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Cybercrooks Increasingly Use Tor Network To Control Botnets
alphadogg writes "Malware writers are increasingly considering the Tor anonymity network as an option for hiding the real location of their command-and-control servers, according to researchers from security firm ESET. The researchers recently came across two botnet-type malware programs that use C&C servers operating as Tor 'hidden services.' The Tor Hidden Service protocol allows users to set up services — usually Web servers — that can only be accessed from within the Tor network through a random-looking hostname that ends in the .onion pseudo domain extension. The traffic between a Tor client and a Tor hidden service is encrypted and is randomly routed through a series of computers participating in the network and acting as relays."
Why haven't they been doing this for a long time already?
It is unwise to ascribe motive
In other news, bank robbers are increasingly wearing masks.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Fear not Citizen. Glorious Leader Obummer will ban Tor and encryption so that the terrorists can never hurt you again. We now return you back to your regularly scheduled programming: American Idol.
Of course, you shouldn't blame Tor for this. I'm sure Freenet could equally be used, but Tor is just easy. Instead, blame the OS manufactures, and the owners of the bot-ridden machines. Seriously. It's your fault if you don't know enough about your car that you ignore the oil light and it seizes up on a highway. And it's your fault if your machine is turned into a cog of part of a greater machine, bending to the whims of some "hacker".
Maybe it's time to bring back computers with the OS stored in ROM, so that is is reset to a clean state every time the computer is restarted.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
As if the powers-that-be weren't already looking for excuses to criminalize Tor, shut it down, and arrest people involved with it, now it's a certainty. Between overtly oppresive governments wishing to further tighten their grip on their citizens, and the U.S. and other Western countries wanting to destroy every notion of privacy for it's citizens and spying on everyone, this is just the excuse they all need to start black-bagging Tor operators and users. Thanks so much, assholes, for further ruining the world for everyone.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Anonymity is a powerful force. In both directions. The anonymous writings of the late 18th century were every bit as powerful as a masked bandit.
I, for one, do not consider the risk of Tor to be greater than the benefit.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I have a suggestion instead. Build a tor like tool but mandate personal key exchange between known parties. This would strengthen the security of the service, and it would be possible to segment bad actors from people seeking true anonymity. If I welcome job drug dealer to my networks (say by monitoring edge transactions) I may decide to pull my permission for some key's nodes to connect to mine. Problems solved and we can burn out the pedo's, criminals, and all those nasty folks who's agenda's I disagree with.
Bye!
Remember, Citizen, the mere act of using Tor is reason enough to suggest that you could be doing something illegal which gives the police probable cause to send in a SWAT team. Anyone using Tor is a potential terrorist or paedophile otherwise they wouldn't have anything to hide. Welcome to the no-fly list.
I wondered why browsing over Tor had been getting so much faster lately. I guess these guys have at least some of their slaves set up as relays, in effect adding capacity to the network. Honestly not sure if I'm joking though because it almost makes sense.
And a terrorist pedo at that.
The article found two examples of using Tor, and had already identified one from the past. That's the justification for the "increasingly using Tor" headline? Then again, I'm surprised that they didn't run with a headline of "Malware using Tor Doubled!"
Nope it was the U.S. Naval Research Lab that was the original sponsor. Also as of 2012, 80% of their funding was still from the U.S. government.
Perfect anonymity is always a goal for hackers
NSA guy hiding as AC these days? Sheesh, how far you've sunken.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
No what you saw was funding from the US government not the NSA. Nowhere in their lists of sponsors or their annual reports is the NSA mentioned.
And no, not even a couple of months ago was that said on their site either.
Isn't it kind of obvious that if you build something designed to try to make you anonymous that people will try to use that anonymity for shady reasons?
I'm not saying we shouldn't have anonymous data, but I don't think this observation is exactly new -- I've always assumed this was the case with Tor.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's WikipediaMan!
NSA? CIA? "US Naval Research Lab"? Whatever. The authorities. The people who want to ensure things don't change because for those guys and their rich friends there's no recession, no energy crisis, no job insecurity, no risk from "terrorism" etc.
I believe the pejorative you're looking for is "secret muslim terrorist pedo communist."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The main use of TOR seems to be buying drugs. Clearly he's a drug-dealer terrorist pedo! And a hacker.
Back when /. was young and dinosaurs walked the earth, some pundit predicted the "four horsemen of the internet apocalypse": terrorists, pedos, drug dealers, and hackers. Every freedom the internet provided would be removed over time because for each freedom the public could be sufficiently scared by one of the four horsemen.
Sadly that was overly optimistic, having underestimated the power of the copyright lobby.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.