this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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Privacy

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For example, I downloaded Tor network and using it for illegal activities. Can my govt track me? Can US govt track me? I know it encrypts something but if I remember correct, FBI was able to find some Tor users before.

Note: illegal activities was for example. I'm not going to do anything illegal. I'm just planning to serve my instance with a onion address.

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This post glows so hard I'm going to need a pair of sunglasses.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wait, is the joke about me being CIA? Cause I’m not CIA 100%

[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's exactly what a fed would say

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It’s simple. If you ask a cop if he’s a cop, he’s like, obligated to tell you. It’s in the Constitution.

breaking bad reference

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Crooks getting their infallible legal advice from Hollywood screenwriters…

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sue the person your interested in for something, maybe defamation, get a deposition done, and as part of the questioning have the lawyer ask if they work in law enforcement.

Under oath, they have to tell you if they are a cop. heh

The 7th Street Litigators - A crew of rough and tumble gunners, use this method to screen new members.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Short answer: In theory, pretty much anything you're doing on the modern internet can be traced back to you. It's just a question of how much effort, sophistication, and time someone's willing to invest in the tracing. Tor is a pretty high bar for them to clear, so it'll protect you against a pretty high bar of attempting to track you down -- but that's only true as long as you're not doing anything careless to compromise your own security, and it's pretty easy to do something careless (especially in the long term).

This DEFCON talk goes into a lot of the nitty-gritty details and reality. The speaker sold drugs on the dark web for quite a while, but eventually got caught and went to federal prison, so he knows both sides of it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=NGiUhjuB22Y

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the video, I'll check it out.

[–] asmodeus 42 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Most tor users got caught because of bad OPSEC, not because of the tor network itself…

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Bad opsec and hubris/idiocy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Maybe, parallel construction confuses the quality of ToR a bit. If I was a APT and compromised ToR I wouldn't want anyone to know, so i would use parallel construction to always have a non-ToR reason for a take down.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So we need other security methods besides using Tor? Like what?

[–] asmodeus 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not using anything Google/Microsoft related would be a good start.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Followed by no JavaScript, no browser plug-ins, etc.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Don't do illegal activities.

What signal fiasco?

You should read the Tor foundation documentation before trusting your freedom to it.

You can be tracked on Tor, but the question is by who, and when. If you login to gmail over tor then google knows your using tor. If you access tor from your home computer then your isp knows your using tor.

If your threat model includes Advanced Persistent Threats at the nation state level, then they can do Cybill attacks and control enough nodes that they could track you.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

"illegal activities" doesn't always mean buying crack cocaine, or whatever. depending on where you live it can mean:

accessing wikipedia, forming communities, performing union activities...

in other words, the ruling class of your country decides something being threatening their power, and that becomes an illegal activity.

of course everyone can be tracked. also everyone is not julian assange, so i'm not so worried about using tor for "illegal activities".

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What I meant with Signal fiasco is, they didn’t published server code for a year and the fact that they’re a US establishment. It’s not looking that bad but I’m not going to trust them anymore.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

ToR was started by the US Navy and still gets funding from the navy every year. ToR is a tool used by the US for spooks and spook assets globally. The only reason it was made public was to generate enough noise to hide the spook talk.

So applying your logic means you shouldn't use ToR either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm, maybe you’re right. But still its not like they didn’t released the source code for a year.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

Its there now, but you never know what they are really running on their servers. In end to end networks, you should never trust the network, only the clients.

I think you need to take time and model out your threats, the EFF has tools to help you do this, then choose the tools that match best.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You’re right. Thats why I like Matrix more than Signal now.

Also I’m not looking for a security method to escape from a specific target. It’s all curiosity about general security.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

matrix leaks metadata to the servers much worse then signal, just FYI. Hating how a team runs is different then then risk profile of the product.

Don't like emotions cloud your decision making

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not hating. I just like keeping my half encrypted data on my own server instead of fully encrypted on someone else's server.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

well, your own server and every other server you've ever connected to.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I guess the phone number leak, I wouldn't really call it a fiasco though

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

That was also a hack on Twilio. Signal itself wasn't compromised in any way if I am not wrong.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I said "fiasco" because they did not share the backend server repo for a while and did not make any statement about it. Maybe a little overreaction than it should be. But for an app that promises privacy, it's kinda annoying.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh that, yeah that was pretty bad tbh

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sheesh, almost got you 😅

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Please don't do anything illegal...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

As long as you stay ^far^ ^far^ away from Javascript, you should be fine.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

smart move to add that note, they nearly send out a swat team

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On a serious note, if I'm not mistaken, most cases of Tor users identity being uncovered is via information the user either unintentionally leaving information public, or privately told another user, which was made public due to a betrayal or a security breach.

In most other cases involve security flaws in Tor clients not the network, again if I'm not mistaken.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Were the link go? I'm too spooked to click

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Curiosity of the human mind is the weakest link.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

WDYM I just downloaded Tor Browser from there and its working as expected. But interestingly it was Chromium based.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isn't Tor browser based on Firefox?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's a fake link.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm intrigued. What is that link?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Curiosity of the human mind is the weakest link.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually, that's what makes us better. Even if the price is death of one for knowledge of the whole race

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I fully agree with you ;) .. Although a lot of animals are curious as well. But I mean it's one of the weakest links in terms of security. The human is the weakest link.