Russia offers over $100,000 to de-anonymize Tor

[Renegade]

Looks like there's a bounty on Tor. Yay. 

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/russia-research-break-tor/

The never-ending race to break Tor just got a little more competition.

The Russian federal government is now offering roughly $111,000 (or 3.9 million roubles) to researchers who explore ways to de-anonymize and learn technical details about all Tor users. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) is accepting proposals until August at their Moscow office.

The MIA specifically calls for research to “study the possibility of obtaining technical information about users and users equipment on the Tor anonymous network,” according to a translated version of the proposal. Only Russian nationals are allowed to win the contract "in order to ensure the country's defense and security."

Tor, which was originally invented at the U.S. Navy and receives millions of dollars in funding from the U.S. government every year, is in the crosshairs of governments around the globe due to its ability to allow user to access the Internet anonymously. Even the U.S. government, the chief underwriter of the project, spends significant resources targeting users and trying to break the program’s anonymity as revealed by National Security Agency documents leaked by Edward Snowden last year.

The American-funded anonymity network has become extremely popular in Russia over the last three months, hitting a peak of over 200,000 concurrent users in June.

The Russian surge in Tor usage is seen as a reaction to the slow tide of both digital and offline oppression in the country. In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Internet “a special CIA project” in the midst of new laws being passed that clamped down on citizens' freedoms.

“The reason for a surge in TOR-usage in Russia is quite obvious and has to do with the unfathomable repressive turn the Russian regime has taken since starting off the conflict with Ukraine,” Russian scholar Vilhem Konnander told the Daily Dot via email.

More at the link.

[wraith808]

Do you think this is like the truecrypt debacle?  If people are trying to break it, just by the fact that there is a bounty- your trust in it is less.  So you start to trust less in Tor and more in other ways of being anonymous.

[Deozaan]

I thought the NSA already had backdoors/vulnerabilities in Tor. Wasn't something like that mentioned in another thread here on DC?

[Stoic Joker]

I thought the NSA already had backdoors/vulnerabilities in Tor. Wasn't something like that mentioned in another thread here on DC?

Was that the same thread where it was pointed out that they (the DOJ et al) actually funded the friggin project? This is turning into a question of what language do you want whispered into your ear when you're bent over..?

[40hz]

I thought the NSA already had backdoors/vulnerabilities in Tor. Wasn't something like that mentioned in another thread here on DC?

Was that the same thread where it was pointed out that they (the DOJ et al) actually funded the friggin project? This is turning into a question of what language do you want whispered into your ear when you're bent over..?

Russia isn't trying to break new ground. They just want in. And the NSA is demanding too much for a ticket.

[Renegade]

Do you think this is like the truecrypt debacle?  If people are trying to break it, just by the fact that there is a bounty- your trust in it is less.  So you start to trust less in Tor and more in other ways of being anonymous.

I really don't know.

It could all just be an elaborate psy-op to drive people away from Tor.

If I were doing anything that really mattered, I'd keep it off the net as much as possible. There are topics that I only discuss with people in person.

I want a Faraday room!

I thought the NSA already had backdoors/vulnerabilities in Tor. Wasn't something like that mentioned in another thread here on DC?

I'm not sure. The NSA has funded Tor. Whether or not they have backdoors, I don't know.

They can track people with significant effort, as far as I understand. But the effort is enough to make them do it in a targeted manner.

[x16wda]

I want a Faraday room!

We have a slightly used one available...