and down and demand that it be private.

But even if you are sending an email to your buddy Bob, the actual reality is that you're communications are about as private as opening up your window and yelling it across town "Bob, this is for you man, wana go eat at lunch?".

Come on dudes, if the NSA can intercept it you think maybe someone else can too?
What about the FBI, think they have the resources?
What about your local PD?
England has a similar program, can they grab your stuff?
Iran maybe? What'do ya think, some Mullah has your MAC?
Hey, the Chinese love this shit, I wonder if they have your shit too.

It's not even a question to wonder if your internet comms are being intercepted.

The question is "Will someone decide it's worth their time to exploit your comms for their purposes?"
Click to expand...

That's an illogical fallacy. If that were the case then downloading copyrighted movies, music, etc would be perfectly fine. Just because technology makes things easy doesn't mean that whatever you are doing is legal.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Firefox was programmed by microscopic demons who, in 1477, came to an agreement with the Sri Lankan sugarcane cartels to build a web browser that not only used an appealing animal mascot for those that were into bestiality, but also to dupe the anti-establishment Neolithic Republic of Texarkana Wine Cooler and Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation into downloading what was obviously malware. The whole project fell apart when the house the demons were renting in Belize was raided by Orange Walk police trying to arrest John McAfee for killing puppies. The 5.25 inch floppy diskette containing the source code was acquired by the Gucci-Oracle alliance during a staged coup in Sri Lanka, but nothing further was done with it and it was forgotten for over two centuries under a pile of unpaid employee travel reimbursement requests in accounts payable. Unfortunately, in 1686, Google stole the source code while Larry Page was in disguise as Larry Ellison in order to obtain key technologies related to his new SmartGucci touch-driven series of outerwear which couldn't be exported outside Finland because they used revolutionary Caesar cipher mechanisms to store user data and were totally unbreakable at the time. Because Page was a former Gucci employee, he also was intent on getting revenge on the accounting department for failing to cover hotel costs when he was at a Microsoft Developer's Convention two years prior. Mr. Page took a chance, once he got access to Gucci's inner sanctum, to also steal and then resell Firefox source code he accidentally discovered to the Steve Jobs Foundation for Unemployed Rodents. An unnamed employee then lost the floppy outside a nightclub in a phone booth. It was discovered by Masashi Miyamoto three decades later when he was riffing through the booth's phonebook looking for a local cab company that could take him and his at the time best friend Billy Mays back to the London flat they shared. Billy Mays mistook it for Masashi Miyamoto's secret diary and, after a falling out between the two over whether or not the US should get Final Fantasy 4, uploaded the source code to his MySpace page where it went viral because it made frequent references to Twizzlers and sock puppets. It was finally was compiled by Godzilla who was looking a 3D printed Mothra template so the movie series could go on since Japan was running out of giant moth actors willing to accept payment in the form of Beanie Babies and OJ Simpson Pogs. The rest of FireFox's history is more well-known and you can read all about it in this week's posting on the blog I pretend to write.
Click to expand...

Sculelos?
 
LeninGHOLA said:
That was beautiful. Can I put it in my sig?
Click to expand...

I think you should. We need to get the word out about the microscopic demons and their nefarious past deeds while employed by Sri Lanka's sugarcane cartels.

jojo69 said:
He totally left out the part about the Rasputinist mafia

WHAT IS HE TRYING TO HIDE!?!?
Click to expand...

Just visit my blog! Everything is there and it's backed up 100% of the time by unnamed industry insiders, unnamed subject matter experts, and some of the best investigative journalism ever to be put on an imaginary blog that doesn't really exist. Totally mind blowing truthful stuffs.

Methadras said:
Pics or it didn't happen.
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todd-rundgren-tiny-demons.jpg

mothra_godzilla_500px.jpg

_48405017_009829677-1.jpg

Sock_Puppet_busted.jpg


chockomonkey said:
Sounds plausible.
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Totally true, but I might hafta go into hiding now that the Neolithic Republic of Texarkana Wine Cooler and Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation knows I outed them. :eek: If I disappear, you can have my collection of dehydrated fruit slices, but leave the yogurt for my cat.

InorganicMatter said:
Sculelos?
Click to expand...

Succubus?
 
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