What do we want? CAT VIDEOS! How do we get them? TOR! The Onion Router project has fired back at the National Security Agency, after it emerged that those who use the network – and read Linux magazines – are considered worthy of surveillance. Tor's blogged riposte points out that “Just learning that somebody visited the Tor or Tails website doesn't tell you whether that person is …
I'm getting a bit sick and fed up of seeing SSH brute force attacks, plus SQL Injection attempts via url requests coming from TOR end points.
Yes TOR is used for very legitimate reasons but like the rest of the net its also used by scum... and the scum get the added advantage of being able to hide themselves a lot better.
@AC
I appreciate your pain but it's exactly this kind of thinking that sees the NSA deliberately weakening encryption standards and putting back-doors into everything they can get their mitts on.
They're just sick and fed up of seeing terrorists use encryption to hide their plans! Sure encryption is a valuable business tool and useful for individuals wanting to protect themselves when using online services like shopping and banking but it's also used by terrorists... and the terrorists get the added advantage if being able to conceal their attack plans a lot better.
Likewise those Miranda rights that the police have to read to people - do you know that even people who are accused of bombing marathons get the right to silence?
I'm not taking the piss - I'm just trying to point out the slippery-slope you're stepping onto.
I don't follow this much, but I don't recall anyone showing that terrorists had used encryption to hide their plans, nor that the NSA has foiled any such plans by decrypting sneaky terrorist plans.
Of course most of my knowledge on how terrorists organize themselves comes from Four Lions, so probably not representative.
"people who are _accused_ of bombing marathons get the right to silence"
Isn't that the point of being accused rather than guilty - your accusers have to prove your guilt and you don't have to help them do it?
@swissrobin
Perhaps, perhaps not, but that is part of the point - not only is the NSA stepping on innocent citizens in its alleged hunt for terrorists, it can't even say that there were any terrorists there to find in the first place.
What they are doing is like burning down a forest to catch an escaped prisoner. Except they don't know which forest he's hiding in so they burn them all down. Of course they don't end up finding their target anyway so they realise that what they really need to do is dam-up and dredge all the rivers as well.
In other words, the privacy and freedom of hundreds of millions of people (not just in the US!) is being stripped away with the alleged goal of protecting the liberty and freedom of the people. After all, if we don't watch out, our free and democratic way of life might be in danger from an controlling, authoritarian regime!
As for the Boston bombing, just have a bit of a search on it and see the all the commentary and discussions about reading the suspects their rights.
Democracy and human rights aren't tested when times are good, they're tested when times are bad. It's sad that a country that once tried to spread the ideals of a free and democratic society now scuppers its own freedom and democracy.
Happy Fourth of July all - I wonder what beautiful and moving words the President will speak on the topics of freedom and liberty and people who risked their lives and safety to give those values to their descendants.
"...our free and democratic way of life might be in danger from an controlling, authoritarian regime!..."
Might be in danger???
"...a controlling, authoritarian regime!..."
Like those in the Palace of Westminster, in the White House, and in Brussels?
I would go on to add that "our free and democratic way of life" doesn't actually exist - it's merely an illusion of democracy doled out to us plebs by an arrogant and contemptuous ruling élite...
ted1950.
I'm still waiting to hear who these terrorist groups are that jump onto the internet in hordes, swapping their nefarious plans willy-nilly across the internet.
So far, all the ones I've heard about on the news use runners that either deliver plans orally, written on paper, or loaded on USB sticks.
Of course they *could* be using Google+, no one ever looks there.
I get those as well but at least you can try to report them to the ISP /hosting company.. Amazon do usually respond to abuse reports.
Tor endpoints which are registered as such basically state that they are not responsible for traffic or how their endpoint is being used and so basically you should just fuck off...
Its a complete mess and if too many scummy people use Tor for nefarious purposes and people get sick and fed up and start blocking endpoints ( I've already got about 20 listed following what was obviously a botnet using tor knowing that it could hide with impunity) then the good side of tor gets eroded.
I'm getting a bit sick and fed up of seeing SSH brute force attacks, plus SQL Injection attempts via url requests coming from TOR end points.
I'm not, I quite like seeing them in the logs of traffic that my firewall and filtering rejects.
I'd only be annoyed if they were actually getting through..
@Teiwaz
Well, yes but I think the idea is more that Linux users are generally more technical, often working in IT. That means they're more likely to know how to get around obstacles like DNS blocks or government filtering. They're also more likely to know some level of programming as well as being better able to protect themselves.
The (false) adage that "if you're not doing anything wrong you've got nothing to hide" is, I suspect used in reverse just as much, with the government and associated bodies being instantly interested in anything that may be encrypted or intentionally anonymous. Why, after all, would someone encrypt and anonymise their activities unless they were doing something illegal?
Only terrorists want privacy. Apparently.
'Well, yes but I think the idea is more that Linux users are generally more technical, often working in IT. That means they're more likely to know how to get around obstacles like DNS blocks or government filtering. They're also more likely to know some level of programming as well as being better able to protect themselves...
Heh...and you should see the waves of paranoia I get at work when I do a simple thing like open up a cmd shell on any of the windows boxes to do anything (we have an interesting inherited network setup and a less than cluefool admin. Through not fault of the admin (politics, paranoia), things get borked rather regularly, being what I am [ex admin, ex IT, currently employed to do things non computer/IT/network related] I tend to work round the borked bits that impede anything I need to do ....
btw, only person in organisation with a Linux box on my desktop..
Please retract your digi-probes from my ass.
Yes, I downloaded TOR, and yes I even fired it up and had a look for some .onion sites. For that you can thank the frequent articles in the tech press.
Personally, I think its a useful tool and I'm glad it exists, but I was also disaapointed with the inevitability of distasteful materials being promoted a click or two away. I won't be back, because I don't need* the anonymity in the UK. Yet.
* By need I mean really need rather than just want - Fancy 20 years in a squalid jail because you viewed propaganda from a political party that isn't your ruling regime.... that kind of need.
Dear Phobos:
Whose country exactly?
As a Brit I've long been resigned to the fact that anything is legal if the government (or a big enough business) does it, and anything is illegal if the government (or a big enough business) doesn't like me doing it - irrespective of what the actual law says. Democracy doesn't appear to have any real power to mitigate this reality, whatever the paperwork says. OK, you have a Bill of Rights and I don't, and you're a Citizen while I am only a Subject - but recent events indicate that the reality on the ground isn't that different.
And to anticipate the obvious brickbats - yes, I will very happily eat humble pie (and my hat) if I'm ever proved wrong by the successful prosecution of Tony Blair for war crimes, or Rupert Murdoch for anything at all.
Pint - partly because it's Friday, but mostly because as any fule kno, BEER is the only thing which makes the modern world bearable.
Blitheringeejit, as a Brit, you have your own Bill of Rights (or Claim of Right, if Scottish) from 1689, from which inspiration for our own was derived a century later. Citizenship in the UK has existed since 1949; not many people are still a British subject without also being a British citizen. Neither of us will discover whether democracy has any power to mitigate our respective realities until we each collectively decide to elect a legislature with a majority of representatives who are neither associated with our major political parties nor connected to our major wielders of influence. Should it turn out that a legislature so populated has no such power, then perhaps the bitter remedy prescribed in the preamble of our Declaration of Independence — to alter or abolish a form of government which is destructive of certain unalienable rights — might be a necessary step to achieve that mitigation.
Anonymous Coward, you can determine which one by scrutinizing my previous comment for mention of a year. By reading the text of the appropriate Claim of Right, you’ll discover “nonsense” such as
>you have your own Bill of Rights
But USAnians may not understand that our'Bill of Rights' has no constitutional force, being no more than a statement of a particular parliament (which cannot bind any subsequent parliament).
>unalienable rights
There are no inalienable rights.
strum, your Bill of Rights is an act of Parliament which will remain in force unless it be amended or repealed. Similarly, no part of our Bill of Rights is immune from amendment or repeal, although it would not be as readily accomplished here as could be done there.
Regarding the alleged lack of inalienable rights, how can I lawfully sell my right to vote in US elections to someone who does not have that right?
GCHQ should investigate el reg for enabling terrorism.
By providing a check box for “Post anonymously?” el reg is enabling terrorists to hide their identity.
But wait – there's more! By automatically assigning “Anonymous Coward” as the name of anyone who checks that box, el reg is also enabling identity theft.
Am I the only one who is smart enough to have figured these things out?
el reg is a criminal terrorist organization. Pass it on.
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