Half of Tor Sites Compromised, Including TORMail

First time accepted submitter elysiuan writes "The founder of Freedom Hosting has been arrested in Ireland and is awaiting extradition to USA. In a crackdown the FBI claims to be about hunting down pedophiles, half of the onion sites in the TOR network have been compromised, including the e-mail counterpart of TOR deep web, TORmail. The FBI has also embedded a 0-day Javascript attack against Firefox 17 on Freedom Hosting's server. It appears to install a tracking cookie and a payload that phones home to the FBI when the victim resumes non-TOR browsing. Interesting implications for The Silk Road and the value of Bitcoin stemming from this. The attack relies on two extremely unsafe practices when using TOR: Enabled Javascript, and using the same browser for TOR and non-TOR browsing. Any users accessing a Freedom Hosting hosted site since 8/2 with javascript enabled are potentially compromised."

Comments

We are living in interesting times

[Cynops]

Looks very much like the three letter agencies decided it's time now to start playing hardball.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone else used exploits to screw with people, it would be called hacking and they'd probably go to prison, but when the FBI does it, it's 'okay.'

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

We do have to be somewhat real about this. Lolita City, the pedophile HQ of the internet, has over 15,000 members (and who knows how many 'guests'). Of course the FBI was going to attack these massive pedophile rings. Good for them.

But again, there are legal issues here. Why did the FBI have the right to infiltrate TORmail? They are using general warrants here, just like the NSA does. Because one person may be using TORmail for illicit purposes, the FBI feels that it can install tracking and search software on every user.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[plover]

If anyone else used exploits to screw with people, it would be called hacking and they'd probably go to prison, but when the FBI does it, it's 'okay.'

Actually, a judge has yet to find whether it's OK or not. The admissibility of the evidence in these cases is going to hinge on whether or not it was collected through legal means. And no matter which way the judge finds, the loser is going to appeal. As far as I know, this is all untested legal ground.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Jane Q. Public]

Looks more to me like the 3-letter agencies have decided to BREAK THE LAW.

Unconstitutional surveillance is bad enough. But they don't have any more right to commit "unauthorized access to a computer system" than anybody else. (That is to say, their javascript hack of site visitors who may be innocent.) They can't break the law in order to enforce the law, unless they want to face criminal charges themselves. Aaron Schwartz faced 30 years in prison for far less. I say, let's see the FBI face the same thing.

And yes, it may well be enforceable. Look up 18 USC 242, "Deprivation of Civil Rights Under Color of Law". The civil rights in question here might be, just for example, the privacy of your own computer system, which legally requires a warrant or subpoena to access. Just my opinion, but I don't see how simply visiting a website could constitute probable cause, much less justify intrusion in the form of a "hack".

18 USC 242 IS fairly frequently prosecuted, and last I checked it has a conviction rate of about 98%, which is awesome for any law. And it specifically targets government agents and agencies. The President is not immune.

(P.S. After reading that law, many folks have been prone to conclude that it only applies to racial and other discrimination. That is because of the awkward wording [e.g., there is a strategically placed comma that makes a big difference]. In fact it applies to ANY Constitutional right. However, my mention of it here is not meant to imply that the law does apply here. Only that it might. IANAL and I don't pretend to be one, but I have researched this law and its application.)

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Jane Q. Public]

" As far as I know, this is all untested legal ground."

I don't have any specific citations at hand, but I would be VERY surprised if this were "untested ground". I doubt that very much.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Arker]

"Actually, a judge has yet to find whether it's OK or not. The admissibility of the evidence in these cases is going to hinge on whether or not it was collected through legal means."

But regardless of whether or not the judge decides to admit the evidence, we wont see any of these agents arrested and sent to prison for what they did.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[icebike]

Looks very much like the three letter agencies decided it's time now to start playing hardball.

Well when you realize that TOR was originally developed and set up by three letter agencies, its not a surprise that it is being used as a honey pot.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[girlintraining]

Looks more to me like the 3-letter agencies have decided to BREAK THE LAW.

The laws are sufficiently complex and vague that you can readily make an argument both ways that would have legal standing. The law has completely ceased to function either as a deterrent to crime, or as a guideline for moral and ethical conduct. It now exists purely as a tool for law enforcement to selectively target and remove people for arbitrary reasons.

So the argument that they were breaking, or following, the law, is now really a moot point. The only reasonable alternative is to judge people (and by extensions, government agents and agencies) based on commonly-held values, and ignore whatever rationalization is put forward for their behavior.

Ultimately, this can all be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis: Do the rewards of this action outweigh the risks and collateral damage? It is this reader's strong assertion that they do not, and you may find a detailed summary of why in my comments elsewhere in this thread.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[JaredOfEuropa]

Seriously, you think this is about pedophiles? Whenever some politician or law enforcement officer tells you he's after kiddie porn, he is really saying "I can and will do whatever the hell I want to you, your family and your dog, because I have a great excuse to do so". It's also a great way to attack and discredit political opponents or undesirables, as has happened a few times here in Europe: "Well, we couldn't find any offence to pin on him after we arrested him, except for the kiddie porn we found on his computer".

Our rights and freedoms are getting reamed so badly in the name of fighting child pornography, that I sometimes think that legalizing transmission and posession of kiddie porn would be the lesser evil. Think about that for a moment.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Will.Woodhull]

This is all handled under one of the new secret courts, where the new secret laws are applied.

So don't expect to see any due process.

The laws and Constitution of the USA have been thoroughly corrupted by the worst enemies of the country: the faceless professional patriots who run the Federal Agencies and Bureaus. As Pogo said during the Vietnam peace-keeping thing we did once: "We have met the enemy, and he is us".

Re:We are living in interesting times

[citizenr]

Judge? what judge? You are funny. There will be no judge, only terror charges, or 2 years in prison while DOJ pretends to do discovery while lives are being destroyed and property stolen.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmon]

They certainly did not have the right to mess with Tormail. That would be like attacking bittorrent because some are using it for an illegal purpose. People need free and anonymous communication, without the government attacking every tool people have for that purpose.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[davydagger]

the issue isn't the FBI attacking pedophiles(which I agree, good riddance to bad rubbish).

Its also things like TORMail, and other non-pedophile sites.

This is good in a way because it proves a good PoC that

"But again, there are legal issues here. Why did the FBI have the right to infiltrate TORmail? They are using general warrants here, just like the NSA does. Because one person may be using TORmail for illicit purposes, the FBI feels that it can install tracking and search software on every user."

because American law enforcement works on the principle of "arrest everyone and sort it all out later". Given the notion that everyone using TOR who's not NSA, is automaticly a criminal of SOME kind, they can just arrest everyone and make them try and prove their innocence, by co-operating somehow with the FBI. They will then use this co-operation as a wedge to keep out dissedents, and create a pool of informants by default, by charging people with crimes they were if only vaugely associated with, with excessive jail times until they give useful informaiton or become informations.

Its also funny that the malware specificlly targets TORBrowser.

I think I called it. When the NSA, CIA, FBI, looses intrest, or no longer needs TOR, they will simply arrest everyone publicly involved with it for pedophilia or whatever other activities go on. They can play stupid to technophile judges, and juries, and know they'll get away with it.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[buswolley]

I care. I'll get voted down on this, but the internet is a marketplace for all sorts of products, and when the product is the ruination of children's lives and welfare, I care very very deeply that that market is extinguished. Period.

Nevertheless, the legal questions in this case are important for legal speech also, so it must be carefully weighed.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Joining Yet Again]

Confuses paedophiles, people who duplicate images, and people who abuse children.

Well done. UK government could do with more people like you to build their Great Firewall (remember when that was a thing only used in reference to China?).

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Joce640k]

Actually, a judge has yet to find whether it's OK or not. The admissibility of the evidence in these cases is going to hinge on whether or not it was collected through legal means. And no matter which way the judge finds, the loser is going to appeal. As far as I know, this is all untested legal ground.

You're forgetting something: They said 'pedophile' in the press release.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Will.Woodhull]

It is a legal arena defined by the new secret laws whose application is subject only to the new secret courts.

Congress is not going to do anything about this. Hell, they cannot even decide which hand they should use to wipe their collective ass. The Obama Administration might be complicit in this, or it might have its hands tied. Because the secret courts have the authority to issue secret injunctions against any organization, including other parts of the Federal government, it is possible that Obama has no effective oversight on what they are doing. They seem to report to the Judicial Branch, not the Executive Branch. And the Judicial Branch was not constituted to manage this kind of execution of law.

We are now beginning to see how a rogue element has managed to gain control of significant Federal powers while remaining outside of any of the constitutional checks and balances.

This is not going to end well.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[aliquis]

It's too bad I don't have much of the knowledge and I assume it's easy that any system one come up with become infiltrated sooner or later.

But for instance I would had been interested in some separated network ran over peoples wifi routers and with routing through the Internet when needed.

One not idiotsafe approach but at least something would be to build a LAN with your neighbours for say unlimited file sharing at least.

I don't find it all too different if I whisper you one thing or send you a personal letter or mention it over chat or even post it on your facebook wall even if said post happened to be shared with no privacy at all. Too me that may have been personal communication and I kinda wish I could speak to people without feeling spied upon the whole time.

If people visit say North Korea and are followed by someone who track and arrange what they will be doing and are allowed to say that would likely feel uncomfortable and not be something you expect over here. Why do we have to take the same shit on the Internet?

Sure bad things happen. They have always done. And they will likely find a way even in the future. And not all too uncommon the bad shit comes from the people above you anyway.

Freedom isn't all too bad. Most of us actually know how to behave.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Will.Woodhull]

Unconstitutional surveillance is bad enough. But they don't have any more right to commit "unauthorized access to a computer system" than anybody else. (That is to say, their javascript hack of site visitors who may be innocent.) They can't break the law in order to enforce the law, unless they want to face criminal charges themselves. Aaron Schwartz faced 30 years in prison for far less. I say, let's see the FBI face the same thing.

How can you say that? No one can say whether these TLAgencies have stepped over their mandates. They are working under secret laws that only the secret courts can view. We cannot know what those laws allow or disallow.

I am not making this up. There are secret courts and there are secret laws, these came into existence more than six years ago, and have had all that time to develop their reach and power, without any public oversight.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Re:We are living in interesting times

[pipatron]

I'd like to point out that nothing in Tor was exploited here. You're still as anonymous on Tor as you used to be, but it still doesn't solve all problems. For example, in your neighbor-only network, chances are FBI could easily install a backdoor onto one of your computers.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Seumas]

I don't know that what a judge finds matters. We have seen that the executive branch and all of the three-letter-agencies do whatever the hell they want. There is nothing that will change that. Not legislation, not public outcry. Not even presidential decree. Nothing. Will you drive them back into secrecy? Yes. And that is where they will continue to do what they want.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[jamstar7]

Actually, a judge has yet to find whether it's OK or not. The admissibility of the evidence in these cases is going to hinge on whether or not it was collected through legal means. And no matter which way the judge finds, the loser is going to appeal. As far as I know, this is all untested legal ground.

You're forgetting something: They said 'pedophile' in the press release.

An old Soviet trick to remove a recalcitrant politician or bureaucrat who just wouldn't step down when asked nicely then threatened was to label them a pedophile or a rapist, then 'disappear' them. That's how they got rid of Beria rather than let him take over the whole Soviet Union after Stalin.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[jamstar7]

We do have to be somewhat real about this. Lolita City, the pedophile HQ of the internet, has over 15,000 members (and who knows how many 'guests'). Of course the FBI was going to attack these massive pedophile rings. Good for them.

But again, there are legal issues here. Why did the FBI have the right to infiltrate TORmail? They are using general warrants here, just like the NSA does. Because one person may be using TORmail for illicit purposes, the FBI feels that it can install tracking and search software on every user.

Point is, the 3 Letter Agencies do NOT have the right to circumvent or break the law in order to enforce it. What part of 'Where's your fucking warrant???' are you having problems understanding? The entire justice system is (supposed to be, anyway) based on the theory of 'innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt'. Fishing expeditions have traditionally been illegal until recently.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

People need free and anonymous communication, without the government attacking every tool people have for that purpose.

Perhaps, but for better or worse, the government will always attack every tool people have for that purpose. It can't help it; it's what it does. The only defense is to build better tools which are safer and more anonymous.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Pino Grigio]

Speaking of the Soviets, I happen to be reading Hayek's, The Road to Serfdom at the moment. The conflict between Freedom and Security is covered in some detail. I highly recommend slashdotters read it too.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

and when the product is the ruination of children's lives and welfare

That's not necessarily the case. Pictures distributed after the fact don't really ruin lives; if anything does that, it's the rape. The 'for the children' crowd has polluted your mind. Never compromise on censorship.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmon]

Pedophile means that the person has a condition called "pedophilia". It does not mean they break the law. It's not illegal to be attracted to children. Most people with pedophilia live their lives legally and deal with their attractions to children (which they cannot change) legally, also. Pedophile does not equal child molester. Just as someone who just thinks about robbing a bank is not a bank robber. This short article tells the real deal about pedophiles: http://www.commonatheist.com/ped.htm

Re:We are living in interesting times

[tnk1]

Although I should point out, Beria actually was a sick fuck. They didn't have to make up half that shit about him. It's just that no one actually could or would do anything about it while Stalin was alive and Beria was still the top flunky.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[tnk1]

Well... that's not entirely true. Yes, no one is making any more money off of traded images, but having a whole section of the Internet to their own allows for the existence of a nice safe place for trade of this stuff, and the desire to "show off" by making new stuff. "New stuff" being further acts.

These people show off the kids they abuse like they are their boyfriend/girlfriends. The real threat is that allowing them to be comfortable anywhere reinforces that abuse. Money is not the only reason kids get abused, although it certainly adds an industrial element to it.

That's one reason that I stay well away from TOR even though I understand the more benign uses it has. There are useful things you can do with it, but the fact that it is ground zero for drug sales and pedophilia makes it a very, very uncomfortable "neighborhood" to be in. Not to mention that even though this action is recent, the fact that you actually use TOR or connect to entry nodes is easily determined and obvious. Even if they don't know where you are going or what you are getting, they know you're up to *something* and that something has a much higher chance of being illicit. Nothing like increasing your NSA threat level for no reason.

Re: We are living in interesting times

[alen]

You can't be this dumb in real life

All the three letter agencies report too congress for funding
They all have their sub committees in the house and senate they testify to on a regular basis. The recommendations go to the full congress for voting

To be on one of these secret congressional committees you have to get a security clearance and the testimony is taken in a special sealed room in the Capitol building

Where do all these agencies get billions in funding if not voted by the entire congress and signed into law by the president

Re:We are living in interesting times

[noh8rz10]

said the AC...

Re:We are living in interesting times

[icebike]

Only a moron would believe that.

Check your facts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)#History
https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec04/tech/full_papers/dingledine/dingledine_html/index.html

Why do you think almost 2/3rds of all TOR sited portal to the net in Virginia?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the government cares about kids, which is why they put exploitable cameras in their computers and phones.

Do you remember the big multi-state pedo investigation 10 years ago? The feds made the states drop it when 2/3 of the IP addresses traced back to government employees.

Also, the government refuses to do anything about the Catholic Church which is the biggest pedophile ring around and has been for most of its history.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cervesaebraciator]

I rather agree with Hayek's views on central planning. But central planning is not the only road to servitude and even the path of classical liberalism can lead to such an end, as Hilaire Belloc warns in The Servile State (it may be found here free, here in paper, and here for free on audio). I sometimes find it interesting, in spite of my libertarian leanings, to consider third ways, apart from the old collectivist/individualist dichotomy.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not relevant. I don't need nor want to have a name on the internet. My words speak truth for themselves.

Also i consider your non anonymity as a deviant behavior.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmon]

It shouldn't be illegal, anymore than stuff on sites like rotten.com is illegal. Information should be free. It's distasteful, yes. But that's why most people wouldn't want to look at it. Anymore than most people would want to look at rotten.com or beheading videos or a video of an adult getting raped. It's creepy stuff. Go after the people that actually hurt the children. All this emphasis on bad pictures gives the government endless opportunities to erode freedoms.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Linsaran]

I would respectfully argue that pictures distributed after the fact are still harmful to the original victims. Nothing makes it harder to move past some unpleasant event in the past than the constant reminder that it happened. Imagine for a moment that you were victimized in some way (not even necessarily sexually), now imagine that the event was recorded on camera. Now imagine that 10 years after the fact people are still leering at the pictures of your victimization. How would that make you feel? The damage of child pornography doesn't necessarily end when the abuse stops.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[jamstar7]

Although I should point out, Beria actually was a sick fuck. They didn't have to make up half that shit about him. It's just that no one actually could or would do anything about it while Stalin was alive and Beria was still the top flunky.

What we have is the 'testimony' of nobodies like Kruschev and Kosygin that Beria was indeed a rapist and child molester. Remember, history is written by the victors. What was Beria like, other than being one King-Kong scary motherfucker? Nobody really knows.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmon]

But you can never actually take something down from the internet. Thousands of copies will still exist. Even though they (unreasonably, I might add) punish these many holders of the evidence often as hard as the person who actually committed the crime. They don't do this when people download copies of evidence of other crimes on the internet. Despite the fact that people suffer at least as much in those other crimes, and people also get enjoyment from those things. And get no punishment for that. Thanks for being respectful, though.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[tnk1]

To be fair, you're right that there was some real self-serving stuff out there, but there is more scholarship to the notion that than simply accepting the next leaders' word on it. The Wikipedia article on Beria actually does go into it a bit. It would not be wrong to say that it is "disputed", however, but it's not simply the stuff in the after execution justifications.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

I would respectfully argue that pictures distributed after the fact are still harmful to the original victims. Nothing makes it harder to move past some unpleasant event in the past than the constant reminder that it happened.

That's nice and all, but I don't think we should resort to censorship just to make someone feel better.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

but having a whole section of the Internet to their own allows for the existence of a nice safe place for trade of this stuff, and the desire to "show off" by making new stuff. "New stuff" being further acts.

Which will happen regardless of whether or not the government censors or takes down a few websites. Not only are we not even getting the security we were promised, but it wouldn't matter to me if we were getting it.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[meta-monkey]

Regardless, they are after those who are in possession of child pornography, which is a crime. You may not think it should be, but that is completely beside the point. In order to find those who MIGHT be in possession of this material, the FBI gained unauthorized access to the computers of nearly EVERYONE who visited sites on Freedom Hosting, whether they were visiting a site that trafficked in this material. There are other sites on Freedom Hosting that do not host or distribute child pornography, and yet their users were exposed, as well.

This is akin to police discovering that a booth at a flea market is selling stolen merchandise. A reasonable course of action would be to obtain a warrant to search the property of the booth's operator. It would also be reasonable to conduct a stakeout of the booth to see who else visits the booth to knowingly buy or sell stolen goods, and then, after observing such activity, search the vehicles of these associates. That's all fine. But here, they basically came in and rummaged through the cars of everyone who came to the flea market, regardless of whether they visited the stolen goods booth or even knew of its existence.

That shit is fucked up, yo.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Jane Q. Public]

"The laws are sufficiently complex and vague that you can readily make an argument both ways that would have legal standing."

In THIS CASE, if the situation has been described accurately, no, they aren't.

"The law has completely ceased to function either as a deterrent to crime, or as a guideline for moral and ethical conduct."

The logical extension of this is that there is no law at all, and therefore we are in a state of anarchy. I don't think it has gotten quite that bad. I sympathize with the feeling, though.

"So the argument that they were breaking, or following, the law, is now really a moot point."

Man... I know I've said this before but you sure have a depressing, fatalistic attitude. I do not believe the facts support such a gloomy outlook, and so I cannot honestly agree.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Jane Q. Public]

"How can you say that? No one can say whether these TLAgencies have stepped over their mandates."

I didn't write anything about "mandates". I wrote about deprivation of Constitutional rights. While the former may be ambiguous, the latter is not.

In fact, the law I mentioned was specifically intended to address this kind of situation.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[HiThere]

Sorry, but the Soviets didn't invent that trick. If anything they copied it from the Nazis, but then the Nazis didn't originate it either. Perhaps they copied it from the Inquisition, or from any of many other prior "practitioners of the art". It's so old that one can't even say how old it is. It *probably* didn't predate language.

The amazing thing is that it still works.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmon]

Yes, I am not saying they are wrong to go after people doing something illegal under current law, whether I think it should be illegal and hyped up as it is or not. The problem is that they use it to go after people who didn't even have anything to do with it. Please don't let them do that. It would be like searching everyone's home just in case they might have drugs, just because some people nearby did. The government really needs to get more respectful of people's right not to be searched without probable cause.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[girlintraining]

In THIS CASE, if the situation has been described accurately, no, they aren't.

The judge, obviously, disagreed.

The logical extension of this is that there is no law at all, and therefore we are in a state of anarchy. I don't think it has gotten quite that bad. I sympathize with the feeling, though.

Not quite. Civilizations all go through phases; Romans chiseled out stone tablets lamenting that there were so many laws nobody could keep track of them all. Fifty years later, the Visigoths came over the 7th hill and ended that empire. And then the process started over. An overly-complex legal system is an indication that an empire has passed its peak and is in decline, nothing more, nothing less.

Man... I know I've said this before but you sure have a depressing, fatalistic attitude. I do not believe the facts support such a gloomy outlook, and so I cannot honestly agree.

A clear view of what is happening is not in itself a cause for optimism or pessimism. Every mistake made is still progress, provided you don't make the same mistake. The fact that our legal system is broken is simply an opportunity to analyze what went wrong, sift through the wreckage for the useful pieces still left, and then to begin the healing process.

I know that my attitude can be confusing to people so used to political and belief bias. To them, alternating between praise and condemnation of allies and enemies alike must seem, at the very least, disengenuous. But when you understand my values, it makes a lot more sense. I value logical self-consistency, efficiency, and a clear connection between motive and action. I do not often judge the "rightness" of an action, but rather how well it is executed. I don't care so much that law enforcement wants pervasive surveillance of the entire internet... so long as they do it in a way that is consistent with stated values and goals. Invariably, my criticism is because a course of action is rationalized by one thing, but achieves another. And my praise is most always because of the reverse. What I despise and try to avoid most in my life is hypocricy, rationalization, and inefficiency.

When you understand these things, then you will understand that my attitude is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, neither liberal nor conservative. It is, quite simply, a demand that we be true to ourselves. As to which truths are more valued than others, ah, well... it's refreshingly rare to get dessert with people because they don't like eating their vegetables.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[dhasenan]

Reminders are helpful. I might know that I should question something, but it's not instinctive -- it takes too much effort, and remembering to think is surprisingly hard.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[radarskiy]

Except this is a case where a warrant is not necessary... not because of some bullshit secret only-for-terrorists-promise law but because the crime is observed in progress. This is the equivalent of the dye bag in the cash stolen form a bank.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[dhasenan]

Because most people are running on EC2 and the Virginia datacenters are the most popular for that?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

The world is much bigger than you, and many people DO care

I truly had no idea.

Further,
many of the people who do care are more than happy to grind you
into small pieces under the heel of their boot.

I can see that. Were that not the case, people's liberties wouldn't be continually violated in airports and many other places.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[dhasenan]

If each packet goes through ten Tor nodes on average before leaving the network, then you are anonymous for 1023 out of 1024 packets. In practice, packets only go through three nodes -- entry, relay, and exit -- which means you are anonymous for about 87.5% of your packets.

Now, IP packets can be up to 64KB in size. Loading one image of decent resolution will be maybe five separate packets. That's a 50% chance that the FBI is monitoring every step of the way and can therefore trace that packet back to you. -- assuming that each packet gets a separate route. Alternatively, loading one web page can result in a large number of requests, even ignoring AJAX -- one for each image, javascript, or CSS resource required by the page. Again, if there are five such resources (including the primary html file), you are left with a 50% chance that the FBI traced that packet.

This is a pretty big problem. It can be reduced appreciably by introducing more hops into a Tor connection, but that increases latency, and client applications tend to dislike that.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Zontar The Mindless]

I have a ten-year-old daughter who uses the Internet regularly, so I sure as hell care.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

You are attempting to conflate attempts to prevent child molesting with all
other "over the top" security measures.

Where did that happen? I have no problem with trying to prevent people from raping others, but if your solution involves violating people's rights or utilizing censorship, I don't want anything to do with it.

Children and animals deserve special protection.

What does having "special protection" entail? Does it involve censorship or people losing their rights just so certain people or animals can have this "special protection"? If so, throw that "special protection" idea right in the garbage.

But those who
prey on children who are unable to protect themselves deserve special attention,
and whether you understand this or not it needs to happen.

The world will not fall apart if you security theater people don't get your way.

Certainly "think of
the children" is misused as justification for intrusions on civil liberties, but the bottom
line is that adults can protect themselves from such intrusions, and ultimately can leave the
country if they choose.

So you admit the government uses children as an excuse to violate people's rights, and then try to downplay it by saying that adults can just leave if they don't like it? Interesting. Are you sure you belong in a country that is said to be the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Aighearach]

Seriously, you think this is about pedophiles?

Yes, and clearly. This is the largest pedophile bust in history. Duh. If the biggest bust in history doesn't solidify the topic for you, I have to wonder about your motivations.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[circletimessquare]

it's about justice, not making someone feel better

Re:We are living in interesting times

[circletimessquare]

They don't do this when people download copies of evidence of other crimes on the internet. Despite the fact that people suffer at least as much in those other crimes, and people also get enjoyment from those things. And get no punishment for that.

you don't validate a point by going "yes, it's wrong, but someone else is doing something wrong"

your point is actually correct in the opposite way: child porn photos should no longer be traded AND crime scene victim photos should no longer be traded. crime scene victim photos aren't punished as badly as child porn photos? correct. so start punishing them as well

the concept of justice is what it is. you can't rationalize it away by saying injustice exists somewhere else

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Velex]

WTF is wrong with you. The police can legally sell marijuana in order to have evidence that the person who bought it from them was a drug seeker. Of course the police can legally break whatever the fuck law they want. Where have you been?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Will.Woodhull]

My apologies. I have now re-read the original post and I realize I had not read it correctly earlier.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmon]

So treat them the same? Treat people who collect images of murder the same as if they killed someone? That's about how they treat people who look at pictures of child abuse. Both are very distasteful. But a person with images is nothing like the person who committed the actual crime, unless and until they ever do something similar themselves. Browsing the internet, even looking at very distasteful things, shouldn't be punishable by long prison sentences. That should be for the actual crime, only. In a sane society that's how it would be. Actually, in many (more sane) countries, just looking at things on the internet, and not actually doing them, isn't a huge crime like in the USA. Things are going to have to move in that direction, eventually.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[circletimessquare]

Treat people who collect images of murder the same as if they killed someone?

i stopped reading your comment there. you're not a serious person

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmon]

You're the one that said both child abuse images and other crime images should be punished the same way. They often punish child porn downloaders the same as if they abused a child. It's not reasonable. Just as punishing someone who collected murder pictures the same as if they murdered is not reasonable.

Re: We are living in interesting times

[GPierce]

"Where do all these agencies get billions in funding if not voted by the entire congress and signed into law by the president"

It's a secret.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

So making someone feel better, then. You can claim that just about any action or solution is "justice."

Re:We are living in interesting times

[circletimessquare]

if you don't understand the concept of justice, stop commenting on the subject

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cervesaebraciator]

History is written by the victors. In the following generation, however, it often becomes the province of historians who, applying a healthy bit of Quellenkritik to everything the victors wrote, can produce a revisionist history opposing the original official history, knowing that successfully producing a new narrative will make their career. If you do Quellenkritik correctly, you can sometimes use source to show that, regardless of authorial intent, it actually support a narrative contrary to the claims of its own author.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmydots]

Looks very much like the three letter agencies decided it's time now to start playing hardball.

Really? Firefox 17 (tor browser bundle uses 22) and a non-tor wrapped browser hybrid thing (hello, browser bundle much?), and with javascript purposely turned back on since it's off by default? That will catch zero people. Certainly not worth bending the rules and pissing everyone off for.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[slashmydots]

If anyone else used exploits to screw with people, it would be called hacking and they'd probably go to prison, but when the FBI does it, it's 'okay.'

Actually, a judge has yet to find whether it's OK or not. The admissibility of the evidence in these cases is going to hinge on whether or not it was collected through legal means. And no matter which way the judge finds, the loser is going to appeal. As far as I know, this is all untested legal ground.

They reeeeally set this up to go down worse than that gun-selling tracing thing that went horribly.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[BlueStrat]

Sorry, but the Soviets didn't invent that trick. If anything they copied it from the Nazis, but then the Nazis didn't originate it either. Perhaps they copied it from the Inquisition, or from any of many other prior "practitioners of the art". It's so old that one can't even say how old it is. It *probably* didn't predate language.

The amazing thing is that it still works.

Actually, if you count it as a subset of propaganda, then you need to go back to Edward Bernays and the Wilson administration's implementation of the first government propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
----
Bernays's public relations efforts helped to popularize Freud's theories in the United States. Bernays also pioneered the PR industry's use of psychology and other social sciences to design its public persuasion campaigns:

      " If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits."

He called this scientific technique of opinion-molding the 'engineering of consent'.

Bernays began his career as press agent in 1913, counseling to theaters, concerts and the ballet. In 1917, US President Woodrow Wilson engaged George Creel and realizing one of his ideas, he founded the Committee on Public Information. Bernays, Carl Byoir and John Price Jones worked together to influence public opinion towards supporting American participation in World War I.
----

Goebbels owned a copy of Bernays's book on the subject IIRC, and acknowledged Bernays's and Wilson's achievements with the use of propaganda domestically and utilized many of their techniques and principals in Nazi propaganda programs. I believe Stalin is reported to have taken many propaganda ideas and concepts from Bernays's work as well..

Wilson was a real racist/segregationist, political/policy-opposition-arresting piece of work all on his own. People should read about the actions taken and policies enacted by Wilson domestically. In a lot of ways, like the Executive Branch/DoJ running wild, it resembles our current situation with a DoJ exceeding it's powers and deliberately inflicting illegal, un-Constitutional, and criminal injustice for political reasons.

Strat

Re:We are living in interesting times

[SeaFox]

Seriously, you think this is about pedophiles?

Yes, and clearly. This is the largest pedophile bust in history.

Says who? None of these people have been given their due process. At this point they are, at the very most, alleged child pornography traffickers.

Also, isn't your source of information the very government agency that was using a JavaScript exploit in a potentially illegal fashion to catch these perpetrators? Not exactly an unbiased source of information as to the legitimacy of their actions, huh?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... that's not entirely true. Yes, no one is making any more money off of traded images, ...

Actually, that's heavily exceptionally so precisely because money can be tracked. Meanwhile, traded images end up being the currency with "new" being worth more.

... but having a whole section of the Internet to their own allows for the existence of a nice safe place for trade of this stuff, and the desire to "show off" by making new stuff. "New stuff" being further acts.

On the one hand, very true. But most child molestors aren't smiling for the cameras and trying to become an internet or tor star. Meanwhile, plenty of 10+ children are quite willing in "making new stuff" if they're given another "10+" of "similar" age to "show off" to. Nah, honestly, your argument really degenerates into the stupid argument that "people who watch lots of porn have lots of sex", when obviously if nothing else the time consumed in watching lots of porn leaves less time for sex. Yea, the more egregious and notorious will use the internet or tor or whatever as a stage. But, then, the reason in part they're so notorious is because they're so rare. Really, if you believe the stats (which I doubt the stats), one in four girls and one in ten boys are molested by the time their an adult and one in ten pedophiles are child molestors. At that rate, you'd expect at least 60 million notorious stories of online sex abuse percolating on the internet.

These people show off the kids they abuse like they are their boyfriend/girlfriends.

Or their slave or their sex toy.

The real threat is that allowing them to be comfortable anywhere reinforces that abuse.

No doubt. But given the supposedly high rates of abuse, the obviously low rates of incarceration, the repeated examples of people in high places being sheltered by the very authority set to provide protection to children, etc, your line of reasoning would require an entire restructuring of society at a global scale to begin to address the issue. The very idea that abuses aren't comfortable belies the point that obviously plenty are and tor and the internet has so little to do with it. The real truth is tor and the internet just makes it more visible.

Money is not the only reason kids get abused, although it certainly adds an industrial element to it.

No doubt. The irony to that is an industrial element actually encourages better treatment of kids being abused because it encourages multiple uses of each child instead of leaving it to the passions of a single person. Note that this is by no means an encouragement of industrial use of children. But the simple truth is that children abused for money either do so to themselves (street children or the like) or are forced to by their parents/guardians (as an "honorable" job) with the lack of money being the key motivator on that front. There are, of course, exceptions to that point--people who see money as a nice thing on the side to their already intent abuse. In any case, the traceability of money of all sorts can be said, at least, to cut down on child prostitution and the like which rarely gets the "glamor" of being posted online. So, I'd say the whole money angle is just out of context to where the focus should be--people who abuse because they want to.

That's one reason that I stay well away from TOR even though I understand the more benign uses it has. There are useful things you can do with it, but the fact that it is ground zero for drug sales and pedophilia makes it a very, very uncomfortable "neighborhood" to be in.

I'm not sure how you can stand living, then. You real-life neighborhood is a cesspool of crime. Or are all your jails and prisons empty? Seriously, I sort of understand where you're coming from, but you're speaking about the

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Jane Q. Public]

"The judge, obviously, disagreed."

What judge? I read all three links given by OP and I saw no suggestion anywhere that a judge approved the javascript exploit.

"Not quite. Civilizations all go through phases; Romans chiseled out stone tablets lamenting that there were so many laws nobody could keep track of them all. Fifty years later, the Visigoths came over the 7th hill and ended that empire. And then the process started over. An overly-complex legal system is an indication that an empire has passed its peak and is in decline, nothing more, nothing less."

Wow. You believe in absolute determinism too? How really, really depressing. How do you stand it?

"A clear view of what is happening is not in itself a cause for optimism or pessimism."

I think if anything is clear, is that we disagree over whether what you are saying represents a "clear view of what is happening".

"I know that my attitude can be confusing to people so used to political and belief bias."

I'm not confused in the slightest. I simply disagree with you. And I repeat: you have repeatedly demonstrated a gloomy, fatalistic attitude.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Jane Q. Public]

Not a problem. :o) I've done the same myself before.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[girlintraining]

What judge? I read all three links given by OP and I saw no suggestion anywhere that a judge approved the javascript exploit.

That would be the administrative person who signed off on this scheme, typically referred to as a judge. Not that it matters, since I'm sure like most secret courts and administrative oversight bodies, it was rubber stamped. But trust me, somewhere in the chain, there was a judge.

Wow. You believe in absolute determinism too? How really, really depressing. How do you stand it?

In the words of Tyler Durden, "over a long enough time frame, everyone's life expectancy drops to zero." Of course, being the cheerful and optimistic sort, I'm sure you feel you'll live forever. The rest of us, however, read books, and are appropriately humbled and enlightened.

I think if anything is clear, is that we disagree over whether what you are saying represents a "clear view of what is happening".

Yeah; A lack of validation of your cheerful and ignorant worldview probably does seem a bit... unclear.

I'm not confused in the slightest. I simply disagree with you. And I repeat: you have repeatedly demonstrated a gloomy, fatalistic attitude.

Well, you can scream it at the sky if you want, but it won't change how wrong you are. I mean, really... how are you more of an expert on how I feel than me? You aren't just preaching blind optimism, you're arrogant to boot.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[rmdashrf]

Why does everyone get this wrong?

It's supposed to be 'innocent UNLESS proven guilty'.

Although in this decade you're probably correct. Alphabet Soup agencies dig until they're able to prove you're guilty of something

Re:We are living in interesting times

[SuricouRaven]

The original idea was that banning the pictures would greatly reduce demand for them, thus eliminating the economic inventive towards the child abuse required for their production.

That's the excuse, anyway. It doesn't explain why many countries then expanded the definition to include photoshopped images where no abuse actually took place ('pesudo-photographs' is the term in UK law), artistic depictions, artistic depictions of non-human characters that have some characteristics of human children (Yes, the UK even thought of that one!) and even completly fictional stories.

The real reason is much simpler. A collective desire: 'This stuff makes me feel icky and I hate the people who like it, so it should be illegal.'

Re:We are living in interesting times

[SuricouRaven]

You're quite right.

But you're also wrong, because the definitions of words in common use change - just look at all the fuss 'hacker' has given over the years. First embraced as an identifier as skill, then media coverage turned it into a word of stigma associated with destruction and criminal activity, and now being reclaimed for the original meaning.

Even if someone is attracted to children, they aren't going to tell anyone - they'd end up with a brick thrown through their window.

I'm surprised Piers Anthony can still get published. He's one of those 'ethical pedophiles,' but uses his writing to express it. It can get quite creepy at times.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[davester666]

said the guy who just created a brand new account...

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Opportunist]

Well, it's hard to refute his parallel. Why is looking at one crime a crime and looking at another one isn't?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Pino Grigio]

Oh, I agree that making it a binary choice is wrong. It's a question of optimising between the two; something I don't think our legislators are capable of in a world that is now changing so quickly.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[leereyno]

The point isn't whether the FBI can use evidence collected in this way in court, the point is that in performing these acts in the first place, the FBI is guilty of violating numerous federal laws.

They say this is about tracking down pedophiles. Yeah, right. Great cover story. Nobody likes child molesters after all. The state can do just about anything, and the public will accept it, if they can pretend it is about finding and eliminating child molesters. But that's not what this is actually about. The point of this is the same as it always is, government resentment at discovering it is not omniscient.

 

Re:We are living in interesting times

[DrXym]

I don't care.

You might not but clearly the cops do and I support them. Tor gives anonymity from casual eavesdropping. It doesn't give anonymity from a determined attacker and if paedos thought it did then more fool them.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[AmiMoJo]

There are two problems with your argument.

Firstly some of the images depict children being abused. Not all of them, I fully accept that probably the majority don't, but some do. I don't know about the US but in Europe dignity is a human right, and having pictures of a person being abused for pleasure tends to diminish that. Would you be okay with pictures of yourself being raped as a child being freely circulated?

Secondly some sites do appear to encourage the abuse of children. They might be commercial sites, they might be forums were people share images they created. Again, probably the vast majority of material does not fall under this category.

The problem is that people, especially politicians, seem to be unable to distinguish between different types of pornographic material. Not just child pornography, but adult "extreme" pornography too. The reaction is to try and ban it all.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[1s44c]

There was a story floating around about how the FBI actually took over and ran a child porn site for two weeks in order to entrap pedophiles. It's fine for the FBI to break the exact same laws as those they are hunting.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[SomeKDEUser]

By using TOR, you are also providing cover to people living under repressive regimes. Which means that depending on your interpretation you are also helping terrorists.

However, this argument is profoundly absurd: walls also help with privacy. Most pedophiles do whatever it is they do behind walls. Are all civil engineering bureaus enablers?

At the end of the day, the FBI compromising TOR does two things, help them capture pretty horrible individuals, and weaken privacy. Now in the West, this is somewhat academic what the consequences are. Elsewhere, people may die.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Lennie]

I think they just wanted to take it down, if they get convicted is probably less important. It is to show people their power, so others won't try to do the same. And maybe even discredit the operators.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[vux984]

That's nice and all, but I don't think we should resort to censorship just to make someone feel better.

Really?

With this we are prevented from violating someones privacy and dignity by spreading pictures of them being abused and violated.

With libel we are prevented from telling lies about someone. So... libel laws are ok? But the other thing is unacceptable censorship?

With trademark law we are prevented from using a registered mark in most settings; as it might be construed that the mark owner endorses or agreed to the use of the mark or something. Like if I put the coca-cola logo on my personal blog some inbred mouthbreathing halfwit might think he's at the official coca-cola site... so Coca Cola can say I can't do that.

And that's the law of the land.

But we shouldn't be prevented from sharing pictures of people getting criminally sexually abused because that's censorship. Really?

That's a strange place to set the bar.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[oztiks]

We certainly are living in interesting times and considering that you're 200,000 UIDs older than me, you have to consider what Slashdot was like years ago.

I remember when people started taking shots at Slashdot for the type of articles it posted, flamed it for being too mainstream, Apple-centric, or because it's become a popular wannabe geek pissing ground. Though all these things may be true or not, it doesn't really matter.

What's important to know is that Slashdot is about IT/Geek news and if you look at the IT segment alone it has become massively political. The shit fights between Netscape and Microsoft pale in comparison to the crap we're subjected too today. The Obama administration is now getting involved in the Smartphone wars for example ... who would'a thought? The EU slapping Microsoft over antitrust, so what? The US is now posturing against Russia because of leaked data that has been spilled out on the internet. We're talking about "news for geeks" hosting stories about stuff that wars are made from!

You say hardball? you say interesting times? I say how much more interesting is it gonna get?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Nemesisghost]

The Obama Administration might be complicit in this, or it might have its hands tied. Because the secret courts have the authority to issue secret injunctions against any organization, including other parts of the Federal government, it is possible that Obama has no effective oversight on what they are doing

Oh please. If someone had said that about the Bush Administration or any other Administration, they would have been torn to shreds. Obama & his administration knew what the hell is & was going on. If he didn't it was because he chose not to. And if that's the case, then he's a bigger joke than Bush, who at least had the balls to take action(incorrectly or not). So no matter what, he gets to take the blame on this one, just like Bush 1 & 2 and Clinton.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

If you don't understand the concept of subjectivity, simply stop replying.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

And that's the law of the land.

Why do you seem to be assuming that I agree with many of the laws we have in place today?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[dkf]

In fact it applies to ANY Constitutional right.

It's also important to remember that it doesn't just apply to the rights described in the constitution, but also the ones that are not. The constitution explicitly states that it is not an enumeration of all rights enjoyed by citizens and other people in the USA. That's one of the absolutely best parts of the US constitution too.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

It doesn't give anonymity from a determined attacker and if paedos thought it did then more fool them.

A "determined attacker" in this case simply means a government willing to do shady and manipulative things to achieve their goals. The pedophile bogeyman isn't nearly as scary as you make it out to be (much like the terrorist bogeyman).

Re:We are living in interesting times

[odigity]

You're not allowed to say bad things about Wilson; he's the darling of the left, especially academia. (He was a professor who became president.)

Just like you're not allowed to talk shit about Lincoln, under penalty of being slapped with a pro-slavery label, which is retarded (Lincoln was the pro-slavery asshole, not me).

Re:We are living in interesting times

[MrMickS]

Looks more to me like the 3-letter agencies have decided to BREAK THE LAW.

Its an interesting debate. What law has been broken?

I'm pretty sure that with the Patriot Act at its back the FBI can justify the actions they've taken against peoples committing crimes in the US. There will be sufficient wriggle room in there for a good lawyer to argue their case. What is needed is a ruling. Something that's not been tested in court yet. The various Snowden revelations won't see their day in court due to the nature of the material released. A paedophile case would see court which would help determine the exact reach of the law.

The law is not, except in simple cases, a black and white thing. There are generally arguments around specific points and its the judgements around these that determine what is and is not legal.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Golddess]

I would be VERY surprised if this were "untested ground". I doubt that very much.

Given the inconsistency regarding the legality of requiring someone to decipher the contents of their notebooks just because the notebook is now made out of metal and written to using magnets, I'm not so sure about that.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Shadow of Eternity]

And that very slippery slope of "you're hiding something ergo you MUST be up to no good" is exactly why strong encryption should be the default state of everything. Maybe I'm using tor because I'm on sketchy wifi and want to check my bank, maybe I'm using it because I want to arrange a surprise party, maybe I just think encryption is cool.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[SleazyRidr]

Brining it a little closer to the surface might make it easier to find them and catch them.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[X0563511]

That's because they said the magic words: "child porn."

I don't know what is worse, child porn or the extremes these jackasses go in pursuit of it.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[X0563511]

So do I, but that doesn't give them carte blanche rights to stomp my privacy into the mud to do so.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[X0563511]

... gives the government endless opportunities to erode freedoms.

I wouldn't consider a sledgehammer whacking large chunks off as "erosion."

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Archangel Michael]

"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry."

Re:We are living in interesting times

[amicusNYCL]

Information should be free.

"Information", like a picture of your juvenile daughter taking a dick in her ass, should be free? Why should that "information" be free, who does that possibly benefit? What, because it's not your daughter? What about when it is, you have no problem with everyone having free access to those pictures?

I'm definitely no government apologist, but using the old "information should be free" line about pictures of children getting sexually abused is making quite a stretch out of the word "information".

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Zontar The Mindless]

Guess what? People who get off on abuse, get off on abuse.

Why are you trying to make excuses for them?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[noh8rz10]

whaa? account is like a year old so kma.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[tnk1]

Walls do protect criminals, but the difference is that walls are common and don't mark you down for special scrutiny. They also do not readily enable criminal acts unless you allow it.

With TOR, data files can be encrypted and split between nodes. If I'm running an encrypted data store of random bits of files, I may not be criminally liable, because I don't necessarily know what is being stored on my computer, but I don't want that shit on my machine.

Everyone has a house, not everyone uses TOR. In fact, very few people use TOR, relative to the number of internet users. That means you're special, and people who want actual privacy don't want to look special in any way.

Honestly, from the few experiences I have had using it, I feel safer and less likely to be targeted with TOR deinstalled, than I do using it to surf around. I think the privacy it grants is potentially very effective on a case by case basis, I just don't want to be there when the law enforcement agencies start rolling this stuff up and throwing any potentially identifying information they get from it into a hopper for closer tracking and scrutiny. I don't want to be in that pile to be checked in this era of everybody being guilty of something.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[tnk1]

Yes, strong encryption should be standard, and I will argue for that and vote for it as much as is needed. But until it actually IS standard, I'm staying well enough away. You are personally welcome to do what you like, I understand that there exist excellent reasons to want to be anonymous. I just think that the level of anonymity you get from existing tools may be deceptive and possibly mark you for observation.

My personal view of privacy is to accept that I am using insecure networks, understand the limitations, and to act accordingly.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[tibit]

But the issue is that just because one is a well wisher who really, really wishes for "that market" to be "extinguished", it doesn't mean that one's well wishes are executable outside of some imaginary world, you know. Hell being paved with good intentions and all that. One's issue might be the presumed inability to differentiate between the market for pictures of some sort, vs. the production of such pictures. Only the second activity actually hurts the kids, one should recall.

All that I can think of at the moment is: Since trafficking in child pornography is mostly illegal, supposedly there are "hoops" to jump through if you want to be let into one of those trafficking rings. Those hoops can all be summarized as "provide original materials, and we'll guide you just to make sure you're not perusing some law enforcement image database". That's the very real unintended consequence of going hard on child pornography: you actually encourage more of it - presumably a LEO trying to break into one of those rings won't be abusing their own kid just to get in, right?

I think that the sad state of affairs is that there's lots of child pornography available out there, and people who are merely after that sort of material are harming nobody but themselves, in contrast to the people who produce such materials. Limiting access can often imply, the human being a resourceful creature, that they'll "make their own" - and now you've got actual kid abuse precipitated by laws to protect the kids. Sort of like 16 year olds getting jailed for distribution of child pornography when they sext their own nude pictures - how the fuck does it protect anyone, I just don't know. But everyone is a "think of the children" well-wisher, right? Yeah, right.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[tibit]

Well, if you need to imagine such things, there's your problem right there. In other words: how do you propose those victims will be obtaining the information that 10 years after the fact people are still leering at the pictures? The fact that it's their own pictures doesn't make it any less illegal for them to access those pictures, mind you. I'd say that if a formerly abused child, now adult, would be considered a felon just for, say, checking if the pictures of him/herself are still out there - that's just one more argument for how broken such laws are. The law, as stated, will gladly re-victimize the victim again and again, just so that some lawmaker somewhere can feel good about themselves.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cayenne8]

So why does nobody make a citizen's arrest of the FBI agent(s) doing this.

Because if you were to try to lay hands on them, they'd immediately shoot you.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Jane Q. Public]

"That would be the administrative person who signed off on this scheme, typically referred to as a judge. Not that it matters, since I'm sure like most secret courts and administrative oversight bodies, it was rubber stamped. But trust me, somewhere in the chain, there was a judge."

That would be a huge pack of assumptions, and I see no reason to trust you on this. I have not, in fact, seen any evidence anywhere that a judge actually authorized using a javascript hack to invade the computers of site visitors.

"In the words of Tyler Durden, "over a long enough time frame, everyone's life expectancy drops to zero." Of course, being the cheerful and optimistic sort, I'm sure you feel you'll live forever. The rest of us, however, read books, and are appropriately humbled and enlightened."

What an amazingly arrogant thing to say. So you read Toynbee, and that makes your opinion better than everyone else's? (More "humbled and enlightened", as you say?) Interesting.

Further, your assertion that some things are inevitable over time is not a support of your earlier argument, which clearly implied that the United States is in its "inevitable decline". To say that something is inevitable is no proof that it is happening NOW. That is merely your opinion.

"Yeah; A lack of validation of your cheerful and ignorant worldview probably does seem a bit... unclear."

A bit of a "whoosh" there, I think. I made no claims about my own worldview. Another assumption, and a bit of a distortion of what I actually did write.

"Well, you can scream it at the sky if you want, but it won't change how wrong you are."

Correct. I am not wrong, and screaming won't change that.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cervesaebraciator]

[...] I don't think our legislators are capable of in a world that is now changing so quickly.

Their behavior certainly supports this claim. While I agree that in part it has to do with the rapidity of change, I would suggest that it also has to do with the size of our state institutions. A national government cannot respond to every local need in much the same way a teacher cannot listen to hundreds of students ask questions at the same time. Local problems are compounded when they're addressed on a higher level of government in that they become information problems as well. And yet in the U.S. we have come to treat all problems as national problems. Legislators could potentially respond more effectively to changing conditions if more of the legislation were done on a lower, more local level of government, thus narrowing the range of issues on which they have to focus.

This is why I support efforts in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity. Some projects are best left to a central government (maintenance of a navy and standing army comes to mind, as well as protection of the large waterways which cross state boundaries, providing for a common trade policy, etc), but a great many should be devolved to the states and even counties, parishes and municipalities.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Agent0013]

Your talking about the "Star Wars Kid", right?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[sabt-pestnu]

> Now imagine that 10 years after the fact people are still leering at the pictures of your victimization. How would that make you feel?

You're quite correct to say that the damage of child pornography - or other child abuse - doesn't stop when the abuse stops. But like any other mental trauma - say, PTSD - no outside reinforcement is necessary.

The pictures can do further harm to the victim. Someone might recognize the victim in the picture, or the victim might run across the picture later in life. But the pictures do no further harm to the victim simply by existing, any more than a brick would continue to hurt your car simply by laying in the passenger seat after flying through the window. The damage has been done. Further damage can occur, but not simply by the existence of the agent.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Reziac]

I'm reminded of John Fischer's book Why They Behave Like Russians (also available on the Archive, tho I lost the page and now it refuses to give it back to me), which talks about how real people live under such a society, not just the theories.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Reziac]

It was used in Roman times, and it probably wasn't new then.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Reziac]

I think USC 18-242 may be the most important protection we have in law, and yes, it applies to anyone who puts on a uniform and purports to have authority under law.

BTW put the cite on your No Trespassing sign, and it will bring to a dead halt anyone who lacks a genuine and valid warrant.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Reziac]

The obCar Analogy:

Some people on the road speed. Therefore, everyone on the road could be a speeder. Give them all tickets!

If this sort of nonsense were being enforced in any arena other than "Think of the children!" it would be shot down in a heartbeat.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[DrXym]

No, a "determined attacker" means anybody who breaks through the mostly illusory security that Tor provides. Basically Tor should be seen as a fallible but useful proxy that prevents a web site from determining who a visitor is. Beyond that, don't count on it to protect a damned thing about yourself. Any exit not can screw around with the content you receive and clearly the thought has occurred to legit and illegit agencies alike. And if you're dumb enough to throw settings on JS, plugins etc. then more fool you. Tor warns against this sort of thing so it's not like it didn't spell out the risks.

As for paedos, I expect every single law enforcement agency in the world would dearly love to swoop down and arrest these scumbags and I'm happy to see them do it. If that involves them exploiting the false security of a "anonymizing" service to detect visitors based on an injected ever cookie then so be it. I never assumed Tor to be secure and anyone who did and used it to conduct illegal activity is an idiot and deserves everything they get.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[1s44c]

Because most people are running on EC2 and the Virginia datacenters are the most popular for that?

EC2 is great, but it's an expensive way to buy bandwidth. Cheap dedicated or virtual machines are far cheaper.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[thetoadwarrior]

I don't agree with their tactics but there are plenty of things law enforcement can legally do that normal people can't under certain circumstances so why would hacking be different?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

No, a "determined attacker" means anybody who breaks through the mostly illusory security that Tor provides.

I was talking about this case, though. This time government thugs are the attackers. And yes, Tor isn't infallible, but this was mostly a case of incompetent users being incompetent users.

As for paedos, I expect every single law enforcement agency in the world would dearly love to swoop down and arrest these scumbags and I'm happy to see them do it.

You're part of the problem. You seem to be willing to let law enforcement violate people's rights and privacy if they only do it to people you don't like (in this case, the pedophile bogeyman, rather than the terrorist bogeyman). This is what leads to nonsense such as the TSA.

That said, why do you seem so concerned about pedophiles in general? Pedophiles aren't necessarily child molesters, don't necessarily look at child porn, and aren't necessarily attracted solely to children.

I never assumed Tor to be secure and anyone who did and used it to conduct illegal activity is an idiot and deserves everything they get.

As you said, Tor is fallible, but that doesn't make it useless. These people were simply incompetent for the most part.

Many more people were affected than just those who conducted illegal activities.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[swalve]

Agree. Law enforcement has a lot of latitude in their official activities. It is often written into the laws. "X is illegal unless being done as part of a bona fide official investigation." So computer hacking specifically might be untested, the broader concept is on solid ground.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[girlintraining]

What an amazingly arrogant thing to say. So you read Toynbee, and that makes your opinion better than everyone else's? (More "humbled and enlightened", as you say?) Interesting.

It's amazingly arrogant to suggest that simply because nobody has yet achieved immortality, you will? Interesting.

Further, your assertion that some things are inevitable over time is not a support of your earlier argument, which clearly implied that the United States is in its "inevitable decline". To say that something is inevitable is no proof that it is happening NOW. That is merely your opinion.

You're the kind of person who won't take any amount of evidence as fact. You'll continue to handwave and hem and haw no matter how stacked the facts are against you, because you're one of those hopelessly optimistic types that actually thinks the universe gives a fuck what happens to you.

Correct. I am not wrong, and screaming won't change that.

The Pee Wee Herman defense. Interesting. You're not just arrogant, stupid, and incapable of critical thinking, you're actively hostile to anyone who isn't.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Jane Q. Public]

"It's amazingly arrogant to suggest that simply because nobody has yet achieved immortality, you will? Interesting."

That isn't even close to anything I actually wrote. I understand what you are saying, but is (A) not even slightly relevant to my own comment it was apparently supposed to be in reply to, and (B) a pretty long and thin stretch from anything I was really discussing.

"You're the kind of person who won't take any amount of evidence as fact. You'll continue to handwave and hem and haw no matter how stacked the facts are against you, because you're one of those hopelessly optimistic types that actually thinks the universe gives a fuck what happens to you."

Your unjustified comments about my character (A) don't follow from the actual evidence, (B) are incorrect, and (C) are unnecessarily and rather rudely insulting. My own comments have only been about your comments. You, on the other hand, are getting personally insulting. I see no need to further put up with this kind of garbage.

"The Pee Wee Herman defense. Interesting. You're not just arrogant, stupid, and incapable of critical thinking, you're actively hostile to anyone who isn't."

It wasn't "a defense", at all. It was a bit of satire about your own comment. And again, you get unnecessarily personal. Those aren't comments about my comments, rather they are personal disparagements.

Did nobody ever teach you how to engage in a logical, factual discussion? Hint: that ain't it.

In any case, I see it is pointless to continue this. I had no idea that merely saying your posts have tended to be pessimistic would lead to childish personal attacks. Defensive a bit, are we?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[mattack2]

How was Lincoln pro-slavery?

Re:We are living in interesting times

[Raenex]

"The recent practice of propaganda..."

Propaganda has been around for as long as civilization.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[DrXym]

Pointing out the mostly illusory security of Tor is not being "part of the problem". I just don't choose to bury my head in the sand and deny the insecurity of it.

The limitations of Tor have been spelt out quite succinctly in its own documentation and if people choose to conduct activity that makes them a target for attention (e.g. selling drugs, trading child porn) then it is hardly surprising that law enforcement might choose to exploit those limitations. It wouldn't surprise me if even before now if the majority of exit nodes, or at least a large proportion of them were actually run by government agencies or firms acting on their behalf.

Why? For the simple reason that it's easier to intercept traffic (just create exit nodes and watch the traffic as it passes through) and there are richer pickings and chances for detecting illegal activity.

And I agree that Tor isn't useless if you recognize its limits. If you use it for privacy reasons it's fine. If you use it to hit some paedo site, or to buy drugs, or launder money, or send death threats, or whatever then you're likely going to get caught sooner or later.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[vux984]

It would be more accurate to say I think that of all the places to draw your line in the sand this is the silliest.

The law should be consistent, and proportional. These are crucial elements to it being recognizable as justice.

Even if you disagree with libel, trademark, and copyright, you would probably agree that a prohibition on exchanging pictures of someone being criminally abused against their will is less of an abridgement of free speech than those, and that it would be pretty consistent with our legal system.

Now, having said that your welcome to disagree with entirety of trademark, copyright, libel, and the prohibition of the distribution of child porn and god knows what else...maybe you object to truth in advertising laws, the census, and foods having to list their ingredients too? These too are all government restrictions and requirements on what we can or must say and are all freedom of speech issues...

So of all the places to just now draw your line in the sand and stand up against 'the man' telling you what you can or can't say... distribution of child porn? There are better places to make your stand.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[TranquilVoid]

An overly-complex legal system is an indication that an empire has passed its peak and is in decline, nothing more, nothing less.

I disagree, and it's more simple than that. It's an indication of how long a society has remained stable.

To claim such a society is necessarily in decline means you have to argue more complicated notions of human interaction, such as that stable societies eventually become militarily complacent and weak.

We live in an age where the idea of an empire has been replaced, more or less, by that of various nation states co-existing. Whether that works out in the long run who knows, but we are unlikely to be surprised any more by a little-known society charging over the hill and overwhelming us.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

It would be more accurate to say I think that of all the places to draw your line in the sand this is the silliest.

But you're not even talking about my line to begin with; I don't agree with many of the laws you mentioned.

The law should be consistent, and proportional.

Right, so scrap those other laws.

Even if you disagree with libel, trademark, and copyright, you would probably agree that a prohibition on exchanging pictures of someone being criminally abused against their will is less of an abridgement of free speech than those, and that it would be pretty consistent with our legal system.

I don't agree with that.

So of all the places to just now draw your line in the sand and stand up against 'the man' telling you what you can or can't say... distribution of child porn?

Posting on Slashdot hardly qualifies as standing up against anyone. That said, I did not draw my line just recently, and I can be vocal about multiple issues almost at once.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

Pointing out the mostly illusory security of Tor is not being "part of the problem".

Did you read the part I replied to? I said you were part of the problem because you're encouraging this type of behavior from law enforcement just because they wanted to thwart the big bad pedophiles this time. In the context of this article, normal people's rights and privacy were violated, so I don't think there's anything to be happy about.

It wouldn't surprise me if even before now if the majority of exit nodes, or at least a large proportion of them were actually run by government agencies or firms acting on their behalf.

If that were the case, they'd probably be arresting more people.

If you use it to hit some paedo site, or to buy drugs, or launder money, or send death threats, or whatever then you're likely going to get caught sooner or later.

How likely? You can take other precautions besides just using Tor that would make it difficult to find you even if law enforcement ran many exit nodes.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[interkin3tic]

Honestly, I think it's about staying on top of the fear machine they've created. If you make the public think child porn or terrorism is the worst thing ever in order to get elected, you need to take steps against it. Otherwise someone else will come along and exploit the paranoia you worked so hard to make, and you'll get voted out.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[msi]

That and they keep digging bodies up from his garden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria#Sexual_assault_charges http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012wjcx/Russia_The_Wild_East_Series_2_The_Secret_Speech_Scramble_for_Power/

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cervesaebraciator]

I don't doubt it. I wasn't defending the man. I was responding to the specific use of "history is written by the victors." This is true, as far as it goes, but a critical look at a text, even if it is written by the victors, can tell one things even the victors don't want to be known. This is doubly true if there are other texts or archaeological evidence (in this case, bodies).

Re:We are living in interesting times

[vux984]

I don't agree with that.

Why not? Copyright law gives models and actors various rights over content they appear in.

Clearly these works were generated in violation of the law, and without the participants consent. If they object to them being shared it should be a no-brainer that their rights are being violated by the distribution of them for pornographic purposes.

Moreover copyright laws apply by default, so unless they've explicitly released these images for distribution by default it is against the law to distribute them.

From what I can tell we don't even need a specific law preventing the distribution of child porn -- existing law actually has all the bits needed. So a child-porn specific law isn't merely consistent with existing law, but almost redundantly so.

The main difference being related to the fact that the state is tasked with enforcement instead of requiring the injured parties to sue for each violation. Given the nature of the crime, this doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me. Forcing the victims to forever chase down unauthorized distribution their own images just further and perpetually victimizes them.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[cheekyjohnson]

Why not?

Because it's still censorship.

Clearly these works were generated in violation of the law

Are you thinking I only care about rights the law claims we have?

I really don't know what you're trying to say. How many times must I state that I disagree with many laws (at least the ones you mentioned) that are in effect today? Mentioning that the law is the way it is isn't going to do anything for you.

Re:We are living in interesting times

[jago25_98]

This the better line of argument because the pictures continue the damage.

But... deleting the pictures isn't deleting what happened. It isn't deleting it from the minds of who's seen it. So... is it really worth it?

It means the removal of the internet as we know it in order to achieve it. I don't think you can have one without the other. By the internet what I mean is, that place where people were able to feel a lot more free about what they can do and this brought about a lot of social revolutions.

  Some of the crappy social changes have been porn, shock media, paedophiles. Thing is, you say goodbye to paedos you say goodbye to everything from Jackass to progress in gay rights and everything in between.

  I guess this internet thing always was a bit of a dream. Unsustainable madness. It makes sense to implode. I remember thinking this when my friend was loading up a porno floppy disc in an Acorn Archimedes at school 25 years ago.
  We're going to end up with an internet as exciting as a middle class Facebook where nobody says anything riske or funny because it's broadcast to the whole world and therefore someone gets insulted. That, and the ability to pay for bills, shop online and book tickets to things... admin.

I like that we can have this conversation. In the future we may not want to. I already find myself wanting to not type to defend the other side of the argument.

It does seem to be a pattern that as new things are invented they are then slowly subverted into some kind of monster be it tech or even art like music. Perhaps the only response is not to fight it but to keep innovating. Innovation seems to have been given the OK

Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

Computer Intrusion is illegal, and the FBI knows that.

So is spying on someone without a warrant, and given that they can't know who they're spying on, I don't see how they could possibly have obtained a warrant for this action.

I hope the TOR user community sues them. Very roughly. And with extreme prejudice.

The US has gotten way too fucking big for it's britches.

I used to think maybe there was justification for the anti-terrorism attitude that the US has.

I've changed my mind.

My sympathies now lie with those who rise up against these goddamn born-again Nazis in their attempt at world domination.

You go, Al Queda!

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Please report to the nearest TSA office and fill out Form H-334a Selection of Orifice. A warrant will be issued shortly. Failure to report will result in further charges.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[achbed]

All these "illegal" acts by a government are only "illegal" within that country. If they target another country, or a citizen of another country, that's called "espionage" and all fallout is handled by the State Department/Foreign Affairs Office or by military action.

Oh, and the punishment for "illegal" acts for the elite (read: government employees and/or corporate executives) is now officially a wrist-slap in a press release, and MAYBE a fine. MAYBE.

Oh, and make sure to say hi to all the nice men in Guantanamo Bay for me. Your door will be knocked down in 3...2...1...

Re:Computer Intrusion

[RoknrolZombie]

Computer Intrusion is illegal, and the FBI knows that.

Yup...people have been clamoring for more transparency...perhaps this is that?

So is spying on someone without a warrant, and given that they can't know who they're spying on, I don't see how they could possibly have obtained a warrant for this action.

Agreed - the legislation that's in place has granted them far too much power, far more than most of us feel comfortable with.

I hope the TOR user community sues them. Very roughly. And with extreme prejudice.

That'd be nice, but I doubt it'll happen. It won't happen any faster than voting decency into office will :-/

The US has gotten way too fucking big for it's britches.

I agree - we need to get these douchebags outta office and get someone in office that does their f'ing job!

I used to think maybe there was justification for the anti-terrorism attitude that the US has.

I'm sure that at least some of the people involved believe that they're doing the right thing. Their belief doesn't make it "right" however...they need to stay the f out of my life. If I'm not breaking the law, they've got no business knowing a goddamned thing about me.

I've changed my mind.

My sympathies now lie with those who rise up against these goddamn born-again Nazis in their attempt at world domination.

YES! We need to protest, rise up as one mind, with one purpose, to effect change in our Government! Occupy Wall Street was only the beginning!

You go, Al Queda!

I'm sorry, WHAT?!?!?!

Woah, woah, woah, woah....where in the hell did that come from? Now, I fully agree that we need changes in our Government, and I'm even on board with listening to what revolutionaries have to say, but that's a far damn cry from supporting the murder of innocent citizens and the repression of (plenty) of basic human rights. No, I'm afraid your downmods were your own fault.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[whoever57]

Computer Intrusion is illegal, and the FBI knows that.

Have you not learned from all the stories of computer intrusions that it is only illegal if you are an ordinary person, without access to large amounts of money, or are part of the government?

Re:Computer Intrusion

[gl4ss]

you think FBI gives a shit about breaking the law? of course not, american cops regularly take phones of suspects and use them to entrap more suspects, all without a warrant, impersonating some other dude to encourage some other dude to perform a crime is normal operating procedure - and indeed keeping the pedo servers running when they could have shut them down seems to be normal operating procedure as well! guess how many countries legal system actually allows for that, for cops to sell drugs and guns to criminals?

explains why the american jails and prisons are filled to the brim though and why there's a non-voting underclass that is growing daily. it's the new segregation.

anyhow, don't "resume" normal browsing if browsing with tor.

what's a joke about the tracking is that they don't actually know if the tracked ip they get is coming from tor nodes or from the people browsing the busted sites and these ip's intersect(I'm not sure if the default is to act as an exit node as well and are they just going to start busting up tor exit nodes and then later going "our bad" when they can't pin anything? fear tactics to shut down tor?)

Re:Computer Intrusion

[gmuslera]

Maybe you would consider intentionally hosting a child porn site something legal? That happened inside US, after all.

Anyway, lose any hope to find justice in US, you are part of them and then outside law's reach , or you are not, and you can be labeled as terrorist, jailed for decades under any excuse, or eliminated if you cause trouble to their protegees.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Anonymous Coward]

You go, Al Queda!

I'm sorry, WHAT?!?!?!

Woah, woah, woah, woah....where in the hell did that come from? Now, I fully agree that we need changes in our Government, and I'm even on board with listening to what revolutionaries have to say, but that's a far damn cry from supporting the murder of innocent citizens and the repression of (plenty) of basic human rights. No, I'm afraid your downmods were your own fault.

I am not that guy, and while I really don't believe Al Queda are good guys or a group to support, I kinda feel like I should support them in some things. For example they recently said they want to break guantanamo. And hey, I fully support them in that. It seems like the right thing to do, pretty extreme but if the government wanted a less extreme option they had plenty of time for it.
The government is really going to make extremist groups be way easier to relate to.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

Look, the bottom line is the US is out of control on a global scale, and has caused most of it's own problems and performed actions that resulted in the hatred of so many nations and societies against them.

Al Queda was trained and supported during the cold war, but as soon as it was no longer of interest to the US, they were abandoned to their fate at the hands of the Russian army. Add in the civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and it's no wonder they hate the US.

The US anti-drug war has literally cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives in Mexico, Columbia, and throughout south america.

You spy on the entire world as if it were perfectly acceptable, ignoring diplomatic ties, diplomatic relations, and even fundamental human rights that are enshrined in your own constitution, so long as it's not an american being targetted.

You produce an obscene amount of the carbon footprint of the planet, polluting the whole globe and doing a great deal to rush us all to oblivion.

You shove your laws down everyone's throats, even over trivial industries like entertainment (SOPA.)

Right now you whine like petty children because Russia won't return Snowden to your menacing clutches.

You bomb women and children with little regard using remote drones, and don't even have the decency to put your own lives at risk while doing so.

Your country is bankrupt, both financially and morally. Your cities are cesspools of crime, corruption, and gun/drug violence. Detroit is but the first of many who will be declaring bankruptcy thanks to years of mismanagement and abuse for the sake of short term votes.

You threaten the entire globe with a nuclear arsenal that dwarfs anyone else's save Russia's, who haven't threatened an invasion of anybody in a couple of decades.

You support the abuse of the Palestinians by your Israeli "allies", turning a blind eye to decades of human and civil rights abuses and blatant flouting of international law.

I'm sick of the US on the global stage.

I swear, you deserve to have your asses handed to you by a conglomeration of the nations you've abused and mistreated these many years.

And don't give me that "Well, I didn't vote for them" bullshit. You know as well as I do that it's the left and right heads of the same two-headed hydra in power down there. Where are the protests in the street? Where are all the so-called second amendment gun nuts when it matters? Where's the revolution that is so badly needed?

But no, you've got your TV pap and your shitty beer and something that claims to be a hamburger in your hand, so you sit idly by and watch it all unfold without saying a word except on slashdot and facebook.

Hell, even your so-called "justice" system condoned the murder of a 17 year old kid because some gun-toting putz started a fight and ended up losing.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[achbed]

Actually, you could argue in a court of law that because the original site was not set up by the FBI that the entire operation fell under an "undercover investigation" status, even after the site was compromised. The FBI even had a fairly clean defense against charges of entrapment as well, because they didn't create the site in the first place, and shut it down shortly after acquiring control.

In this case, if looks like the FBI did a similar play - hack an existing site that is used for illegal activity, gather evidence for a short period of time, shut it down and arrest the owners.

What's probably got everyone rankled this time is a combination of (a) misbelief that Tor is unhackable, (b) use of cracking techniques in the furtherance of an FBI investigation (which they do all the time legally btw), and (c) all the news lately about joint NSA/FBI programs to record everything everyone does which is clearly on the wrong side of both liberties and any sense of reasonableness (even if "legal").

Re:Computer Intrusion

[mwvdlee]

Next time you might want to wait until atleast some more votes come in instead of jumping to conclusions.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[sociocapitalist]

Computer Intrusion is illegal, and the FBI knows that.

So is spying on someone without a warrant, and given that they can't know who they're spying on, I don't see how they could possibly have obtained a warrant for this action.

I hope the TOR user community sues them. Very roughly. And with extreme prejudice.

The US has gotten way too fucking big for it's britches.

I used to think maybe there was justification for the anti-terrorism attitude that the US has.

I've changed my mind.

My sympathies now lie with those who rise up against these goddamn born-again Nazis in their attempt at world domination.

You go, Al Queda!

Regardless of how poorly the US government behaves it does not justify supporting Al Qaeda or their tactics which are largely against civilians.

If you want to declaim the US government go right ahead - but in this case the enemy of your enemy is still fucking crazy and should not be supported regardless.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Anonymous Coward]

You go, Al Queda!

I'm sorry, WHAT?!?!?!

Woah, woah, woah, woah....where in the hell did that come from? Now, I fully agree that we need changes in our Government, and I'm even on board with listening to what revolutionaries have to say, but that's a far damn cry from supporting the murder of innocent citizens and the repression of (plenty) of basic human rights. No, I'm afraid your downmods were your own fault.

My sentiment exactly. Or to quote The Beatles,

but if you want money for people with minds that hate, all I can tell you is brother you'll have to wait

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Dunbal]

But it's not a coup if we don't call it a coup, and it's not really spying if we're not actually spying. The program is doing the spying... The US government is getting more brazen by the day when it breaks its own laws.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Ardyvee]

And easier for the government to get rid of those that don't agree with them by grouping them with terrorist groups. It's so clever it's almost stupidly so, so much that it's quite hard to miss. After all, everyone agrees that we should get rid of terrorists.

Re: Computer Intrusion

[Stoutlimb]

The government was never very nice, you just woke up to it. If you truly want that fantasy government back, go buy yourself a flat of beer, switch the channel to Maury, disconnect your internet, and for God's sake, don't read anything!

Notice I never gave you any voting advice... it's because you don't need to worry about that. How and if you vote never really matters.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

Ok, so maybe the Al Queda line was over the top. But I do sympathize with their anti-American stance.

The same as I sympathize with Palestinian kids throwing rocks at the heavily armed Israeli army troops.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[brit74]

Yup. That part struck me as particularly hypocritical, considering how much shit the US gets for "supporting the enemy of our enemy", but it's apparently justified to support the enemy of your enemy if you're really emotional about it.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Arker]

Al Qaeda are a bunch of murderous thugs. They get and should get no sympathy whatsoever. But it's the US governments own responses which gives them grounds to curry sympathy. This is why they wanted us in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and beyond. Our government had its own reasons to want to do this, but in the end the result is the same.

So when you draw lines on your mental map and you are thinking about enemy of my enemy, keep in mind that Al Qaeda and the Feds may be better seen as allies, for the moment at least, rather than enemies. Oh, they dont like each other. But they have been strengthening each others hands and playing together to common goals for a long time. In Afghanistan during the soviet period, in the balkans, and right now in Syria. Al Qaeda, contentless US Press releases to the contrary, was weak and nearly powerless in 2002, and today it has a presence in countries from Mali to Indonesia, and can even field an army (by all accounts the strongest and most successful in the entire opposition) to contend in the Syrian Civil War.

And the US is backing them, there, much as we did in the Balkans not so very long ago. What's really going on here?

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Joining Yet Again]

It interests me from a legal PoV that what you said is actually illegal ("glorifying" terrorism) in the UK, but it's still wrong. al Qaeda is a disaffected US paramilitary branch, like a guy who was fired from his job and goes back to the office to throw shit around a bit. Their world-police philosophy is All American.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

The main reason I'm so pissed off is I'm Canadian, and that means your three letter agencies are busy spying on me for all it's worth. Until today I didn't actively hate the US.

Your making enemies as fast as you're losing friends.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[kcmastrpc]

so after reading your condemning diatribe, i found the only redeeming value in your rant (which happens to serve as an irony as well).

you're on slashdot, complaining.

Re: Computer Intrusion

[Stoutlimb]

Chechnya. Twice. And before you say it's an internal matter, it's no more an internal matter than if they had invaded Ukraine. The strong splinter states of the USSR got their freedom. The weak ones got steamrolled. In Moscow, Chechens aren't considered Russian... so how could this truly be an internal matter?

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody has a tipping point. I think for US it's going to be the Big Brother issues.

I'm from Turkey and for us the tipping point was a park.

For years, we had been suffering the same politics of fear that I see in US. The government was practically putting anyone (particularly people speaking against them) under surveillance, making journalists wait in custody for years before even having their trials, suing people in a corrupt justice system just for speaking their minds using something equivalent of the Patriot Act. The freedom of speech was no where to be seen.

During all this time, what stopped people from acting was the feeling of being alone and powerless. And that's what happens when all the media is corrupt and distorting and hiding what's really going on. But people were no fools. Thanks to the internet, there were ways of knowing what's really been going on and people have been getting the news.

So one day, police attacked hundreds of people who were having a sit-in for saving a park and the trees in it with. Anger overwhelmed fear and in a few hours millions were on the street, protesting. I had seen nothing like this. People coming out of Yoga classes were throwing tear gas grenades back to the police. Mothers were preparing solutions to use against the effect of pepper spray. Nobody was afraid of being against the police anymore. The whole story is really interesting, from using google maps to track and distribute police movements to a whole series of sub-culture graffiti on the walls of Istanbul. If you want to learn more, visit this, this and this link.

This lasted for two weeks. For the first five days there was *nothing* on TV or newspapers about this. This was an eye opener for the people who have seen what wasn't being reported. It was what they needed for reverse-engineering the mass-media and bypassing it with social media.

Now everything is calmer, at least in appearance. But the change that people have gone through is an irreversible process. And I think it is, or will be, of a much important consequence than over-throwing an oppressive government. Because the problem doesn't reside within a single government. It's this whole inhumane, ecologically unmaintainable, unjust system and it is all around the world. We all need to open our eyes and do something about it.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

But I did something more than rant on slashdot about their complacency and circumventing our own Charter of Rights. I sent emails to my MP and to the PMO.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

And what do you propose I do? Walk from Canada to the White House to plant a picket sign?

I wrote my own government with my concerns.

What have you done?

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Just Another Poster]

Al Queda was trained and supported during the cold war

Liar. Al Queda did not exist when the US was funding the Afghan mujahedeen (who later became the Northern Alliance).

Re:Computer Intrusion

[kcmastrpc]

I don't drink beer, watch tv, or fancy myself a revolutionary.

I also don't participate in the farce they call voting. Let my own lack of a voice be heard.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

Specifically sent to the PMO:

I am extremely disturbed that not only has the Canadian government failed to take the US to task for their illegal and blatant spying upon our citizens, but that apparently CSIS is using information gleaned by the US to circumvent the protections of our own Charter of Rights.

I call upon you as the representative of this nation to hold the United States to account.

Do your job for a change. Stand up for us.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

If that seems to be a milder tone than my rant, it's because I was under investigation for several months once already for my "colourful phrasing" which the PMO and the RCMP interpreted as a "threat".

Re:Computer Intrusion

[meta-monkey]

Please understand, we, the people of the United States, are still your friends, jokes about riding moose and your terrible 'bacon' aside.

Our common problem is the out of control United State government. We are putting pressure on it to change, and if you can add to our efforts by putting pressure on your government to tell our government that knocking off this crap is a good idea, we would be grateful.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[HiThere]

IIUC, the GP was saying that the US created Al Queda. I'm not asserting the truth of that statement, but I do believe that's what the GP was asserting.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[xvan]

Think about this...

You were more or less living a normal life in a forgotten town. One day the US bombs you in the name of freedom, killing all your family.

Then you find out that they did bomb you because some crazy bastard that you never heard about, that wasn't born and didn't live in your country, destroyed some towers you didn't know existed. Oh, and some shit about massive destruction weapons.

Depending on your mental state, and how much you lost, you might consider that life isn't wroth any more... Some guys suicide, some guys seek revenge...

Next time one of this guys gets in your country and kills a bunch of your people, you'll call him a terrorist... You should really reflect on why the fuck this guys do what thy do, why they hate you, and what you could have done to prevent this guy from hating you.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[jon3k]

I was kind of with him until the "You go, Al Queda!" part. As much as you might disagree with US policy, two wrongs don't make a right.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[cgriffiths]

what's a joke about the tracking is that they don't actually know if the tracked ip they get is coming from tor nodes or from the people browsing the busted sites and these ip's intersect(I'm not sure if the default is to act as an exit node as well and are they just going to start busting up tor exit nodes and then later going "our bad" when they can't pin anything? fear tactics to shut down tor?)

The exploit used wouldn't have affected the exit nodes, at least from what is publicly known about it. The FBI planted some malicious Javascript on the servers delivering the webpages to the people trying to access them and then it would transmit the IP address of the computer which was running both Tor and Firefox 17 or 18 with Javascript activated. I'm not sure if the IP was broadcast only if they continued to use that browser when Tor was no longer running or whether it returned the IP address through looking at something like ipconfig in WinNT.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

Correction. The Taliban were trained.

Which, as far as I know, spawned Al Queda's original operatives. Same people, different name.

Re: Computer Intrusion

[circletimessquare]

terrorism in the usa isn't real?

russia's old school imperialism is somehow more virtuous?

(scratches head)

Re:Computer Intrusion

[dryeo]

You sent an email to Harper complaining about your Charter rights being violated? If Harper sees the email he'll have a good laugh. Same with your MP if he's a Conservative, they love the surveillance state and would be doing it even if the Americans weren't, if only to find out your politics and whether you're a Conservative supporter so they know whether to screw with you.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[HJED]

Pretty sure that apply in non-US jurisdictions to the FBI (who are not diplomats and aren't issued with diplomatic passports) . It would be intresting if a civil suit was filled in Ireland (where the attack occurred?) or in another jurisdiction.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[msobkow]

A protest! There has been a protest!

Not one word in the US "mainstream" media, but according to Russia Times there have been activists demanding a return of the fourth amendment: http://rt.com/usa/1984-protest-us-surveillance-034/.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[gox]

What's really going on here?

You already summarized the scheme. It's a general scheme that's been going on throughout the world.

What I am pondering about is how to react to these facts as a free person. Should we focus on our responsibilities to our community and use "democratic methods" to voice our concerns, maybe initiate protests and establish political groups? Should we focus on our responsibilities to our own family, move to the safest place we can find on Earth and then worry about when it will finally hit us? Should we adapt and do our best to educate our kids on how words change meaning over time?

Re:Computer Intrusion

[Lennie]

How are you 'putting presume on it to change' ? Because to be honest, I've not seen anything like that yet.

Really, I would like to know.

Re: Computer Intrusion

[rev0lt]

terrorism in the usa isn't real?

No, not really.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[jarle.aase]

I totally agree with you.

However, the problem I see is that it's bad everywhere. Whenever politicians gets power, they abuse it. I see no justice anywhere on this cursed planet.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[ToddInSF]

What you've described reminds me of the riots in San Francisco after Milk's murderer was let off with the Twinkie Defense...

Re:Computer Intrusion

[1s44c]

Very insightful and educational, but I think you are wrong about the tipping point in the US. If it was the NSA surveillance then protests would have already started.

During the Dorner hunt the LAPD were taking pot-shots at random people. They shot two innocent women delivering newspapers who looked nothing at all like the man the police were hunting. The American public did nothing.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[un1nsp1red]

But no, you've got your TV pap and your shitty beer and something that claims to be a hamburger in your hand, so you sit idly by and watch it all unfold without saying a word except on slashdot and facebook.

Hey, we have tons of great beer and awesome cheeseburgers. The other stuff is true, but we have some good burgers.

Re:Computer Intrusion

[BenEnglishAtHome]

...your so-called "justice" system condoned the murder of a 17 year old kid because some gun-toting putz started a fight and ended up losing.

No. Just NO.

I'm retired and have time on my hands. I'm also a long-time free-speech and gun rights advocate, giving money, time, and voice to both issues.

I sat at my computer and watched the entire trial as it was streamed. All of it. If you haven't done the same and have only listened to the mass media, you have no idea what happened that night. If you watched the trial, you'll have a reasonable theory. If you've looked into Trayvon's drug and exercise habits and his texts (that were not allowed into evidence), you'll have great confidence in that theory.

George Zimmerman was not just "not guilty", he was innocent. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and perhaps other people would have acted differently with a different outcome but all of his actions leading up to the shooting were reasonable.

The jury absolutely, positively reached the right decision.

If you think otherwise, willful ignorance is in play.

Did I read that right?

[djupedal]

"Any users accessing a Freedom Hosting hosted site since 8/2 with javascript enabled are potentially compromised."


That would include all the FBI computers used to deliver the poison, then?

Re:Did I read that right?

[elysiuan]

Probably not but the analysis of the malware is still on-going. Hence 'potentially'. Regardless I think it's safe to assume any thing traced back to FBI lab computers are probably not high on the list of actionable items.

Re:Did I read that right?

[ColdWetDog]

"Any users accessing a Freedom Hosting hosted site since 8/2 with javascript enabled are potentially compromised."

That would include all the FBI computers used to deliver the poison, then?

Nah, they're probably using IE 6. Still.

Re:Did I read that right?

[gmuslera]

You should had to be running Firefox 17 on windows afaik (that was the version included by the Tor Bundle). Anyway, running a browser in a disposable linux container should be more or less safe between sessions.

Re:Did I read that right?

[Skuto]

You should had to be running Firefox 17 on windows afaik (that was the version included by the Tor Bundle).

You had be running the specific, modified Firefox version that's shipped with Tor.

Mozilla's Firefox 17 (ESR) has been patched for this vulnerability. (i.e. it's not a real 0-day)

Re:Did I read that right?

[viperidaenz]

Firefox 17.0.7 is still the latest in the ESR update channel.

Tips for Tor

[Meditato]

Put your Tor client in a Secure Linux VM, so none of your hardware information can be exposed. Go to https://check.torproject.org/ to check if Tor is working, and make sure NoScript or something similar is enabled.

Re:Tips for Tor

[CRCulver]

make sure NoScript or something similar is enabled.

If a server for which you need to enable Javascript has been compromised, NoScript is no help at all.

Re:Tips for Tor

[Cynops]

Or use Tails, a Linux distro specifically designed for paranoia. You burn it on a CD (or USB stick) and boot from it into a Linux desktop environment specially crafted for privacy and security. All internet traffic is routed through Tor (sic), so after rebooting you should be fine.

Re: Tips for Tor

[achbed]

...and if you're using the same browser for TOR and unsecure web, you're doing it wrong.

Re:Tips for Tor

[Anonymous Coward]

Tails have Javascript enabled, so would be insecure. Wait for the next update.

Re:Tips for Tor

[Splab]

Just a little gotcha with Tails - they have for some reason decided to enable Javascript; one does wonder if they have done so to help FBI?

Re:Tips for Tor

[mrmeval]

That can still expose a signature of the hardware. If you do pick up some malware your hard drive is still available unless you've unplugged it or encrypted it. I'll stick with the VM solution.

Re:Tips for Tor

[aliquis]

... and then log into your gmail account, twitter, facebook, ebay, paypal and so on through said desktop environment and tor.. Because like.. secure!

Re:Tips for Tor

[Billly Gates]

Wont work.

If you use Firefox and the javascript will alert the FBI with your IP address where it can find out who you and your location with the American Patriot Act from your ISP.

Re:Tips for Tor

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly never understood why people would use Tor on their regular OS, much less from their home Internet connection. IF I need to use Tor it's likely gonna be from a laptop I dig out of the closet, booted with Tails or another Live-distro, and connected to an open AP somewhere around town.

This scenario creates a one off moment of connection that will likely never be seen again. If someone tried to track it, even the compromised methods above, they'd be hunting down a ghost.

Point of Tor IS anonymity, right?

Re:Tips for Tor

[ComedyVehicle]

Just a little gotcha with Tails - they have for some reason decided to enable Javascript; one does wonder if they have done so to help FBI?

From the Tor Project FAQ:

You can configure your copies of Tor Browser Bundle however you want to. However, we recommend that even users who know how to use NoScript leave JavaScript enabled if possible, because a website or exit node can easily distinguish users who disable JavaScript from users who use Tor Browser bundle with its default settings (thus users who disable JavaScript are less anonymous).

Disabling JavaScript by default, then allowing a few websites to run scripts, is especially bad for your anonymity: the set of websites which you allow to run scripts is very likely to uniquely identify your browser.

Tinfoil is a little premature. This is Applebaum's baby we're talking about here.

Re:Tips for Tor

[Rich0]

Or use Tails, a Linux distro specifically designed for paranoia. You burn it on a CD (or USB stick) and boot from it into a Linux desktop environment specially crafted for privacy and security. All internet traffic is routed through Tor (sic), so after rebooting you should be fine.

The only problem with this sort of approach is that if you run some program that doesn't route all its traffic through tor you could be in trouble.

If I were concerned about privacy I'd run tor on a proxy, then run all my browsers/etc on some VM that was completely firewalled from everything but the proxy. That means that if for any reason it was exploited or buggy it couldn't phone home anyway, and any locally-running code can't really obtain any useful information about where it might be located. It has no access to hardware, and it has some private IP address that doesn't mean anything to anybody.

Now if Tails actually accomplishes all that, great, but I have no idea how you block software from finding out your IP address on Linux if it isn't virtualized.

Re:Tips for Tor

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberte is usually recommended over Tails (on the SR forums) for this reason.

Re:Tips for Tor

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just a little gotcha with Tails - they have for some reason decided to enable Javascript; one does wonder if they have done so to help FBI?"

The TAILS developers are ANONYMOUS. They could be working with or of any intelligence agency or agencies and we would never know.

The source code being available doesn't matter - most download the .iso.

Re:Tips for Tor

[auric_dude]

Tracker gave HTTP response code 503 (Service Unavailable) lost track of Tails for a while, should I be worried?

No defcon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have invited the feds to defcon after all. Seems they got bored this weekend.

line of beaters

[Anonymous Coward]

So the FBI, with no particular target in mind, are using the Tor network as a line of beaters in the bush scaring out any kind of animal and hopefully only shooting the ones they are trying to find. Meanwhile, every animal is scared out of it's normal activities until the beaters have passed.

Yeah, that's not intrusive at all. No privacy compromised for anyone. And all it takes is the FBI actually infecting the Tor network with their own malware. Thank heavens they're the good guys. Oh, wait, the good guys wouldn't intentionally infect computers and networks, would they?

Re:line of beaters

[achbed]

Wow, people don't read. Tor was not infected. One particular hosting provider was infected for a short while (in order to gather evidence), and then was taken down and the owner arrested. I would expect that Silk Road is probably under the same kind of attack right now and has been for quite some time.

I kind of want to be angry but..

[Anonymous Coward]

The "I don't like the government monitoring me" part of me objects to this, but the "Find every pedo and kill them slowly" part of me is currently winning out, because lets face it for every legitimate user of TOR, there was about 200 pedo's.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much this.

One of the few times when law enforcement has claimed they did something to protect the children and I actually believe them.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[cheekyjohnson]

The "I don't like the government monitoring me" part of me objects to this, but the "Find every pedo and kill them slowly" part of me is currently winning out

You're part of the problem. Have fun getting groped at airports.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[cheekyjohnson]

With that said, why would you want to kill pedophiles? Not every pedophile is a child molester (nor is a child molester necessarily a pedophile), and not every pedophile even looks at child pornography.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[pipatron]

I think I've read research showing that even most child molesters are not pedophiles. Also, I don't think it's technically illegal to be a pedophile in any country, but since sharing child pornography is illegal it's irrelevant if the perpetrator is a pedophile, child molester, or just some random guy.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[achbed]

I love hearing cases where the law makes no sense. A 16-year-old and his 16-year-old girlfriend have sex. Statutory rape charges are brought against the boyfriend, but are dismissed because the laws state that you have to be 18 to be charged. The girlfriend records it on her phone, and send a copy to the boyfriend. She gets charged with production of child porn, and he gets charged with having it. Welcome to the new world order.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[pipatron]

Images and videos of child abuse are a very small part of Tor. Most of the traffic consists of ordinary adult pornography.

You have to understand that if you want to peddle child pornography, Tor is a lousy place due to the slow speeds. Far better to buy time on some russian anonymous proxy.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[slashmon]

Pedophilia is a sexual preference that is as unchangeable as hetero or homo-sexuality. Actually practicing it sexually with a child is illegal, yes. But most with pedophilia are non-practicing and hurt no one. That is the real story you don't see on tv. Pedophile does not equal child molester. This is starting to become better known. http://www.commonatheist.com/ped.htm [commonatheist.com]

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[slashmon]

You are correct. Pedophile does not equal child molester. Being a pedophile means a person has an attraction to children, it says nothing about whether they practice this attraction. Many do not and therefore deserve the same respect as anyone else. Also, many non-pedophiles molest just for the feeling of power, because a child was the only partner available, among other reasons. The issue is complex. This article changed my mind about pedophiles. http://www.commonatheist.com/ped.htm

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[cheekyjohnson]

Let me explain something in the event you don't already know:

Yes, let's talk about how you think the bogeymen are going to get us.

Pedophiles NEVER avoid children! That is an outright lie.

Really? Never? I instantly believe you.

I'm not even sure your reply had much to do with mine.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[Billly Gates]

No it is not normal.

It is caused by traumatic abuse as a child. Not genetic in nature at all

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[JaredOfEuropa]

Remember: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety". You're giving up liberty, not even for security, but for a one-off win against a bunch of pedofilic perverts. One-off, because don't think for a second that this will significantly hinder the distribution of kiddie porn, or more importantly, the pornographers (who I agree deserve everything they get). And whenever a government rep mentions "for the children", it's your liberty you should worry about, not your kids.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[cheekyjohnson]

The problem is that pedophillia involves profiting off and exploiting the children who have been abused by putting them in sexual situations - if not preying on them directly.

No, it does not. You seem to be assuming that all pedophiles look at child pornography or molest children.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[Anonymous Coward]

... claimed they did something to protect the children ...

Why? The FBI hasn't found child pornography on this server. I'd be surprised if they didn't but I notice a distinct lack of jack-booted thugs doing their usual circle-jerk.

Note the FBI allege the company had "facilitated the spread of child pornography". Which would of course include every router and tel-co between Ireland and the person downloading. The FBI hasn't claimed the company hosted the material or linked to it, or even hosted tracker files. It is far too soon to be claiming "think of the children" in this story.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[cheekyjohnson]

Who said that pedophilia is normal?

It is caused by traumatic abuse as a child. Not genetic in nature at all

What makes you think that this applies in every case, or even most cases?

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[slashmon]

Actually: "Scientists at the Toronto center have uncovered a series of associations that suggest pedophilia has biological roots. Among the most compelling findings is that 30% of pedophiles are left-handed or ambidextrous, triple the general rate. Because hand dominance is established through some combination of genetics and the environment of the womb, scientists see that association as a powerful indicator that something is different about pedophiles at birth." source: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/14/local/la-me-pedophiles-20130115

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[Billly Gates]

I am both left handed and ambidextrous. Does that mean I want to harm and physically abuse an innocent child!

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[Joining Yet Again]

Of course, paedophiles are ONLY attracted to children, and all heterosexual men are rapists because they cannot resist the urge to fuck every woman regardless of consent.

I'm bisexual, but I've managed to go several decades without ONCE having any sexual contact with my own gender. Think about this.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[citizenr]

The "I don't like the government monitoring me" part of me objects to this, but the "Find every pedo and kill them slowly" part of me is currently winning out, because lets face it for every legitimate user of TOR, there was about 200 pedo's.

Have fun when FBI decides to make you a pedo by uploading crap using their malware.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[mrbester]

I am also both left handed and ambidextrous. I want to harm and physically abuse anyone who wants to harm and physically abuse innocent children. Does that make me a bad person?

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[ToddInSF]

...and he's made himself look far, far worse, far more of a threat to the public, to liberty, to peace, to justice, than some pathetic old fool downloading naked pictures of kids.

Re: I kind of want to be angry but..

[cheekyjohnson]

Yes, allow the government to violate the constitution and people's rights as it pleases; that sounds like a good plan, and it isn't as if that has ever backfired in the past.

Re:I kind of want to be angry but..

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Shit happens all the time. See: http://www.privacylover.com/child-porn/.

Re: I kind of want to be angry but..

[Haawkeye]

Ya I am with you on this one. I am willing to compromise on my privacy if it means we hunt down some pedofiles

8/2

[Anonymous Coward]

What does 8/2 mean? August 2d or 8th of February?

Kind of ambiguous...

Re:8/2

[elysiuan]

My fault, at least August 2nd. Potentially longer.

Re:8/2

[qzjul]

Or August 2002? or August of year 2?

Or February 2008... :)

This has to be illegal

[coder111]

I wonder about the legality of FBI's action here. Ok, I guess they have some kind of search order/wiretap order for "investigating pedophiles" against one specific site, but what about collateral damage? I mean they shut down an email service used by normal people as well. They did track and spy on activities on normal law abiding citizens. Did they effectively break into a big number of law abiding citizen's machines against whom no search or writetap orders were issued?

Or can FBI hack anyone at will without any legal oversight? I don't remember getting the memo where such behaviour from a government agency is legal.

Well I guess we can stop pretending we live in a law-abiding democratic world. It's an oligarchy run by the banks, the rich, lobyists and professional politicans, and scew everyone else...

--Coder

Re:This has to be illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the FBI is the only entity who has access to the goings on of TOR, change the type of weed you smoke.

It wouldn't be surprising to find good ol' China owning various nodes, perhaps an exit node or two, and using font order and such (Try EFF's Panopticlick -- even with Flash and JS off, it can still ID machines by many other ways.

The FBI is an easy punching bag -- /. is getting a lot of eyeballs and clicks (thus revenue) for the anti-US hate mongering, but there are a lot of countries far better in the espionage department that have their hooks into TOR. They just tend to actively seek out and destroy people selling top secret documents for cash (and their families) as opposed to just saber rattling.

Re:This has to be illegal

[sociocapitalist]

I wonder about the legality of FBI's action here. Ok, I guess they have some kind of search order/wiretap order for "investigating pedophiles" against one specific site, but what about collateral damage? I mean they shut down an email service used by normal people as well. They did track and spy on activities on normal law abiding citizens. Did they effectively break into a big number of law abiding citizen's machines against whom no search or writetap orders were issued?

Or can FBI hack anyone at will without any legal oversight? I don't remember getting the memo where such behaviour from a government agency is legal.

Well I guess we can stop pretending we live in a law-abiding democratic world. It's an oligarchy run by the banks, the rich, lobyists and professional politicans, and scew everyone else...

--Coder

It's only important that it's illegal if if:
  - a) they get caught
  - b) you can prove it
  - c) you can do something about it
  - d) what you can do about it is enough to make any substantial difference

Re:This has to be illegal

[achbed]

Didn't you get the memo that legal is really just something you have to work around?

The FISA court can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a memo, nor the contents of any such memo even if it existed. So, here's a selection of 100% black redacted pages that may or may not have anything to do with said memo.

(see 100 page attachment with all-black pages)

Cybercrime: Legal, but only if you're The Law

[girlintraining]

So basically, if you're legally accessing a website while browsing with Tor, making use of legal services in a legal fashion... the FBI will install a wiretap on your computer, without a warrant, in order to monitor all your activities, on the off chance that you might be up to no good. This is rather like walking out into rush hour traffic, pointing at random cars, and saying "Search that car! We know terrorists use cars, so let's start searching them all."

Dear FBI,

Fuck you. That's a terrorist's mentality. You're worse than the lowly pieces of shit you hunt, because we expected you to uphold principles of integrity, honor, and those other words you got plastered on your slimy logo that used to mean something. You are, in fact, worse than a terrorist: You're a corrupt law enforcement organization with a bigger budget than any terrorist organization out there, and you are doing more harm to this country than catching a hundred Bin Ladens could accomplish.

-_- The internet is a global and international community and you need to show some restraint, otherwise you're going to create large amounts of resentment and anger throughout the world. No wait: You already have created this. You are endangering the infrastructure and the people you are oath-bound to protect with your actions. I don't give a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut what authority or law you think gives you the right to act in this fashion... you're a public menace. You're just giving everyone who doesn't like this country piles of ammunition and sympathy from the general public that can be used to attack MY country.

Knock it the fuck off. Now.

Re:Cybercrime: Legal, but only if you're The Law

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a terrorist's mentality.

Strictly speaking, I don't think that is a terrorist's mentality. From your car analogy, the FBI seems to be hoping we won't care that our rights are violated, a terrorist would hope that we would care. The methods are similar, which indicates incompetency on the part of the FBI (yes, if you were really good at the job you claim to perform, you wouldn't have needed to do this), but I don't think comparing their objectives is accurate.

I'm not saying this to disagree with OP's rant, just to point out an easily-correctable issue.

Re:Cybercrime: Legal, but only if you're The Law

[girlintraining]

I'm not saying this to disagree with OP's rant, just to point out an easily-correctable issue.

I'll give you that. I was really angry when I wrote that. Still am, actually. Tor was originally designed by the US Navy. To my knowledge, several organizations within the military still recommend its use, or variant technology, in order to obscure source IP addresses that could identify the person browsing as being part of the US military. Needless to say, installing malware onto a computer that belongs to someone with a high security clearance is a security problem in and of itself. But it gets even worse; Tor is also widely used by political activists in countries like Iran, China, North Korea (okay, maybe not as much, since their internet is next to non-existant...), etc. These people depend on this technology so that they can advocate democracy in their country and provide intelligence that we actually use in this country... like, for example, reporting someone who might be planning a terrorist attack, and who for obvious reasons wants to submit such a report anonymously. But all of that is topped by the fact that now people know where the vulnerability is, and that it can't be easily fixed... we've just handed a large number of criminals carte a loaded gun, all so we can go after a small number of criminals, most of whom aren't a threat to anyone but themselves (drug users).

The FBI's little war on drugs and pedophilia here will cause considerable collateral damage, and in fact poses a clear and present danger to actual national security. Any gains they could have made by catching a few druggies and kid-fuckers is and will be completely buried by the damage. Cyberwarfare should be the domain of the military, not a civilian law enforcement agency. And that's what this is: This isn't just surveillance, this is a military attack against sovereign interests both domestic and foreign, as defined by our own recently enacted laws on cyberwarfare and terrorism... and while I disagree with a lot of the language of those laws, I do agree that when we're talking about anything not tightly bracketed and targetted to domestic activities alone, authority should remain with the military.

The FBI has so completely screwed the pooch here I am giving serious consideration to printing this out, writing down some notes, and driving downtown to meet with my representatives. I really, truly feel that what the FBI is doing is harmful to national security, foreign relations, and is also overstepping its judicial boundaries severely. Anyone who has given serious thought to what the rules of engagement might or should be regarding cyberwarfare would recognize this is a cluster fuck; Not only because they're publicly admitting it, but because even if they didn't, they're endangering the lives of foreign nationals who may in fact be intelligence assets, if not cultural, abroad. Political activists fighting for democracy could be killed because of this -- this is a very real threat. Those people should have our country's support, not suspicion and derision.

This is weapons grade stupidity. Normally I give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt -- a lot of what I read (for example, an article just two days ago on slashdot about the FBI interviewing someone over their browser history), has a grey area, or is missing key facts. I try very hard not to judge people until all the data is in. But this time... there's ample evidence that this was deliberate and it was done with a complete disregard for not just civil liberties, but national security. I mean, it doesn't really matter which side of the debate you're on here: They fucked all of it up.

Re:Cybercrime: Legal, but only if you're The Law

[AmiMoJo]

The FBI are terrorists. They terrify people with threats of impending murder carried out by third parties, while offering little to not evidence that the threats are genuine. They do it to further their own ends.

Using the threat of violence to further your own goals is textbook terrorism.

Re:Idiots

[elysiuan]

Exit nodes weren't involved in this since it's an attack against hidden services whose traffic by definition remains within the TOR network. It's not really an attack on TOR, it was an attack on the server software Freedom Hosting was running and clueless/idiot TOR users with javascript enabled and other unsafe TOR habits.

Totally agree with you on people thing that TOR is some anonymity panacea is shortsighted.

slavery and death by a thousand cuts

[Kevin Fishburne]

I'm starting to wish governments would just get it over with and declare a permanent state of emergency. A different arm band for each person's assessed threat level, embedded RFID with skin tattoo for redundancy and mandatory iris, DNA and fingerprint sampling for all citizens. Upgrade traffic cameras with RFID readers and facial recognition software, require RFID and cellular GPS transponders on all automobiles and motorcycles and perform mandatory searches of persons and vehicles for any traffic stop. Nationalizing all ISPs, search engines, telco providers and banks would also be a smart move. Frankly I'm disappointed the government is taking this long. Guess that's democracy for ya.

Re:slavery and death by a thousand cuts

[shutdown -p now]

I've been wondering lately. If someone starts a petition to suspend the US Constitution on the basis of emergency (terrorists, pedophiles, yadda yadda), how many people would vote for it? Any US citizen want to run that experiment?

Re:slavery and death by a thousand cuts

[gandhi_2]

terrorists, pedophiles, yadda yadda

A lot of people have set the bar even lower: they want free shit.

Re:slavery and death by a thousand cuts

[meta-monkey]

I was kind of wondering how many would vote to dissolve/suspend congress.

Re:slavery and death by a thousand cuts

[citizenr]

I'm starting to wish governments would just get it over with and declare a permanent state of emergency.

Isnt US in one already since seventies?

Re:it's now just a matter of days

[RoknrolZombie]

I hadn't heard this - something in the news?

Re: Firefox 17?!?

[Skuto]

Tor ships their own, modified version of Firefox. I guess that's why it's ancient. The exploit they used doesn't exist in Mozilla's version as that has been patched for it a while ago.

Be smarter

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, use Whonix to access Tor, never the same browser you use for any other purpose.
 
Second, use Firefox with a JonDoFox profile which is not included in Whonix Workstation by default.
 
Third, go to ip-check.info and run the test on your browser. Everything should be green or yellow at the worst. If you see anything in red, fix it before you go to any questionable site. Finally, make sure you don't have any DNS Leaks in your host OS by running this test also from your regular host browser. Don't use or trust DNS from your ISP.
 
If you want to be extra-cautious, run the Whonix Gateway after you establish a VPN connection. Choose an offshore provider that has multi-hop technology to avoid traffic analysis. I'm using iVPN who is located in Malta.

Re:Be smarter

[Bob_Who]

....and don't forget - you didn't say "Simon Says"

Re:Be smarter

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Good lord, it's not that difficult! Use The Amnesiac Incognito Live System (TAILS), a live CD from: https://tails.boum.org/. When Iceweasel (the browser in TAILS) fires up, turn off Javascript and cookies. Then surf over TOR without worries from this exploit.

If you need Javascript and cookies, you can still be secure with only a bit more work.

Whonix, a new profile, and a VPN are overkill. The folks (not here) saying you need to run it all inside a VM have simply gone round the bend.

Its them or US

[arcite]

You think the Russians and the Chinese, or Pakistanis or Nigerians will play with kid gloves? We are establishing the boundaries for the coming century of conflicts, most of which will take place in the digital realm, paying little heed to national borders or treaties. A dirty war fought with dirty weapons. A game of cat and mouse, where winner takes all, and the loser forfeits their digital secrets wholesale. He who controls the information, controls the world. The US is best placed to take the lead, they cannot give up their technological and logistical edge. It's a battle to ensure the world is safe for democracy and capitalism - in other words, to make the world safe for America. It's a golden time to be a contractor.

Re:Its them or US

[joh]

And one day we will be allowed to choose between a red and a blue World President and will have to buy everything from a handful of incredibly rich companies? Yeah, great. You can keep that kind of democracy and capitalism.

Good news then,

[arcite]

We're half way there.

Re:Wowsers

[gmuslera]

They want to protect the children as much as they chasing terrorist, capture some people that sell/use drugs or catch (not very big) tax evaders, They will use those "wars" to show some results, but their main target is still the US population, the only ones capable to take them out of power.

Only sort of offtopic

[wjcofkc]

Yesterday I made a posting on CNN regarding the story about the heightened terrorist threat alert. While it covers a different subject, I could re-write it to fit this situation, but I think the slashdot crowd will get my drift, here is a direct copy\paste:

I do not know who to trust or what to think anymore. If this threat is real or not, I imagine we are intended to suppose that it was the US governments blanket surveillance of the world, including domestic spying that tipped them off. On the other hand, the timing is such (Snowden/Manning) that for all I know they made the whole thing up to better justify government wrongdoing in the eyes of the people. Or perhaps al Qaeda made the whole thing up just to see if they can manipulate the movements of our government by taking advantage of info gathering with a campaign of false intel. I don't know who to trust or what to think anymore, with the exception that I know I don't trust my own government. They have proven themselves manipulative liars.

Re:Only sort of offtopic

[ls671]

You could be right but don't forget that humans have a tendency to not take threats seriously until it really happens. We wait until a really bad accident happens before fixing a dangerous road, we surely do not remember the Bay of Pigs like if what came close to happen had really happened etc.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/14/bay-of-pigs-newly-revealed-cia-documents-expose-blunders.html

Re:Only sort of offtopic

[wjcofkc]

I am planning on doing something about it, or at least making a move. Nothing violent or illegal (yet illegal), but I am tired of sitting idly by while we fall into the abyss of a dystopia, and I won't do it any longer. I am so sick of this shit and am mad as hell. What am I planning? (again, nothing violent) You'll have to wait and see, but I have made the decision that I will not be irrelevant any longer and that I will be heard loudly on these matter, so don't accuse.

Re:Only sort of offtopic

[wjcofkc]

When I say I'm planning, I'm not just saying it. I am developing a strategy that I will take as far as I have to. Why don't I elaborate here? Because this is a great place for the NSA to poke around, as most people here are leaning towards sedition. Don't want them to crash my non-violent party.

Re:Only sort of offtopic

[wjcofkc]

don't forget that humans have a tendency to not take threats seriously until it really happens.

Except it really is happening, right now.

Re:Only sort of offtopic

[wjcofkc]

And the threat is our own government...

Re:it's now just a matter of days

[ka9dgx]

The Feds are shutting down the last bastions of free speech, have crippled the 2nd amendment by buying up all the ammo, have closed all our embassies in the Islamic parts of the world... it's just a question of time, in my mind, until we once again go to war for the petrodollar.

What does this have to do with Bitcoin?

[Agent ME]

I don't see how this affects Bitcoin at all. It's not an exploit of Bitcoin. Bitcoin isn't dependent on any onion sites, "Freedom Hosting", or Tor. The Silk Road are not the only users of Bitcoin.

Re:What does this have to do with Bitcoin?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Silk Road are not the only users of Bitcoin.

Not the only users, but if you believe the drum, they are a significant percentage. And here's the important bit: price is determined by belief.

Re: Firefox 17?!?

[Agent ME]

Firefox 17 is Mozilla's Extended Support Release. I believe the 17.0.x branch still gets minor updates. The articles are vague about the zeroday and whether they affect the latest of that line (17.0.7, which is in the Tor Browser Bundle).

Surprised? Sadly not.

[gallondr00nk]

It goes without saying that if the US government is so paranoid and afraid that it'll tap your god damn Facebook profile, then it is going to be hell bent on trying to get at Darknets, anonymising services and Tor.

Abuse of power comes as no surprise.

We all have instances where we fall back...

[SocietyoftheFist]

against our "stout" principles. I'm a libertarian leaning type of guy, that said... I abhor child abuse and especially child sexual abuse, it should be an automatic death sentence, so if they got even one fucking child rapist, I somehow find myself turning a blind eye to this obvious subversion of personal rights.

Re:We all have instances where we fall back...

[Opportunist]

Isn't it interesting how easily people are manipulated? For some it's terrorism, for some child porn. I wonder what it would be for me that I'd consider more important than my freedom.

Still taking suggestions.

Re:We all have instances where we fall back...

[EmperorArthur]

Isn't it interesting how easily people are manipulated? For some it's terrorism, for some child porn. I wonder what it would be for me that I'd consider more important than my freedom.

Still taking suggestions.

Money. It's the politician's answer. Especially if you call it a campaign contribution.

Re:We all have instances where we fall back...

[Areyoukiddingme]

Climate change?

Tsunamis?

Super volcanoes?

Sharks?

Sharks with lasers on their heads?

Re:We all have instances where we fall back...

[Opportunist]

While I don't really like the climate change we're experiencing, I don't see how limiting my privacy could have any positive impact on it.

The rest ... pffft.

Re:We all have instances where we fall back...

[Opportunist]

Nope, not afraid to die in one. I studied statistics and so far no pandemic managed to get more than a chuckle out of me.

Re:We all have instances where we fall back...

[Opportunist]

What "freedom" is, is of course highly dependent on the individual. In my country, I must not own a gun without a license, and a permit to carry it around loaded is almost impossible to get (oddly, it's far easier to get permits for sniper... I mean, hunting rifles). I kinda doubt that something like this would sit well with the average gun-loving US American, he'd probably view my country as some sort of totalitarian, commie state.

Nobody is really bothered by that. But just DARE to suggest you might think about possibly imposing a speed limit in Germany or ban public drinking of alcohol in ... well, pretty much anywhere around Europe, and you'll see the shit hit the fan.

Freedom is a thing that seems to depend heavily on culture, I guess. We're not too keen on killing you with guns, we prefer to run you over drunk.

Re:Idiots

[pipatron]

When people who claim to be privacy nuts are such godawfully fucktarded morons to fall for this, I guess we're pretty well doomed on that front.

Do you really believe that everyone using Tor are identical clones? Maybe the fraction of users they got with this method were not self-proclaimed privacy nuts? Maybe these are the same people who fall for Nigeria scams, or vote for "the lesser of two evils" instead of voting for someone who they really like to rule the nation?

EFF

[mill3d]

EFF in the White house, ASAP please.

I understand there's a legitimate need to conduct surveillance when justified. But having people from the EFF and/or ACLU running, or at least supervising things will likely act as a filter to prevent further abuses and level the playing field.

Re:Wowsers

[Opportunist]

I wish I could believe, but given their record, far more likely they are putting up a strawman to outlaw TOR and similar services.

Re:Idiots

[Qzukk]

and clueless/idiot TOR users with javascript enabled and other unsafe TOR habits.

Is what they're telling us, but if you combine the watch-every-packet-in-the-internet features of PRISM with a I-have-the-webservers-logs server attack, you'd think they'd just track all the traffic through all the hops with or without javascript and cookies. The server logs would tell you what the user requested, and the metadata they collect would link the packets through the internet to wherever they're going.

Re:Wowsers

[slashmon]

Sure, let them slowly take away everyone's free speech because of 0.1 percent of people looking at rotten.com type of material on the internet.

Re:it's now just a matter of days

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Crazy libertarian conspiracy talk, Not real.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/ssabullets.asp

Re:Wowsers

[slashmon]

Correct. It is more an excuse to clamp down on the general population than anything. You always need a scapegoat.

Fuck the police

[Anonymous Coward]

If the execuse is not pedophiles, it's terrorists, or drug cartels. All of you fucks who chose safety over freedom, enjoy the world you have made.

Re:Fuck the police

[dhasenan]

Thanks to the two-party system, we have a choice between different flavors of the same police state. Since we vote for individuals rather than parties, there is less room to enforce party policy.

In the US, you can throw away your vote on the US Constitution Party (aka the theocratists), the Green Party, the libertarians (who have nice-seeming objectives but rely on the innate goodness of people and free-market economies), or what have you. Or you can vote for a candidate who might be able to get into office. That pretty much limits you to choosing gay rights or not, and how quickly to erode abortion rights.

The main other difference between the two primary parties is how they campaign. The Republicans use more vitriol and lies about fact; the Democrats use more false promises.

Re:Fuck the police

[Opportunist]

It's not that much different if you have more than two parties to choose from. In Europe you can vote for the socialists, who promise you the sky and deliver ... umm... well, so far they haven't delivered. You can vote for the populists who threaten you with hell on earth and crime sprees if you don't vote for them, only to deliver ... umm... well, at least as much corruption as the socis. You can vote for the conservatives who'll promise you to protect your belongings, only to rip you off to stuff their cronies in the industry. Or you could vote for the liberals who promise you lower taxes (no, seriously, that's pretty much ALL they have been promising for the last few decades), to eventually pay the same or higher taxes so their friends can pay lower taxes, but in return you get to pay for services that used to be paid for by taxes.

Or you could vote for the former communists. Well, we already saw how well that goes down.

So don't think more choice gives you better options. Instead of only being able to choose between hanging and shooting, you now also get stoning, drowning and electrocution to the fold.

Aren't Debian users of Iceweasel the only victims?

[jphamlore]

Who else is stuck using a derivative of Firefox 17 other than Debian users of Iceweasel?

FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[raymorris]

It's the freaking FBI. That's not exactly a secret rogue agency. FBI director Mueller briefs Obama directly. Technically, Clapper is Mulleur's boss, and Obama is Clapper's boss. That's ONE GUY in the chain of command between Obama and the FBI.

Re:FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[Will.Woodhull]

It is elements of the FBI charged with executing the secret laws that came into existence more than 6 years ago and are administered by the Judicial Branch through secret courts that were set up for that purpose. Those courts have the authority to issue secret writs that include penalties for even saying that you have received one or are bound by one to act in certain ways.

Mueller may be operating under Judicial constraints that prevent him from saying anything to Obama, or Clapper, or any elected official or appointee of an elected official. There is no way to know. That's part of the secrecy.

There are strong Constitutional walls that prevent the Executive Branch from interfering with the operations of the Judicial Branch. The Judicial Branch has no mechanisms for executing laws on its own. But in this situation, the Judicial has been granted direct control over portions of Executive agencies, and those portions of the affected agencies appear to be legally constrained from reporting to their superiors-on-record about their activities. We have heads of agencies that can commit perjury before Congressional committees with impunity-- apparently because the perjury has been approved by some branch of the Judiciary, either directly or under some umbrella order.

Several years ago, probably for very patriotic reasons to protect everyone from another 9/11, a bunch of lawmakers corrupted the US Constitution with this deadly foolishness. There has been time enough for that corruption to grow the roots it needs-- acquire the secretarial pools, dedicated agents, middle managers, and perhaps even gung-ho janitors-- and now like a corpse flower the thing is coming into bloom.

There are times when getting out the tinfoil hat is appropriate, such as the 1960s in the USA wrt LBJ's "Guns and Butter" Great Society. We are living in another of those times. No matter how dangerous the world becomes, the USA will certainly lose its core values of liberty and justice for anyone if secret laws and secret courts are not terminated.

Re:FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[noh8rz10]

wouldn't it be funny if somebody used TOR to surf theonions.com? you know, because of the onion and all? that would be pretty funny in my book.

Re:FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[tftp]

There are strong Constitutional walls that prevent the Executive Branch from interfering with the operations of the Judicial Branch.

There are no walls, Constitutional or any other, on a golf course. If the safe with money can be only opened with three keys, held by three different key keepers, the simplest way to open the safe is to make sure that keepers of those keys are your men. Today not only that is in place, but also the public observers - who are expected to detect and report unusual happenings - are on your payroll.

Re:FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[Martin Blank]

Mueller's boss is the Attorney General, not the DNI. The FBI is part of the Department of Justice. The FBI works closely with the DNI, but is not run by it.

There is one man between Mueller and the President, and that's Holder. But the head of the FBI briefs the president directly on a fairly common basis.

Re:FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[slashmydots]

and they all work for me because I pay taxes and vote so I hire them and pay them. Aaaaand they're all fired, lol.

Re:FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[Blaskowicz]

It's the freaking FBI. That's not exactly a secret rogue agency.

Well, I'm sure the Cigarette Smoking Man knows more about this than you or I do.

Re:FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[davester666]

Sorry, but the basis you are claiming is incorrect. No court is involved in the issuing of NSL's other than invoking it's power (as in "The Power Of Greyskull Compells You"). They are form letters filled out and delivered by the FBI without court involvement. If we are lucky, they will remember to record that they issued it.

Courts only become involved when somebody violates the conditions the NSL contains (I believe the receiver can also go to a secret court to try to get the secrecy provision lifted).

Re:FBI director reports to Clapper, Obama

[myowntrueself]

It is elements of the FBI charged with executing the secret laws that came into existence more than 6 years ago and are administered by the Judicial Branch through secret courts that were set up for that purpose. Those courts have the authority to issue secret writs that include penalties for even saying that you have received one or are bound by one to act in certain ways.

They should definitely DEFINITELY use those secret writs to make people do silly walks, as in Monty Python. Being forced by a secret writ to perpetually silly-walk and being forbidden from telling anyone why one does the silly-walk, that would be priceless.

Well...

[joh]

I would use Tor only on a netbook with no HD, booting from an internal read-only USB stick off the webcam USB line (I would want no webcam anyway) into a preconfigured Linux (or *BSD just to maximize obscurity). The actual boot partition would be encrypted. A text-mode browser like lynx would deal with javascript and other nonsense thoroughly. I would use it only on public or otherwise free or available networks not connected in any way to me. I would make sure the WiFi card would use a fresh random MAC for every connection. External USB and Ethernet ports would be physically disconnected or glued shut and the case sealed. It would have a switch soldered in to disconnect battery power.

I'm too lazy for that though.

Tor collaborated

[Yvanhoe]

I think it is very hard to believe that TOR mistakenly released a single version of their TOR browser with javascript conveniently activated. I wouldn't be surprised there was a concerted operation with FBI to reduce child porn on the TOR network. Actually, they could be legally coerced into doing exactly that.

Re:Tips for Tor...... and ONE MORE THING:

[Bob_Who]

And another thing..... Always remember to disconnect from the internet.

TOR networks will always be compromised by the DENIAL OF REALITY attacks on all its faithful users:
the truth is out there, we are NOT alone!
Stop believing in fairy tales - there is no privacy.

Well you forgot something(s)

[burni2]

1.) have you also cut the microphone ? (voice identification) / yes freebsd has support for various sondcards

2.) is sendmail running ? (just install a fresh FreeBSD and portscan and be supprised) (exploitable point of intrusion, by zero day)

3.) Hardware unique identifiers, serialnumbers (pci(e) - take a deeper look at your windows control center) , mac addresses .. yes fresh fakeable, but ! the macadress contains vendor information! and needs a reboot most likely after every change

4.) USB-Stick -> serialnumber of sdcards & usb-sticks ?

5.) soldered in to disconnect (that's worse than the controlled selfkill of truecrypt, because your memory contains the data for at least 7 more minutes
(freeze ram forensics)

6.) no hdd bad, flash memory is harder to delete than hdd (and fakes sometimes a delete to speed up)

7.) public networks, triangulation(signal strength) + cctv and zoom in on your face ( have you also turned your phone off ? .. well all 99% others around you haven't bingo!)

I was protesting in the USA with Occupy last fall

[leftie]

We got lots of evidence (more than enough to show probable cause) showing Obama gave orders to large groups within Federal Government in Homeland Security and FBI to lead local/state police on the ground in sweeping out all the Occupy groups in late night raids when nobody would be watching on TV.

It was highly illegal for Obama to give orders to Federal Government personnel to lead local police against those protesters. It's was made legal later after Obama had gone after Occupy protesters.

Re:Sensationalist, unsourced title THE OTHER HALF

[Bob_Who]

If only half the systems are infected, then the remainder are just in DENIAL.

If you sail on the ship of fools it doesn't matter how safe and secure you feel - the ocean gets you wet, one way or another.

Re:FISA secret courts

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, these secret courts started in 1978

A letter is what, 50K? no new law needed.

[Deliveranc3]

http://www.ask.com/question/what-is-the-penalty-for-opening-someone-else-mail. 5 Years times, say a billion a day.

citation needed

[raymorris]

FISA allows the executive, under the direction of the president, to apply for a secret search warrant from a confidential court. That's the extent of the "secrecy" there is any evidence of in the judicial branch.

That court, like any other, can approve the warrant requested by the administration. I've seen no evidence, or even any claim other than yours, that the courts in any way direct the executive agencies. Do you have anything, anything at all, to support your novel and extravagant claims? If not, doesn't it make much more sense to focus our energies on the well known and currently very visible fact that the executive is trampling the Constitution?

Re:citation needed

[Mashiki]

Considering that they've been approving 100% of all warrants? Yeah, pretty sure there's a problem. Reminds me of the kangeroo courts...I mean human rights councils here in Canada. Which had a 100% conviction rate.

Re:citation needed

[runeghost]

Hey, now, be fair to the FISA court! Per wikipedia, they've only approved 99.97% of all warrant requests. (Maybe the remaining 0.03% had jelly donught stains, or used the wrong ink, or a #3 pencil or something?)

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

They approve all applications because: First, the same few FBI lawyers make the applications and have a pretty good idea of what will get approved and what won't. Second, the FISA court clerks know what their bosses will and won't approve, so reject or send back for modification almost all deficient applications before they even hit the judges where they can be counted in this approval rate.

The rate of applications modified or rejected by the clerks is the real approval rate, but that's not tracked.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

You shouldn't be able to modify and/or resubmit an application for one of these...

Why not?

Re:citation needed

[pupsocket]

... and because the all the judges on that court are selected by one person, the Chief Justice of the United States, an ideologue who empathizes with executives.

Re:citation needed

[iMactheKnife]

They approve 99.74% because THERE IS NO OPPOSING COUNSEL! It's a damn rubber stamp!

Re:citation needed

[Raenex]

Your excuse doesn't matter. We know the court approved wholesale collection of phone records on all Americans, in violation of the Constitution. If they are willing to do that, they have very loose standards. They are a rubber stamp.

Re:citation needed

[jggimi]

IIRC the 0.03% that were not approved were cancelled by the requesting agencies.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

Regular search warrants issued in your local court usually get no opposing counsel. This isn't an issue, never was.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

The constitutionality issue is separate from the rubber stamp issue. What I have proven with the facts is that it is not a rubber stamp, not that it's constitutional.

Re:citation needed

[Raenex]

The constitutionality issue is separate from the rubber stamp issue.

Nonsense. Their whole job is to uphold the Constitution and make sure the government isn't overstepping their bounds. We've seen their standards, and having them align with a police state makes them a rubber stamp.

What I have proven with the facts is that it is not a rubber stamp, not that it's constitutional.

What facts? All I see is speculation. The facts are the near 100% approval rating and the leaked Snowden documents.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

Their whole job is to uphold the Constitution and make sure the government isn't overstepping their bounds.

Their job is to grant or deny requests according to the law, not interpret the Constitution. If a requests fits the law, it is granted.

What facts?

The fact is that all requests are vetted before they get to the judges to be approved or disapproved. There could be a 90% rejection rate for all we know, but the judges only see the ones 99% likely to be approved. It is this last figure that is reported to us.

Re:citation needed

[Raenex]

Their job is to grant or deny requests according to the law, not interpret the Constitution. If a requests fits the law, it is granted.

The Constitution is the highest law in the land.

The fact is that all requests are vetted before they get to the judges to be approved or disapproved.

Where is your citation?

There could be a 90% rejection rate for all we know

Right, speculation.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

The Constitution is the highest law in the land.

It is not this court's job to determine constitutionality. If you don't like the way it works, Congress is the proper venue for change. Or you could get Saint Obama to tell his FBI and NSA to back off the requests, or to have them reviewed by a neutral party first.

What you should really worry about is that even when the court approves a reasonable request, there's little oversight as to whether the FBI or NSA stayed within the bounds of the court order.

And of course logically it cannot be a rubber stamp if Bush felt the need to circumvent the court for his illegal spying on the American people. One of the judges resigned in disgust over his actions. If it's a rubber stamp, why didn't Bush just get FISA warrants and evade the whole issue of his wiretaps being illegal?

This court has been manned by many different judges for decades, of either party influence, many known for ruling against executive abuses of power. It's not one consistent star chamber of executive flunkies.

Where is your citation?

These statistics do not reflect the fact that many applications are altered prior to final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them

If you were giving me random numbers between 1-10, and I only found 5 and 8 acceptable, you would have a 20% success rate. But if we went through an intermediary who always told you "wrong, do it again" for unacceptable numbers, you'd get a 100% success rate for numbers that made it to me.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

and because the all the judges on that court are selected by one person

This court's been going since 1979 with pretty much the same track record the whole time, about 70 judges appointed by three Chief Justices.

Re:citation needed

[pupsocket]

The same track record in what regard? Was there open-ended harvesting of communications metadata in 1979?

Re:citation needed

[Raenex]

It is not this court's job to determine constitutionality. If you don't like the way it works, Congress is the proper venue for change.

Nonsense. It's every court's job to uphold the Constitution. If Congress or the Executive branch oversteps the line, it's their job to reel them in.

And of course logically it cannot be a rubber stamp if Bush felt the need to circumvent the court for his illegal spying on the American people.

That's a good point. So it isn't so surefire that Bush wasn't willing to risk it, though we'll never know since Bush didn't try.

These statistics do not reflect the fact that many applications are altered prior to final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them

Thanks for the citation. I concede your point.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

Track record of approvals.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

Nonsense. It's every court's job to uphold the Constitution.

No, it isn't. Appellate courts determine constitutionality. Lower courts apply the law made by the legislature and the precedent made by appellate courts.

You will often hear judges in lower courts say they don't think something is right, but their "hands are tied" by the law so they have to do it. For example, a judge may think the sentencing rules as set by law are unconstitutionally "cruel and unusual" for a particular case, but he still has to abide by them (common in drug cases). Constitutionality will be determined on appeal.

If something is wrong with FISA, then Congress or the President has to fix it, or the Supreme Court has to rule the activities unconstitutional. Funny thing is, the FISA court was created in response to CIA, FBI and NSA abuses in order to give judicial oversight to these activities. As usual, the government fix to a problem creates even more problems.

Re:citation needed

[pupsocket]

Agreed. That absolute number is such a perfect constant (though the earliest years have been disguised through amalgamation) that it cannot represent any credible measure of any deliberation. Likewise, the rate of approval. What's interesting is the small outbreak of denials as Rheinquist's appointees start to resist, an outbreak that expires as Roberts' replacements take over. Disclaimer: We here are practicing what used to be called Kremlinology.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

All denials, and all but a couple modifications, happened after 9/11. More logically, the executive started getting over-reaching in its requests, and started making many more requests, resulting in relatively more denials.

Re:citation needed

[Raenex]

Citation: "The power of judicial review makes the Supreme Court's role in our government vital. Judicial review is the power of any court, when deciding a case, to declare that a law passed by a legislature or an action of an executive branch officer or employee is invalid because it is inconsistent with the Constitution. Although district courts, courts of appeals, and state courts can exercise the power of judicial review, their decisions about federal law are always subject to review by the Supreme Court on appeal."

Re:citation needed

[vux984]

They approve all applications because: First, the same few FBI lawyers make the applications and have a pretty good idea of what will get approved and what won't. Second, the FISA court clerks know what their bosses will and won't approve, so reject or send back for modification almost all deficient applications before they even hit the judges where they can be counted in this approval rate.

So we should expect the approval rate of warrants to be 100% elsewhere as well. I mean, the police looking for a warrant have to run it through their internal bureaucracy of lawyers and clerks too and they should all have a pretty good idea what will get approved and what won't....

What makes FBI lawyers and FISA clerks so much better at knowing where the line is? That none of them even ever once get close enough to let even a toe go over it?

Yeah... either they are that perfect, or the judge just rubberstamps the applications. I'm going with rubberstamps without evidence to the contrary.

Re:citation needed

[pupsocket]

But why did the denials stop? Either 1) The executive stopped overreaching or 2) the courts stopped denying.

Re:citation needed

[Quila]

Denials have been on and off, just off for the last couple years, no reason there won't be any this year. But modifications are back up high again.

Re:Hey butthurt libertoons!

[Red_Chaos1]

Wow. That's a whole lot of stupid you've got there. Does that hurt at all?

Change of heart?

[Hentes]

Wasn't TOR set up and funded by the US gov? Did they change their mind or was it always just a honeypot?

Holy shit

[GameboyRMH]

Good thing I use a clean-state VM for darknet surfing...with JS disabled, along with most every other feature beyond regular HTML rendering.

Re:Holy shit

[GameboyRMH]

Don't know about child porn, but the features needed to play other videos can be enabled on a per-side/per-video basis with a few clicks. I assume it would be the same for CP.

There's other stuff on there you know that does good things for mankind, good enough that I think it outweighs all the CP.

FBI 0-day ?

[nurb432]

So what happened to assumed innocent and targeted court orders? Just because TOR can be used in bad ways doesn't mean you have to.

If they do this, why not just track every car and what is in it? Mount GPS and cameras in every car.

Why trust the binaries of a little known distro

[ron_ivi]

I imagine that the major projects (Debian, Fedora) get adequate security review to trust that the binaries actually match the sources; and tat the sources are reviewed by many eyes. For a little known distro like Whonix -- why would you think you can trust that the binary doesn't have backdoors installed by the people who put it together. I find it quite possible that many intel agencies would benefit by putting together their own privacy-tools with backdoors. How can you be confident that this one isn't one. (Personally I'm guessing you're safest using either Debian or Fedora (NOT Ubuntu or RHEL) and configuring it yourself.)

Nobody mentioned the exploit?

[Harik]

There's a pretty good unwrapping of the payload here, and it's a pretty creative exploit of the javascript interpreter to execute shellcode. Just from a glance at the shellcode, I see a hand-crafted HTTP header so at minimum they're using the OS network stack directly to give the tor-level UUID a public IP coorelation. Beyond that, they could be doing anything since they're already through the sandbox.

Re:Nobody mentioned the exploit?

[AHuxley]

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/hacker-builds-tracking-system-to-nab-tor-pedophiles/114 hinted
"custom software to monitor peer-to-peer networks"
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9920665-7.html from 2008
"unique serial numbers" from the person's computer and keeps a tally.."

Sue them? Really?

[nurb432]

1 - You need proof that you were infected
2 - You need proof THEY did it
3 - Do you really want to be on *that* list?

firefox 17

[Anonymous Coward]

0-day Javascript attack against Firefox 17? but Firefox 22 is the current version. who uses Tor sites with Javascript enabled anyways? just asking.

Re:it's now just a matter of days

[AHuxley]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/
"some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war" - too expensive for training and useless around the world.
What most sites do is pick any "purchase order" number and then quote it was ever just that total low amount.
If you add up the US gov contracts to buy over the months, you get ongoing larger numbers until new order details where less public on gov sites.

maybe until 2004

[raymorris]

I'm pretty sure the FBI was moved under the Director of National Intelligence in 2004. Has it changed since then? In any event, the point stands - the FBI isn't a secret agency. They report to Obama through one intermediate person.

Re:maybe until 2004

[Martin Blank]

I didn't negate the point. I corrected the intermediary. The FBI is under the DoJ, but is a part of the Intelligence Community. It interfaces with DNI but is not subservient to the office. The FBI is first and foremost a law enforcement agency with a substantial intelligence mission.

Check the bottom of the FBI website: "FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. government, U.S. Department of Justice"

You can also check Wikipedia, etc., for confirmation.

so the court allows whatever the admin wants, not

[raymorris]

That sounds like the administration is doing whatever they want with zero interference from the FISA court. So, pretty much the opposite of what of the court controlling the agencies as GP claimed

Why doesn't Tor block scripts?

[Urza9814]

OK, so why the hell doesn't someone take the five minutes to add some code to Tor that would strip out client-side scripting? It's not that hard; plenty of other secure networks do it (ex. Freenet) so why the hell doesn't Tor? I mean yeah, I get it, they give you ample warnings before you download, but is there any legitimate reason they don't do this or have they just decided they don't want to try to stop this kind of attack?

Perhaps al Q. did make the whole thing up

[davidwr]

Or perhaps al Qaeda made the whole thing up just to see if they can manipulate the movements of our government by taking advantage of info gathering with a campaign of false intel.

The thought of a deliberate leak by terrorists to test American reactions crossed my mind too.

It also crossed my mind that it might have been a real terrorist plot with a deliberate leak, but with a built-in understanding that the plot was to be scrubbed or rescheduled if America took any noticeable counter-measures, such as closing an embassy.

It's only the TOR version

[Anonymous Coward]

Only TOR's modified version of Iceweasel 17 is at risk -- the ESR version in Debian's repo already has the patch.

Still, people using Debian's repos might want to take the time to grab another version from another repository or distro just for peace of mind. From apt-cache policy on my system (Simply Mepis 12, which is close enough to Debian that their repos are compatible):
iceweasel Version table:
22.0 -------- http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ experimental/main i386 Packages
19.0.2 -------- ftp://ftp.mepis.com/mepis/ mepis-12.0/main i386 Packages
17.0.7esr ----- http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable/main i386 Packages

Use Tor Safely

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm happy for the attack against pedo's, this is a warning for people using Tor for more honorable reasons:

The people are mentioning that this requires javascript and the Tor bundled browser are somewhat missing the point. That this might not be admissible evidence is also besides the point. The fact is, potentially anyone on the deep web could use attacks this way to reveal true identities. A zero day could be used that affects other browsers regardless of javascript, or perhaps non browser based exploits (irc clients, email etc).

To be perfectly protected (outside of Tor itself being compromised), use 2 VMs (or two boxes):
One runs linux and the Tor software with 2 network interfaces on seperate networks.
One interface connects to the internet, the other to some non private net.
Enable forwarding.
Use iptables to force all traffic except the Tor executable through the Tor transparent proxy port on the linux machine.
Don't allow access to any services from anywhere - use console to manage it, and don't use it for anything else.

On a second VM, connect it to the non routable interface on the Linux VM and install whatever OS you want (preferably something different).
Set its default route to be the private Linux VM address.
Never ever put any information that can be linked back to your real identity into the VMs.
Never transfer files between the VMs and other machines linked to you.

Now all of the second VMs traffic is transparently sent thru Tor, it has no route outside of Tor, and no ability to control Tor - so even if it is exploited it cannot communicate directly anywhere. The second VM would need to be compromised, then the first also compromised for traffic to be sent raw.

I've probably missed something, but that's the idea. Running Tor on the same machine you want to be anonymous on is just bad.

How slowly?

[davidwr]

"Find every pedo and kill them slowly"

Mother nature is killing us all slowly. I figure I've got decades, maybe a century, tops, before she finishes the job.

FISA: Where nothing could possibly go worng

[Eternal Vigilance]

No no no, you don't understand. That 100% rate just proves how good and trustworthy the whole secret system is!

Re:FISA: Where nothing could possibly go worng

[3247]

No no no, you don't understand. That 100% rate just proves how good and trustworthy the whole secret system is!

There is actually some truth in that statement.

A 100% (or near 100%) rate can have two reasons:

• The court is just rubber-stamping the warrant requests.
• The requestors are very cautious and only submit warrant requests in clear cases.

Re:FISA: Where nothing could possibly go worng

[pixelpusher220]

The requestors are very cautious and only submit warrant requests in clear cases.

Indeed, we should always trust the 'prosecutors' to be above board and honest and only take what they actually need.

So why then are they tapping EVERYBODY? If you need to know what everybody is doing to find out what a few people are doing, then you suck at your job.

It would be like claiming that because I don't know a couple of hard answers on a test, I should get all the answers so I can get the few important ones right....and then get them wrong (see Boston)

Re:FISA: Where nothing could possibly go worng

[Eternal Vigilance]

That is why I phrased the joke that way. ;-)

really?

[slashmydots]

This is the most surprising story I've ever read. I'm all about the feds finally growing some balls and using whatever techniques necessary to arrest some scumbags but this could easily be the tip of the iceberg given all the NSA crap going on. If they feel like they can do anything, they will and it's a slippery slope. In this particular case, I'm glad they finally stopped letting those losers hide behind legal BS.

BUT, seriously, who the hell would use TOR on a browser and then use it for non-tor stuff? I didn't know that was even possible given how the tor browser bundle works. This is seriously going to catch like zero people, lol. But A+ for effort. Then again, some pedos are notoriously dumb.

I'm kinda mad that tormail is down though. That was a huge privacy/anti-NSA tool. Obviously they took that down on purpose as "collateral" just so it's gone. That sucks.

Re:Wowsers

[Mr. Slippery]

and this is one of those rare times when I actually believe they really are trying to protect the children.

Stopping people from sharing photos of the abuse of children no more stops the abuse of children than stopping people from sharing photos of murder would stop murder.

The dangers of Big Data crime enforcement

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

We're now in the age of Big Data crime enforcement, where to be abnormal, in the sense of deviating too far from the median/norm is all it takes to be flagged as a suspect. The danger I see in the future is that, in order to avoid being caught in the net of the federal surveillance agencies people will deliberately start acting within the "norm", like visiting the sites online, Facebook/Twitter/G-something for your communication needs, or CNN/Fox/BBC for your "news", or whatever local site is "popular" in your area. To have an opinion will be to choose from an approved list, much like a multiple-choice exam or, worse, like the presidential election.

Tor didn't collaborate

[Burz]

But this is one reason why I2P is so much better than TOR: There is next-to-zero expectation from I2P sites for you to allow Javascript.

OTOH, Javascript is turned on by default in the TORBrowser.

8/2?

[eennaarbrak]

Any users accessing a Freedom Hosting hosted site since 8/2 with javascript enabled

Is this like an American August 2nd, or a rest-of-the-world 8 February?

And no, I did not RTFA. Worried that the FBI would be tracking everybody who is even interested in this news.

The exploit phones home, IP address 65.222.202.54

[Alsee]

The exploit transmits your identifying information to IP address 65.222.202.54. The information includes a unique tracking number generated by the exploit server, your computer's MAC address, your computer's host name, and any other IP addresses and host names visible on your local network.

This IP address traces back to a Verizon business account just outside Washington D.C., not far from FBI and CIA headquarters. You can see the IP location trace here, complete with a zoomable Google map. However note that the location trace is probably just an approximate location. Zooming all the way in shows a local shopping center, but that's probably just the location randomly landing at the "center" of a town or other service area.

-

Re:FISA secret courts

[marcello_dl]

Cool, they also chose the proper posture for the eagle.

Two-party system, three-party system

[SLi]

I think there is a practical difference between a 2-party system and a n-party system where n > 2. It's not what you think, though, and I'm not sure which one is really better in practice.

At least from my observations, a two-party system produces heavy polarization. Nowhere have I seen such a polarization as the one in US between Democrats and Republicans. Everyone is sure that their POV is the good one and cannot comprehend how someone can possibly support the other party. As you say, you can choose your flavor of police state.

A system of three roughly equally big parties, however, seems to emphasize consensus. As none of the three parties can hope to form a government alone, they will need to secure the cooperation of at least one of the two other. None of them can afford to become the lone different party, because that would just result always in the other two parties forming a government (unless the winning party manages to persuade enough smaller parties to join a coalition government with the two other parties left out). The result is that you have three basically identical parties that are more or less only differentiated by how they market themselves. Of course there are politicians in the parties that would like to be different, but in order to secure a government with another of the parties, you will need to make concessions, which usually excludes the points of view that are unique to one party.

So, the end result is that you can choose from three flavors which are not really that different. Not that consensus policymaking would necessarily be bad - it's not.

In my country a fourth big party has recently emerged. It will be interesting to see how this affects the dynamics as we've only seen something like two elections where this was the case.

Of course it also depends on the system used in elections. I think the US-style "winner takes it all" system basically forces only two big parties to emerge.

Still, as someone who lives in a country with more than two big parties, I don't think I'd ever want to see a government effectively controlled by only a single party, not for any period of time.

Re:Two-party system, three-party system

[Opportunist]

Or it can backfire, as it did for a long time in Israel for example. The two major parties both held roughly 45% of the votes, neither of them having enough to rule alone and neither willing and able to cooperate with the other one, and the third party being the religious nutjob party.

Guess who had a disproportionally big influence in politics, due to their "kingmaking" ability.

It's really this simple

[xiando]

There is no war on terror. It's all just media propaganda. There has not been a single major terrorist attack the last 100 years which was not a false-flag attack. If you still haven't figured out that 9/11 was an inside job then consider this: There's hundreds of videos and pictures who clearly show massive steel beams being thrown up and away during the _demolition_ of WTC 1 and 2. The official story is that gravity made these buildings come down. Gravity does not make things fall up. Try dropping something and check it out for yourself. You're in a fascist dictatorship with an illusion of freedom, just like everyone else within the NATO alliance.

Re: Already the case

[xiando]

This is already the case. If you write something which goes against government propaganda in Norway (and other NATO countries) then the government tortures you. It's already dangerous to have opinions different from the government approved list. I know a lot of people here will violently oppose this truth, but deal with it: we have to truthfully asses the current situation in order to improve it, and improvement really is needed. Free speech is a nice theory that I would like to see become practice.

Outsourcing

[NewYork]

Is this related to Outsourcing to CHINDIA?

Re:it's now just a matter of days

[P-niiice]

Scared idiots bought up all the ammo. See any gun show for example.

your source says you're wrong

[raymorris]

> you can check Wikipedia etc. for confirmation

Wikipedia says you're wrong, I'm right. Quoting Wikipedia: ... until the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was enacted in response to the September 11 attacks. Since then, the director reports to the Director of National Intelligence, who in turn reports to the President.

You might be right, but the source you mentioned says I'm right.

Re:Tails 0.19 not vulnerable

[J'raxis]

The Tor Browser Bundle for Linux has FF spoofing its user-agent as "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:17.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/17.0", for some reason. So the script will run on Linux and try to download the attack even if the attack might not succeed.

"privacy" distributions

[phorm]

I sometimes wonder about these "security" or "privacy" based distributions.
Maybe it's just the paranoid in me, but wouldn't they be an easy target for honeypots? Also, how do they get updates, etc.