Carnegie Mellon University Was Subpoenaed By Feds To Attack Tor

[HardOCP News]

Remember those rumors circulating the internet that Carnegie Mellon University researchers were the ones that helped the FBI identify Tor users that were under investigation? Well, according to court documents, it's true. A Department of Defense funded project led to CMU, who were then subpoenaed by the FBI to do their bidding.


In a statement, the Tor Project told Motherboard that "the Tor network is secure and has only rarely been compromised. The Software Engineering Institute ("SEI") of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) compromised the network in early 2014 by operating relays and tampering with user traffic. That vulnerability, like all other vulnerabilities, was patched as soon as we learned about it. The Tor network remains the best way for users to protect their privacy and security when communicating online."

 

[lcpiper]

If the expectation of privacy part of this issue stands up in court and to challenge, then this statement may remain true " The Tor network remains the best way for users to protect their privacy and security when communicating online." , but it could also be the best way to forfeit your privacy rights in a court of law. Then it becomes a choice, a trade between better operational privacy while sacrificing your legal right to privacy while online.

Makes for a tough choice.

 

[Spidey329]

Now that's just abuse of power. Ask them to do it? Sure. Court order them to do it? F off.

 

[lcpiper]

You gota read the article, the headline is a trap.

The DoD contracted with CMU to research how to compromise TOR.

It looks like in the course of their research they found indications that a major crime or two was being done and had IPs for some of the players. Someone reported the crimes, either a CMU guy or a DoD guy. I suspect the DoD because since this was contracted work, it was essentially "in the name of the government". When Intel people and such discover a crime in the course of their work, they have to report it. Looks like the response was that the FBI said "fuck your secret research program, give us all your shit" And subpoenaed the program.

So they didn't find out about the program and subpoena CMU to force them to work for them like the reporter makes it sound.

 

[Mugato]

You gota read the article, the headline is a trap.

The DoD contracted with CMU to research how to compromise TOR.

It looks like in the course of their research they found indications that a major crime or two was being done and had IPs for some of the players. Someone reported the crimes, either a CMU guy or a DoD guy. I suspect the DoD because since this was contracted work, it was essentially "in the name of the government". When Intel people and such discover a crime in the course of their work, they have to report it. Looks like the response was that the FBI said "fuck your secret research program, give us all your shit" And subpoenaed the program.

So they didn't find out about the program and subpoena CMU to force them to work for them like the reporter makes it sound.

Thank you for your research, to many people jump off the wagon to early and just make blind assumptions. Good Job Icpiper. Saved me a trip to the article.

 

[lcpiper]

You're welcome, but someone else might get something else out of that article.

Someone who's too familiar with a subject can forget that others aren't, or miss something they didn't expect. You know, your reading in yada yada - yada - I completely missed that the first time through, it makes a difference