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Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: RubberDuckie on May 20, 2013, 07:15 pm

Title: TOR Made for USG Open Source Spying Says Maker
Post by: RubberDuckie on May 20, 2013, 07:15 pm
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:57:39 -0400
From: Michael Reed <reed[at]inet.org>
To: tor-talk[at]lists.torproject.org
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Iran cracks down on web dissident technology
LINK: http://cryptome.org/0003/tor-spy.htm

On 03/22/2011 12:08 PM, Watson Ladd wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Joe Btfsplk<joebtfsplk[at]gmx.com>  wrote:
>> Why would any govt create something their enemies can easily use against
>> them, then continue funding it once they know it helps the enemy, if a govt
>> has absolutely no control over it?  It's that simple.  It would seem a very
>> bad idea.  Stop looking at it from a conspiracy standpoint&  consider it as
>> a common sense question.
> Because it helps the government as well. An anonymity network that
> only the US government uses is fairly useless. One that everyone uses
> is much more useful, and if your enemies use it as well that's very
> good, because then they can't cut off access without undoing their own
> work.

BINGO, we have a winner!  The original *QUESTION* posed that led to the
invention of Onion Routing was, "Can we build a system that allows for
bi-directional communications over the Internet where the source and
destination cannot be determined by a mid-point?"  The *PURPOSE* was for
DoD / Intelligence usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering
of forward deployed assets, whatever).  Not helping dissidents in
repressive countries.  Not assisting criminals in covering their
electronic tracks.  Not helping bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA
prosecution.  Not giving a 10 year old a way to bypass an anti-porn
filter.  Of course, we knew those would be other unavoidable uses for
the technology, but that was immaterial to the problem at hand we were
trying to solve (and if those uses were going to give us more cover
traffic to better hide what we wanted to use the network for, all the
better...I once told a flag officer that much to his chagrin).  I should
know, I was the recipient of that question from David, and Paul was
brought into the mix a few days later after I had sketched out a basic
(flawed) design for the original Onion Routing.

The short answer to your question of "Why would the government do this?"
is because it is in the best interests of some parts of the government
to have this capability...  Now enough of the conspiracy theories...
Title: Re: TOR Made for USG Open Source Spying Says Maker
Post by: SelfSovereignty on May 20, 2013, 07:29 pm
... I fail to see how there was actually any controversy over this currently, but um... thanks for setting the record straight, I guess?  Except the subject's awfully misleading.
Title: Re: TOR Made for USG Open Source Spying Says Maker
Post by: Purple_Hue000 on June 10, 2013, 08:10 am
bullshit really.
Title: Re: TOR Made for USG Open Source Spying Says Maker
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 10, 2013, 08:45 am
You seriously felt the need to repost this to another section of the forum?

In 2011 Michael Reed, one of Tor's creators, joined a tor-talk discussion and answered this very question. It was later posted to Cryptome with the title, "TOR Made for US Govt Open Source Spying."


Why would any govt create something their enemies can easily use against
 them, then continue funding it once they know it helps the enemy, if a govt
has absolutely no control over it?


Because it helps the government as well. An anonymity network that
only the US government uses is fairly useless. One that everyone uses
 is much more useful, and if your enemies use it as well that's very
good, because then they can't cut off access without undoing their own
work.

BINGO, we have a winner!  The original *QUESTION* posed that led to the
invention of Onion Routing was, "Can we build a system that allows for
bi-directional communications over the Internet where the source and
destination cannot be determined by a mid-point?"  The *PURPOSE* was for
DoD / Intelligence usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering
of forward deployed assets, whatever).  Not helping dissidents in
repressive countries.  Not assisting criminals in covering their
electronic tracks.  Not helping bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA
prosecution.  Not giving a 10 year old a way to bypass an anti-porn
filter.  Of course, we knew those would be other unavoidable uses for
the technology, but that was immaterial to the problem at hand we were
trying to solve (and if those uses were going to give us more cover
traffic to better hide what we wanted to use the network for, all the
better...I once told a flag officer that much to his chagrin).  I should
know, I was the recipient of that question from David, and Paul was
brought into the mix a few days later after I had sketched out a basic
(flawed) design for the original Onion Routing.

The short answer to your question of "Why would the government do this?"
is because it is in the best interests of some parts of the government
to have this capability...  Now enough of the conspiracy theories...

-Michael Reed


You can read it here: http://cryptome.org/0003/tor-spy.htm

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=158464
Title: Re: TOR Made for USG Open Source Spying Says Maker
Post by: HEADSHOP on June 10, 2013, 10:54 am
Interesting...

Just like atom bomb technology governments build a lot of things they can't later control.

But the bottom line is are we safe to use it?

 :)