It has been recently reported that
the head of the Tor Project has accused the FBI of de-anonymizing Tor users
with the help of Carnegie Mellon computer science researchers. They have
suspected the FBI of paying $1 million to CMU researchers to access the vendor
side IP addresses of the Silk Road 2. If the claims are true, it shows what
great lengths the FBI is going through to stop the illegal trade of drugs on
the darkweb.
It was reported in January 2015
that a Homeland Security search warrant revealed that from January to July 2014
a “source” provided law enforcement with “particular IP addresses” of those who
accessed the vendor side of the Silk Road 2. By July, the Tor Project was able
to find and stop the attack, concluding that it was the same Carnegie Mellon
researchers who a few weeks earlier canceled their Blackhat presentation on a
low cost way to de-anonymize Tor users. Both the FBI and CMU have not responded
to any claims of collaboration, but Ed Desautels, a spokesman for Carnegie
Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute, did not deny the accusations, stating
“I’d like to see the substantiation for their claim,” adding, “I’m not aware of
any payment.”
If the reports are true, this could
be extremely troubling for users of Tor. Not only does this breach violate our
4th Amendment rights, but it also demonstrates that you never know
who will breach security a person’s security for just money. With our civil
liberties being challenged everyday, we cannot allow the FBI to circumvent the
law and use universities for their own dirty work. Although not many details
have surfaced, you can never know how many innocent users were caught in the
crossfire. Roger Dingledine, Tor Project Director, agrees stating “Such action is a violation of our
trust and basic guidelines for ethical research. We strongly support
independent research on our software and network, but this attack crosses the
crucial line between research and endangering innocent users.”
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